Court File No.:____________

Plaintiff

Defendant

TO THE DEFENDANT:

A LEGAL PROCEEDING HAS BEEN COMMENCED AGAINST YOU by the Plaintiff. The claim made against you is set out in the following pages.

IF YOU WISH TO DEFEND THIS PROCEEDING, you or a solicitor acting for you are required to prepare a statement of defence in Form 171B prescribed by the Federal Court Rules, 1998, serve it on the Plaintiff's solicitor or, where the plaintiff does not have a solicitor, serve it on the Plaintiff, and file it, with proof of service, at a local office of this Court, WITHIN 30 DAYS after this statement of claim is served on you, if you are served within Canada.

If you are served in the United States of America, the period for serving and filing your statement of defence is forty days. If you are served outside Canada and the United States of America, the period for serving and filing your statement of defence is sixty days.

Copies of the Federal Court Rules, 1998, information concerning the local offices of the Court and other necessary information may be obtained on request to the Administrator of this Court at Ottawa (Telephone 613-992-4238) or at any local office.

IF YOU FAIL TO DEFEND THIS PROCEEDING, judgment may be given against you in your absence and without further notice to you.

1. The Deputy Attorney General on behalf of the Plaintiff seeks:

a) a finding pursuant to paragraph 18(1)(b) of the Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 29, as amended, that the Defendant obtained his Canadian citizenship by false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances; and

b) costs in accordance with the Federal Court Rules, 1998.

I. Introduction

2. The defendant was born in February or March, 1921 in the village of Korochenky, Chudniv, Zhitomir Region in the present day Ukraine, under the name Josef Leontievich Furmanchuk (the name Furmanchuk will be used at different times to refer to the defendant).

3. The defendant trained as an armed guard at the Trawniki SS Training Camp and thereafter served with other Trawniki guards and participated in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland in April and May 1943 and the Bialystok Ghetto in Poland in August of 1943.

4. Josef Furman was subsequently transferred to the German concentration camp Flossenb�rg where he served as a guard within the German concentration camp system in 1943 and in 1944. He held the rank of SS Wachman and guarded, amongst others, Jewish prisoners and workers.

5. The defendant arrived in Canada on July 25, 1949 and was landed in Canada on the same day. He became a Canadian citizen in 1957. He resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

6. Josef Furman was served with a Notice in Respect of Revocation of Citizenship ("Notice") on November 20, 2003. On December 13, 2003, Mr. Furman requested that the matter be referred to the Federal Court. The Notice and the request for referral are attached hereto as Schedule 1 and 2 respectively.

II. Historical Background

A. Invasion of Poland in 1939 and the USSR in 1941

7. In September 1939, Nazi Germany launched an invasion of Poland and quickly occupied it. The northern and western parts were annexed into the German Reich. Other parts of Poland became an administrative entity called the General Gouvernement (GG). The GG was composed of the districts of Lublin, Radom, Krakow, and Warsaw. The eastern parts of Poland were incorporated into the then existing Soviet Ukraine under the provisions of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939 becoming the western portion of Soviet Ukraine.

8. On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Soviet forces were soon overwhelmed and the Ukraine was occupied. A part of western Soviet Ukraine was incorporated into the GG as the 5th district and renamed "District Galicia". The occupation lasted until 1944.

B. Nazi Policy of Extermination

9. After June 1941, Poland became the centre of the Nazi extermination policy towards the Jewish population.

10. Chelmno, the first death camp, started its killing operations in December 1941. The Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz death camps began operations in the first half of 1942. Jews from all over Europe were brought to these camps to be murdered in gas chambers.

C. The Trawniki SS Training Camp

11. The Trawniki SS Training Camp, located south east of Lublin, was established in late summer 1941, for the purpose of organizing, training and forming a permanent base for a voluntary auxiliary unit.

12. Arriving at the Trawniki SS Training Camp, the recruits underwent medical examinations and were photographed. Each of them was then summoned to the camp headquarters for registration and to draw up a personnel file and received a personal identification number. Afterwards each signed a written oath, a "Pledge of Service" for the duration of the war, to serve in the Guard Units (Wachtmannschaften) of the "SS and Police Leader Lublin".

