Boļeslavs Maikovskis

In Latvia

Boļeslavs Jazepovich Maikovskis was born on 21 January 1904 in Masteri, Rēzekne county, in the Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire, in modern-day Latvia. Maikovskis represented that his father was killed by the Soviets and his two brothers were deported to Siberia. Maikovskis claimed that he commenced university and worked initially as a bookkeeper for a Soviet authority, before being removed for political reasons. In 1933, aged 29 years, Maikovskis claimed that he joined the Aizsargi, a civil guard organization, where he served until Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. In interviews, Maikovskis claimed that he was a police clerk who reported to Alberts Eichelis^[c][1] and served alongside Haralds Puntulis.

However, in other evidence, Maikovskis served as the Chief of Police of Latgalia, where he assisted the Reichskommissariat Ostland in identifying Latvian partisans that led to the Audrini massacre, where the entire population, along with the partisans captured, were taken to the center of the village and either shot or hanged, believed to be approximately 170–200 people, including 51 children.^{[1]: 15–16} Evidence was tendered at his trial that, together with Eichelis and Puntulis, Maikovskis directed the public execution of 30 villagers in the public square of Rēzekne. Witnesses claimed that the village of Audrini was burned to the ground and the possessions of the former inhabitants destroyed.^[1]

At the conclusion of World War II, Maikovskis and his wife were classified as displaced people, located in Hamburg, West Germany, and they made application for a U.S. visa. However, it was rejected by the United States Displaced Persons Commission on September 5, 1950, due to Maikovskis involvement with the Aizsargi. Following removal of the Aizsargi from the list of subversive organizations, their visa application was reconsidered by U.S. officials.^[1] It was reported that he lied on his visa application when asked whether he had "been complicit in the persecutions of others during World War II".^[3][4][d]

Emigration to the United States

Granted a visa on November 14, 1951, Maikovskis emigrated to the U.S., and arrived on December 22, 1951, initially living in Brooklyn before purchasing a house with his wife in Mineola, New York. He and his wife lived there for 36 years, and Maikovskis was active in Latvian organizations, including serving of the board of the American Latvian Association, as the representative of the Daugavas Vanagi. He worked as a carpenter until his retirement.^[2]

In 1965, the USSR requested that Maikovskis be extradited in order to face trial for war crimes.^{[1]: 9, 10 [e][f]} However, the United States and the USSR did not have an extradition treaty and the U.S. government refused. Tried in absentia in a Riga court, Maikovskis was convicted of murder and sentenced to death^[2] on 30 October 1965.^[1]

In 1976, the Immigration and Naturalizatiom Service began deportation proceedings against him on grounds he obtained his visa fraudulently after concealing his participation in the crimes.^[5][6] On August 14, 1984, the U.S. Immigration Court ruled to deport Maikovski on the grounds of his participation in war crimes and for lying to gain entry into the United States; Switzerland rejected his request for asylum; in September 1985, the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Maikovskis' appeal against deportation; and in June 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the Department of Justice to find a suitable country that would accept Maikovskis.^[7][6]

His crimes were detailed in a November 1976 episode of 60 Minutes,^[8] and, in 1977, Maikovskis was featured in Howard Blum's book Wanted!: The Search for Nazis in America. During the 1970s and 1980s, Maikovskis became the target of anti-Nazi vigilantes.^[9] In August 1978, he was shot in the right knee at his home.^[10] In 1979, a man stabbed a person whom he mistook for Maikovskis.^[11] In September 1981, Maikovskis's home was bombed by the Jewish Defense League.^[2][12]

Flee to Germany

After his deportation to the Soviet Union became a certainty, Maikovskis fled from the U.S. in 1987.^[7] He settled in West Germany after secretly convincing a diplomatic official to grant him a visa on the grounds of political asylum.^[13] In October 1988, Maikovskis was arrested as a suspected war criminal. He was held in a prison hospital until the fall of 1992.^[14] Maikovskis was simultaneously prosecuted in the German judicial system, but the case was dropped on health grounds in 1994. He died in Münster in 1996, aged 92, from a heart attack.^[2]