Helmut Oberlander, the only former Nazi still facing legal proceedings in Canada for alleged war crimes committed during the Second World War, died on Thursday in the midst of his deportation hearing.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
His family said the 97-year-old, a former Nazi death squad member, died in his home.
Oberlander immigrated to Canada in 1954. The country had revoked his citizenship and attempted to deport him three times since 1995. Each time he appealed.
The Canadian government said when Oberlander first applied for citizenship he had knowingly concealed he had been an auxiliary of the Einsatzkommando, a force that operated behind the German army's front line in the Eastern occupied territories.
The Einsatzkommando was responsible for killing more than two million people, many of them Jews.
Oberlander admitted to first serving as a translator for the Einsatzkommando and later as an infantryman in the German army, according to 2018 court documents.
He maintained he had been forcibly conscripted at age 17 and did not participate in the atrocities.
Born in Ukraine, Oberlander first became a Canadian citizen in 1960. He also became a German citizen during World War Two.
In June 2017, the Canadian government revoked Oberlander's Canadian citizenship for the fourth time since the mid-1990s.
In February 2020, Russia had asked Canada to hand over case files on Oberlander to help Moscow with an investigation into the mass murder of children at a Soviet orphanage in 1942.
Russia's Investigation Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said it wanted Canada's case and legal files on Oberlander and said it was checking his possible involvement in a massacre at an orphanage in the then-Soviet town of Yeysk.
In a statement, the committee said a death squad equipped with mobile gas chambers was deployed in 1942-43 to the German-occupied Krasnodar region, now in southern Russia.
"As a result of one such operation, on Oct. 9 and 10, 1942, a mass murder of children at the Yeysk orphanage was committed."
The Investigative Committee said in October it had opened an inquiry into suspected genocide over the murders and that the bodies of 214 children had been found in 1943 after Nazi forces were driven out of the region.
The Investigative Committee said several translators and members of the death squad in the Krasnodar area were arrested and convicted in the 1940s and 1960s.
"However, Oberlander, was able to escape criminal responsibility by hiding from preliminary investigative organs immediately after Germany's capitulation [in 1945]," it said.
Following his death, Oberlander's family released a statement to local media that portrayed the former real estate developer as a community-minded man, devoted to his family.
"Notwithstanding the challenges in his life, he remained strong in his faith. He took comfort in his family and the support of many in his community," the statement said, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
In his court appeals, Oberlander had argued that he had no alternative than to work for the Germans, and would have been subject to the harshest penalties had he disobeyed.
He was the last of 12 Canadians who were alleged to have been involved with Nazi-era crimes.
In an interview with local newspaper the Waterloo Region Record in 2000, Oberlander had promised "to fight this case until death do us part, or until I run out of money and have to put a mortgage on my house, whatever comes first."