13. The recruits were issued uniforms and were equipped with rifles and ammunition. The training lasted six to eight weeks and included drill, physical and weapons training, guard duty, escort of prisoners, and German language training. After the training period, the recruits were organized into squads, platoons, and companies. They were know collectively as Trawniki men.

14. The primary role of Trawniki guards was to assist the SS and Police in carrying out "Operation Reinhard" in 1942-1943. In that regard, Trawniki guards took part in more than 200 anti-Jewish operations, including ghetto clearings. In the Lublin district and other areas of the GG during 1942-1943. In addition, the Trawniki guards were used as escorts on deportation transports, guard detachments at "Operation Reinhard" killing centres, and security details during the confiscation and registration of Jewish property and valuables. The participation of the Trawniki guards in the extermination of the Jewish population of the GG continued until November 1943.

15. In the fall of 1943 a large number of Trawniki men were sent to concentration camps in the German Reich. The duties of Trawniki men serving at German concentration camps were the same as those of SS members of the SS Death Head Guard Battalions at concentration camps. These duties can be divided into three basic categories: 1) guarding the camp; 2) escorting prisoners to and from work and guarding them at the worksite; and 3) escorting the transports of prisoners. Guarding the camp involved manning watchtowers and standing watch around the perimeter of the camp. Whether on a watchtower or in the sentry chain, every guard had standing orders to shoot at any prisoner attempting to escape.

D. The Camps at Trawniki and Poniatowa

16. In January and February 1943 SS and Police Leader Glocnik signed two contracts with the German entrepreneurs Schultz and Toebbens, concerning the transfer of their Warsaw enterprises from the Warsaw Ghetto to labour camps at Trawniki (SS Labour Camp Trawniki) and Poniatowa (SS Labour Camp Poniatowa). More than 10,000 Jewish workers of the Toebbens enterprise were sent to the SS Labour Camp Poniatowa, while around 10,000 Jewish workers of the Schultz plant were sent to the SS Labour Camp Trawniki.

17. Before both contracts were signed, 6,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were seized and deported to Treblinka between January 18 and 22, 1943. On April 19, 1943, the final operation to "liquidate" the ghetto, which included the transfer of Jews working in the Toebbens and Schultz factories to Trawniki and Poniatowa, and all the others to Treblinka, started. This action was met by a Jewish uprising.

E. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Clearing

18. The most heavily populated ghetto in the GG was the Warsaw Ghetto. At the beginning of World War II more than 380,000 Jews lived in Warsaw, making up almost one third of the total population in Warsaw. The number increased to almost 450,000 following the erection of the Ghetto in Warsaw in an area less than 400 square hectares in size.

19. With the beginning of the so-called "Final Solution of the Jewish Question", German authorities started reducing the population of the ghetto. Within less than two months, from July 22 to September 12, 1942, about 265,000 Jews were deported to Treblinka and murdered there. Only 35,000 Jews were left by the Germans to work in the German enterprises of Toebbens and Schultz. Another 25,000 or more managed to remain "illegally" in the Ghetto.

20. In July 1942, Reichf�hrer SS Heinrich Himmler ("Himmler") issued an order to complete the deportation of all Jews from the GG to the death camps by December 31, 1942.

21. As a result of objections from some members of the German military authority and some local chiefs of the SS and Police in the GG that the Jews engaged in manufacturing work should not be deported to the death camps, the order was delayed.

22. In the end, Himmler's order resulted in the final liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and the transfer of the Jews working in the Toebbens and Schultz factories to actually labour camps, and all the other Jews to the Treblinka death camp in April and May 1943.

23. The Germans began their assault on the morning of 19 April 1943. For the task, they had assembled an imposing force of SS, police, Wehrmacht, and Trawniki men. A few hundred Jewish resistance fighters with a handful of weapons were determined to defend the Warsaw Ghetto by force. On May 16, 1943, the uprising was declared quelled. In the final report on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the German commander claims to have killed or captured more than 60,000 Jews.

F. The Bialystok Labour Camp and Ghetto Clearing

24. After the experience of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943 the Nazi authorities were aware of spreading resistance in the still existing ghettos and camps in Poland. The direction the destruction took in the following months was driven by a plan of eliminating the remaining ghettos and camps as soon as possible and exterminate their Jewish inhabitants.

