Pinellas man denies link to Nazis

BRADENTON -- A St. Petersburg man testified Wednesday that he was not a Nazi collaborator in Lithuania during World War II and therefore didn't lie on his U.S. immigration papers.

Algimantas Dailide, 81, gave details on his role during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic country during his deportation trial. He said he worked as a clerk for the Saugumus arm of the Lithuanian police force, not the Nazis.

Dailide says Saugumus arrested only communist insurgents after the Nazis gained control of Lithuania from Russia. The Justice Department says Saugumus was an arm of Nazi occupying forces.

From 1941 to 1944, lawyers for the department said, Dailide turned Jews over to occupying Nazi forces to be killed. In 1950, they said, Dailide lied on immigration forms to enter the United States, saying he was a forester and denying serving on police forces during the war.

More than 50,000 Jews were killed during the war at Nazi-run execution pits in Paneriai, a Lithuanian camp near where Dailide worked.

The U.S. revoked Dailide's citizenship application in 1997, saying he falsely denied any police service when he applied to enter this country in 1950.

On Wednesday, Dailide testified that he collected information on those arrested, including details about religion. Many were escaping Nazi-controlled ghettos in the capital city of Vilnius.

He told Immigration Judge Mahlon F. Hanson that he worked as a clerk for most of his four years with the Saugumus and never arrested anyone just because they were Jewish. Barely 20 at the time, he said he basically ran errands.

Dailide retired to Florida after selling real estate in Cleveland for 40 years.

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