An old man who was an interpreter of the Nazis and lived in Canada has died 97 years, when he was about to be deported, local media reported on Wednesday.
Helmut Oberlander struggled to stay in Canada since the Federal Police launched in 1995 an investigation into his relationship with atrocities committed by the Nazis.
The man died on Monday just when the Canadian government was in the last stage to deport him, as he has reported the newspaper ‘The Globe and Mail’.
His family portrayed him as an immigrant born in Ukraine and an entrepreneur involved in the life of the community.
“Despite the challenges in his life, he remained strong in his faith. He found comfort in his family and the support of many of the community,” said the Oberlander family in a statement.
In December 2019, the highest court in Canada declined to review a decision to strip Oberlander from his nationality for alleged ties with a Nazi assassin squad during the Second World War.
A federal court had discovered that there was “significantly omitted its activities during the war before migration officials and Canadian citizenship when requested to enter Canada” in 1952, according to a legal summary of the case.
Oberlander was admitted in 1954 as a permanent resident in Canada, and obtained Canadian nationality in 1960. Three occasions, in 2001, 2007 and 2012, migration officers tried to revoke their nationality, but finally in all of them the decision was annulled on appeal
.
Oberlander declared that he was strength by the Nazis, and who only acted as an interpreter for the squad of death Einsatzkommando 10a.
