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OF WHAT WE
his office represent the moral conscience
of our government," Elan
Steinberg, executive director of the
New York-based World Jewish Congress,
said in an interview before
Sher left for AIPAC. "It goes beyond
the professional work that he does,
which can only be described as impeccable.
It's the historical import for
our country, and as a symbol for other
countries, that sets apart the work
he does for that office."
But the nature of his work provided
Sher a dose of notoriety as
well. Austrian newspaper cartoons
mocked him as the "Waldheim
Hunter." Various American ethnic
groups have complained to Congress
and successive presidential
administrations about the OSΓs
work. And political commentators
William F. Buckley and Patrick
Buchanan have rushed to the defense
of some of those targeted by
the OSI: Buckley called the deportation
of one war criminal "judicially
revolting."
In a series of interviews before
and after leaving the OSI, Sher
brushes off complaints about the
way his office hunts down elderly
U.S. residents, who invariably, it
seems, have led picture-perfect lives
as law-abiding Americans. He is not
fazed by comments like the one
from Sergis Hutyrczyk's neighbor,
who said he hoped the security
guard would not be deported,
because "he's a hard-working
man."
"It's a matter of, in many respects,
the pursuit of justice in a
very pure sense," Sher explains.
"This is a country that was built by
immigrants, people who were fleeing
the persecutor. The idea that we
have living in our midst the very
persecutors, the criminals—it just
goes against everything this country
stands for."
Typically, complaints about OSI
focus on the extraordinary, multinational
legal proceedings in which
American defendants are confronted
with documents supplied by foreign
governments and by witnesses from
around the world. While the OSI is
not authorized to initiate criminal
proceedings, it files civil cases challenging
whether its targets should
Liusdas Kairys
have been let into the United States
and whether they should have been
granted citizenship. If OSI can convince
a federal judge to revoke a
defendant's citizenship—and most
of the time it does—it can then seek
a deportation order.
That is precisely what the OSI
sought to do in the case of Hutyrczyk,
whom it accused of being a
guard at the Koldyczewo concentration
camp in Byelorussia. The office
maintains that Hutyrczyk participated
in the murder of inmates at
the camp and in the nearby city of
Baranowicze. Hutyrczyk denied the
charges. In October 1992, U.S. District
Court Judge Harold A. Ackerman
revoked Hutyrczyk's citizenship,
agreeing with the OSI that
Hutyrczyk had persecuted Jews at
the camp. In his opinion, the judge
noted somberly that he was "acutely
aware of the stakes involved in this
case—the possibility of the deportation
of an individual who has lived
an uneventful life in this country for
nearly 40 years." On February 2,
1993 Hutyrczyk's lawyer filed an appeal.
On February 3, Sergis Hutyrczyk
died. He had been suffering
from a thoracic aneurysm and was
JUNE 1994
37
under doctor's orders to avoid
stress.
Judge Ackerman noted that the
question in the case "is what happened
50 years ago halfway around
Boieslaus Maΐkovskis
the world." In search of answers to
such a question, the OSI operates
on an annual budget of about $3 million
and has nearly as many professional
historians on staff as it does
lawyers. "Historians are, in essence,
our investigators, because a lot of
what we do is an historical chase,"
Sher says. Though on occasion the
office will initiate a case based on a
tip, its key information usually
comes from old-fashioned legwork.
As OSI lawyers and historians visit
archives all over the world to comb
the meticulous records and rosters
kept by the Nazis, they compile long
lists of suspects and enter the
names in a central computer file. If
a name matches any of those listed
by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service as having gained entry
to the United States, the OSI has a
new case. It also gets calls—as
many as five a month—from airports
around the country when
somebody listed on the computer
tries to enter the United States.
Those people are sent home having
seen nothing of America but the
inside of an airport waiting area.
As Eastern European nations
continue to open their archives,