By:Jeff Lipton
Defiantly chanting "Just get out" and "No S.S. in the U.S.," more than 160 students and faculty of Rambam Mesivta High School in Lawrence rallied last week outside the Rockland County home of an 86-year-old accused Nazi war criminal, demanding that he leave America and face charges in Austria.
The protesters lined the streets of North Little Tor Road in New City at noon Thursday, April 19 - Holocaust Remembrance Day - and waved signs supporting the U.S. government's call to deport Michael Gruber. They were joined by retired U.S. Army Sgt. Curtis Whiteway, a World War II veteran who helped liberate concentration camps.
The students were drawing attention with the protest, hoping that Austria would demand Gruber's extradition to face charges there, school officials said.
Gruber was proven in court to be an admitted member of the SS Totenkomph Wachbatallion. Gruber was a guard at Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp where more than 200,000 were brutally murdered, court documents said. He joined the Waffen SS in September 1942 and served as a volunteer member of the SS Head Death Guard Battalion. He has been living in the U.S. illegally for almost 50 years and gained citizenship by lying on his citizenship papers, court documents show.
On Aug. 11 2000, U.S. Immigration Court Judge Robert Weisel ordered that Gruber be removed from the U.S. to Austria because "he ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of persons because of race, religion, national origin or political opinion between March 23, 1933 and May 8, 1945, under the direction of or in association with the Nazi government of Germany."
Gruber has appealed the ruling and remains in the country until the appeal, which may not be heard for another two to three years, said Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, dean at Rambam, who added that the process could drag on for up to seven years.
Friedman said if Gruber is deported to Austria to stand trial for war crimes, the chances are good that he would be convicted quicker under the legal system over there. In the U.S., he could buy time with years of appeals.
"These guys take advantage of this great country," he said. "We want him out of here. He doesn't belong here."
Friedman, who organized the rally, said Gruber may have been tipped off about the protest and left his home minutes before the demonstrators arrived.
Students said they were proud to take part in last week's demonstration. "It's important because Nazis are living among us," said Chaim Grushko, a ninth-grader. "What they did was horrible. American soldiers fought against them and they killed American soldiers, Jews and other people."
Chaim believes efforts to get Gruber extradited will be successful. "I think we can. Now more people know about him and we are putting public pressure on him to leave.
"It sickens me," Chaim added. "How could someone do these horrible things, commit mass murders, and live freely in this country?"
Yaakov Weinstein, also a ninth-grader, said his grandparents are Holocaust survivors and that war criminals have to be punished.
Avi Posnick, a 10th-grader, said the protest shows that "we will never forget, the world will never forget what happened" during the Holocaust. "We have to show everybody that people like this still live in our community. It is an outrage that he is living here."
In a TV interview in November 1999, Gruber denied he killed anyone and said he was in the SS just following orders.
Rambam has held about two dozen rallies in 10 years urging the extradition of several accused Nazi war criminals and demanding they be extradited to stand trial in their countries. They have successfully moved governments to act.
"To me, the purpose of the rally is multi-fold," Friedman, the Rambam dean, said. "It instills an educational message in the kids and a sense of activism that they are doing something to correct a wrong."
He added that the rally also helps perpetuate the memory and lessons of the Holocaust.
"Twenty years from now there will not be that many first-hand witnesses," Friedman said.
In addition, he wants accused Nazi war criminals to understand that even if they are elderly, they should face trial. "They have gotten away with it for so many years," he said. "They have gotten away with it for 60 years, and part of the crime in most of the cases is there is absolutely no remorse."
Because some people insist the Holocaust never occurred, the rally also was an attempt to heighten public awareness of the atrocities that took place in concentration camps, Friedman said.
"I'm a strong believer that a lot of the education takes place outside the classroom," he said.
Whiteway expressed frustration that accused Nazi war criminals are living in the same country he was defending against them. "We fought them and chased them out of the camps and put them behind barb wire [to face criminal charges]. And then we find them back here in America living in better homes and living on Social Security," said Whiteway, who lives in Vermont but came to New York last week to participate in the rally and speak about the horrors he witnessed during the Holocaust.
"It's been a long time and these guys have committed mass murders, they have brutalized and dehumanized people and they have not paid in any way, shape or manner. Regardless of their age, they should be punished in some way."
He called the actions by the teenage protesters "absolutely fantastic."
"We old men can't do much anymore," he said. "It's up to them to do something. I'm really proud of these kids. They are doing something that should have been done 56 years ago."