25. The Bialystok region, northeast of Warsaw at the Belorussian border, passed to the Soviets in 1939 after the Polish campaign but fell in turn to the Germans on June 27 1941, the sixth day of the Russian campaign. The Germans established a number of ghettos in the Bialystok District for the large Jewish population.

26. In November and December 1942 the Germans consolidated the numerous small ghettos of Bialystok District, assembling their tens of thousands of inhabitants at collection points. In December 1942 and January 1943 they deported these people to Treblinka and Auschwitz. The Germans then moved against the major Ghetto in Bialystok city, deporting approximately 16,000 Jews in February 1943 to the extermination camp in Treblinka.

27. Because of the Ghetto's industrial production, which included ten factories on the perimeter of a major labour camp, the remaining 30,000 inhabitants initially experienced a reprieve. However, at the beginning of August, 1943 the SS and Police Leader of Lublin District, Globocnik, travelled to Bialystok to inform the local authorities that Himmler had decided to "liquidate" the Ghetto.

28. Globocnik then placed the actual conduct of the operation in the hands of SS Hauptsturmf�hrer Georg Michalsen. For the task, Michalsen had Trawniki men and German SS and police at his disposal. The Trawniki men had arrived in Bialystok between August 5 and 18, 1943.

29. Michalsen had his forces surround the Ghetto early on the morning of August 16, 1943. After gathering the Jews at collection points the deportation trains went from Bialystok to the Treblinka, Auschwitz and Sobibor Death Camps. A trainload of 1,200 Jewish children travelled to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, but in October 1943 the Germans forwarded these children on to Auschwitz and murdered them. When the operation was over, Globocnik could boast that Michalsen had "purged" Bialystok in five days.

30. Two Trawniki companies were under the command of SS leader Michalson during the Bialystok ghetto clearing. They participated in the deportation of the Jewish population to the Death Camps. Their activities included cordoning off the Ghetto, conducting house to house searches for Jews in hiding, escorting Jews from the Ghetto to the assembly point, guarding them at the assembly point, escorting them to the railway station, loading them onto trains, and accompanying the trains to their destinations. It also included shooting individuals trying to escape.

G. Operation "Harvest Festival"

31. Around the second half of October 1943, Himmler ordered the SS and Police forces in the GG to execute all Jews in the camps of Trawniki, Poniatowa and Majdanek. The operation was named "Operation Harvest Festival".

32. "Operation Harvest Festival" was the last mass killing of the remaining Jews in the GG and represented the final stage of "Operation Reinhard". Approximately 42,000 Jews (men, women and children) were murdered during "Operation Harvest Festival" in November 1943. With the extermination of the Jewish inmates in the labour camps of Poniatowa and Trawniki, the Schultz and Toebbens factories stopped their production.

H. German Concentration Camp System

33. The concentration camp system in the German Reich began as a system of repression directed against political opponents of the Nazi regime. http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/76278.htm Starting in 1935, the regime also began to imprison those whom it designated as racially or biologically inferior, especially Jews. http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/eur72160.htm During World War II, the organization and scale of the concentration camp system expanded rapidly and the purpose of the camps evolved beyond imprisonment toward forced labour and outright murder.

34. The concentration camps were administered by the "Inspectorate of Concentration Camps" which was directly under Himmler. From 1941, the Inspectorate became part of the "SS Main Operational Office". In 1942 the "Inspectorate" became part of the "SS Main Economic and Administrative Office" as "Office D". Of the more than two million concentration camp prisoners, more than 1.2 million did not survive captivity during the war.

I. The Flossenb�rg Concentration Camp

35. By early 1938, there were already three large concentration camps, namely Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. In the same year, Flossenb�rg and Mauthausen were established. The locations for the last two were chosen because of granite deposits, which the Nazis preferred to use for Autobahn bridges and monumental structures.

36. Flossenb�rg camp was built in the summer of 1938, and the quarrying of stone was begun with a few hundred prisoners. By the end of 1938, approximately 1,500 prisoners had been transported to Flossenb�rg from Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. The camp had a very high mortality rate.

