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Alleged Nazi War Criminal in Minnesota Identified at GOP Donor

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98-year-old Ukrainian man accused of being Nazi mass-murderer donated thousands of dollars to Republican party

A Minnesota man accused of being a Nazi war criminal donated thousands of dollars to the Republican party in 2013 and 2014, the Daily Beast reported last week.

Michael Karkoc, a Ukrainian national who immigrated to the US in 1949, reported to US immigration authorities that he had done no military service during the Second World War. Karkoc was permitted into the US in 1949 and naturalized in 1959.

For the next six decades, Karkoc lived a quiet life in the Midwest, until a 2013 Associated Press expose identified Karkoc as the author of an anonymously-written 1995 account of a member of the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion during World War II.

Karkoc is alleged to have deserted after being conscripted by German occupation forces, and later joined the Ukrainian Self-Defense League, a group aligned with the nationalist Ukrainian militia group OUN-M, or Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

Late in the war, Karkoc argued in his memoir, the League cooperated with German occupation forces to combat the Soviet army as it crossed into the Ukraine.

But despite claims by Karkoc that the League fought only Soviet troops and communist-allied partisans, some historians, including Ivan Katchanovski, argue that the relationship between nationalist militias and Nazi forces were far closer than Karkoc admitted, and that militia groups like the League were typically employed to do the ‘dirty work’ of the German army, including massacres of civilians.

Following the 2013 AP expose, Polish investigators opened an inquiry into Karkoc and probed claims later made to Soviet officials that Karkoc had ordered his unit to “liquidate all the residents” of Chlaniow, Poland.

While a parallel investigation by Germany was ultimately closed, a Polish court issued a request for Karkoc’s extradition this July. The Justice Department has yet to rule on the request.

Karkoc’s son, Andriy, dismissed the AP report and claims of collusion with the Nazis or involvement with the destruction of Polish villages.

According to his son, Karkoc expressed shock at the allegations.

“How can such a thing happen in America,” The Guardian reported. “I fought the Germans, the Nazis tried to kill me and my family – and now they’re calling me a Nazi?”

Karkoc again drew headlines last week after it was revealed that he had donated nearly $4,000 dollars to the Republican party in 2013 and 2014.

Andriy said his father had been a long-time supporter of the Republican party due to its history of staunch anti-Communism.

“Republicans oppose communists…Under FDR, the White House was penetrated by Soviet agents of influence.”

By: A7 Staff
(INN)

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