FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRM JANUARY 21, 1997 (202) 616-2777 TDD (202) 514-1888 EDITOR OF WORLD WAR II PRO-NAZI AND ANTI-SEMITIC PUBLICATIONS IS ORDERED DEPORTED WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Justice announced today that it has won a court order of deportation against Ferenc Koreh, an Englewood, New Jersey, man who, as a propagandist during World War II in Nazi-allied Hungary, publicly advocated the persecution of Jews -- including measures such as mass deportation and what he called the "de-jewification of Hungarian life" -- and the defeat of the United States and its allies. From 1941 through 1944, Koreh held the position of "Responsible Editor" of Szekely Nep, the largest provincial newspaper in Axis Hungary. In June 1994, as a result of these activities, Koreh was stripped of his citizenship in a U.S. District Court proceeding in Newark, New Jersey. In an agreement entered into with the Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Koreh, 87, a retired Radio Free Europe producer and broadcaster, admitted that he was deportable for having assisted in the persecution of persons on the basis of race, religion, national origin, and political opinion during World War II, and because he lied about his wartime activities in order to gain admission to the United States in 1950. The agreement concludes a deportation action filed by the Government against Koreh in April 1996. OSI began denaturalization proceedings against Koreh in 1989. The agreement states that Koreh does not contest the allegation that as responsible editor of Szekely Nep, a virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American newspaper in Nazi- allied Hungary, he was responsible for the publication of some 200 racist articles which helped create a climate in Hungary in which the Nazi persecution of Jews became acceptable. In a June 1994 decision stripping Koreh of his U.S. citizenship, U.S. District Court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry characterized the Szekely Nep articles as "poison" that portrayed Jews as "alien elements with diabolical skills" and as being "traitorous, unscrupulous, cheating. . . throughout. . . Hungarian history," and advocated the "de-jewification of Hungarian life" since "a final solution may be achieved only by deporting Jewish elements." Barry noted that these articles represented only "the tip of the very dangerous and very extensive iceberg." She concluded that Koreh's activities constituted "advocacy and assistance in persecution" and "membership and participation in a movement hostile to the United States," which under U.S. immigration law rendered Koreh ineligible for admission into the U.S. at the time he entered the country. Barry's decision to revoke Koreh's citizenship was unanimously upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in February 1995. The appellate court found that Koreh's involvement in the publication of anti-Semitic articles "assisted in the persecution of Hungarian Jews by fostering a climate of anti-Semitism in Northern Transylvania which conditioned the Hungarian public to acquiesce in, to encourage, and to carry out the abominable anti-Semitic policies of the Hungarian government in the early 1940s." Approximately 435,000 Hungarian Jews were deported between May and July of 1944 to Nazi concentration and death camps, such as Auschwitz. Citing the postwar Nuremberg trial of Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher as precedent, the Court of Appeals emphasized "the maxim that the pen is at least as mighty if not mightier than the sword. That the Nazi powers and their cohorts placed great confidence in the power of the word is demonstrated by the emphasis they placed on propaganda." Streicher was convicted of Nazi crimes against humanity and hanged. In the settlement agreement entered into January 13, 1997, Koreh conceded that the findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals were binding against him in the deportation action filed by the government, and he agreed to the entry of an order of deportation. The government agreed that it would not move to remove Koreh from the United States absent an improvement in his rapidly deteriorating health. OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum stated that "propagandists such as Koreh laid the foundation for Nazi genocide by fostering an atmosphere of venomous hate in which inhumane measures could be carried out without protest." He added that the Koreh proceedings are part of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who reside in the United States. To date, 57 such persons have been stripped of U.S. citizenship and 48 have been removed from the United States. # # # 97-027