37. The number of prisoners climbed from 4,000 at the beginning of February 1943 to approximately 8,000 by 1944. By the end of March 1945, there were 52,000 prisoners.

38. Because of the deteriorating military situation, the camp administration collapsed quickly. In April 1945, the SS began to remove traces of its activities by destroying documents and places of execution and torture. Starting in mid-April, the main camp was largely evacuated, first by rail transports, and later also by means of marches in the direction of Dachau. These evacuation marches brought about the death of thousands. A remaining 1,526 mostly sick prisoners of the main camp were liberated by American troops on 23 April 1945.

J. The Defendant's Activities

39. The defendant, under the name Josef Furmanchuk, arrived at the Trawniki SS Training Camp around June 1942 to begin his training.

40. Josef Furmanchuk was sent to the Warsaw ghetto as member of the 2nd Trawniki Company, two days before the uprising began. The 2nd Trawniki Company participated in the actions in the Warsaw Ghetto clearing, including actions in guarding and escorting Jews.

41. Josef Furmanchuk was transferred, along with others, to perform guard duties in Lublin on or about May 1943.

42. On August 15, 1943, Josef Furmanchuk was transferred to the Bialystok Ghetto, also known as "labour camp Bialystok".

43. Two Trawniki companies, one which included Josef Furmanchuk, participated in the ghetto clearing and the deportation of the Jewish population to the Death Camps in mid-August 1943. The Trawniki men were involved in all aspects of the cleansing operation.

44. Following administrative changes, the Trawniki guards were available to be transferred for service in concentration camps in the German Reich. Josef Furmanchuk was transferred from Trawniki to the German Flossenb�rg concentration camp on 1 October 1943 where he served as a guard.

45. At all times material to his service as a guard, the defendant's duties were similar to that of other concentration camp guards. These duties included: 1) guarding the camp; 2) escorting prisoners to and from work and guarding them at the worksite; and 3) escorting transports of prisoners. Part of the defendant's duties in guarding the camp included a standing order to shoot any prisoners attempting to escape.

K. The Defendant's Immigration to Canada

46. Under section 3 of the 1927 Immigration Act, in force when the defendant came to Canada, no immigrant, passenger, or other person belonging to a prohibited class, unless he was a Canadian citizen, or had Canadian domicile, was permitted to enter or land in Canada. Any person who did not fulfill, meet or comply with the conditions and requirements of the Immigration Regulations was a member of such a prohibited class.

47. Under the Regulations in force at the time (P.C. 4849 of 1947 (SOR/47-920) and its successor P.C. 2743), "the landing in Canada of immigrants of all classes and occupations (was) � prohibited" with a somewhat broader list of exceptions including British subjects, citizens of the United States and of France, members of the family class, a number of limited categories of agriculturists, farm labourers and miners, and persons who, having entered Canada as non-immigrants, enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces and has later been honourably discharged after having served in the Forces.

48. In addition to these limited categories of immigrants, the Canadian Government authorized the admission to Canada of more than 40,000 Displaced Persons, although they did not belong to any of the authorized categories of immigrants prescribed by P.C. 4849. Regulations were put into place in order to allow the admission of these Displaced Persons.

49. P.C. 2743 and its predecessors granted immigration officers the discretion to admit persons who came within the permitted categories of immigrants.

50. With the influx of new immigrants, security considerations were raised by the government. In May 1946 the Cabinet had authorized the creation of a security advisory panel ('Panel') comprised of representatives from various government departments, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ("RCMP") and military intelligence services.

51. The Panel created a screening program whereby each prospective immigrant for immigration would be required to undergo security screening by a RCMP officer (known at different times as a Visa Control Officer, Visa Vetting Officer or a Security Officer (S.O.)), a medical examination and vetting by an immigration officer to ensure suitability for immigration. The selection team so created would travel from Displaced Persons camp to Displaced Persons camp, screening applicants.

52. Although the immigration officer was the head of the selection team and would issue a visa, he could not do so unless the S.O. had cleared the prospective immigrant for security.

53. Furthermore, after World War II, the International Refugee Organization (IRO) was responsible for the assistance and resettlement of Displaced Persons located in Europe. Many of these Displaced Persons lived in camps established by the IRO.

54. To qualify for IRO assistance, a Displaced Person had to be within its mandate. War criminals, collaborators, traitors, and persons who had assisted the enemy in persecuting civil populations or who had voluntarily assisted the enemy forces since the outbreak of World War II in their operations against the United Nations, were expressly excluded from the mandate of the IRO and therefore ineligible for IRO assistance.

55. The IRO provided the Canadian team with logistical support in the camps. It also provided the Canadian teams with the Displaced Person's Application for IRO assistance. An individual denied IRO support would not have been presented to the Canadian authorities for screening.

56. The S.O. examined every prospective immigrant. The S.O. would decide whether the applicant received security clearance on the basis of an interview and information he was able to obtain regarding the prospective immigrant's prior residences and jobs, including the period during the Second World War and the information provided to the IRO by the Displaced Person.

57. The fact that a prospective immigrant was passed by the S.O. did not mean that a visa would automatically be granted. The immigration officer (the visa officer) would also examine the applicant and the documentation submitted in support of his application to be satisfied that the applicant was admissible to Canada before he would issue a visa.

58. Individuals who had voluntarily served with the Germans or served as Concentration Camp guards were considered collaborators and would not have been security cleared by the S.O. Consequently, they would have been denied a visa by the Visa officer

59. The defendant was interviewed and screened by the IRO. He obtained IRO support after misrepresenting his activities during the war. Furthermore, he applied under the name Furman, and not his real name, Furmanchuk.

60. The defendant was interviewed and screened by a S.O. before being issued a Canadian Visa.

61. In order to be admitted to Canada and prior to his departure from Germany, the defendant had to be recognized as a desirable immigrant by the Canadian Immigration authorities posted abroad.

62. The defendant knowingly concealed his true identity, the fact that he had been a concentration camp guard, his collaboration and his association with the German occupation authorities from the IRO, the S.O., the visa officer and all other immigration officers.

63. Josef Furman falsely represented himself to the IRO, the S.O., the visa officer and all other immigration officers who screened his application as a person who had not served or collaborated with the German occupation authorities.

64. Because of the defendant's false representations and his concealment of material facts relating to his activities during the war, Canadian authorities were deprived of essential information that would have enabled them to properly determine whether or not to admit the defendant into Canada or to issue him a visa.

65. The defendant would not have been admitted to Canada or been issued a visa if his activities during the war had been known to the S.O., the visa officer and all other immigration officers.

66. The defendant was not lawfully admitted to Canada and consequently did not acquire Canadian domicile in accordance with the Immigration Act.

l. The Defendant's Petition for Citizenship

67. In 1957, the defendant applied for, and was granted, Canadian citizenship.

68. At the time the defendant applied for citizenship, good character and acquisition of Canadian domicile were both conditions precedent to being granted Canadian citizenship.

69. The defendant presented himself to Canadian authorities as a person of good character, notwithstanding his failure to reveal his association with the German occupant, his activities as a concentration camp guard, his activities during the war, and his true identity.

70. Further, the defendant did not report the circumstances under which he was landed in Canada. He did not indicate his failure to reveal to the immigration officer at the port of entry that he was a member of a prohibited class. On the contrary, the defendant submitted in the Petition that he was a person of good character.

71. The defendant presented himself as a person who had acquired Canadian domicile. At the time of his application for Canadian citizenship, a person could only acquire Canadian citizenship if he had been landed in Canada, and a person could only be landed in Canada if he had been lawfully admitted.

72. The defendant would not have been granted Canadian citizenship if he had disclosed his activities during the war.

73. The Minister states that the defendant obtained Canadian citizenship by false representations or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances, which gives the Minister grounds upon which to make a report to the Governor in Council for the revocation of the defendant's citizenship.

The Minister proposes that this action be tried in Edmonton, Alberta.

Dated at Edmonton, this 16th day of March, 2004.

Morris A. Rosenberg
Deputy Attorney General of Canada

Per:________________________
Bruce F. Hughson
Counsel for the Plaintiff
Department of Justice Canada
Prairie Region - Edmonton Office
211 Bank of Montreal Building
10199-101 Street
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 3Y4

Telephone: (780) 495-2035
Fax: (780) 495-6300
File: 2-90183