A retired carpenter living in the United States who was exposed as a former commander of a Nazi-led unit has died.
Michael Karkoc, whose family maintained that he had never been a Nazi or committed any war crimes, lived quietly for many decades in an Eastern European neighbourhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In 2013, a review of US and Ukrainian records by the news agency AP uncovered his Second World War activities, prompting investigations in Germany and Poland.
Mr Karkoc’s involvement in the war surfaced when a retiree who had researched Nazi war crimes approached AP after coming across his name.
The subsequent investigation used a range of interviews and documents, including German military payrolls and company records, US Army intelligence files, Ukrainian intelligence findings and Mr Karkoc’s own self-published memoir.
The records reportedly showed that he had been a commander in the Ukrainian Self Defence Legion, which took direct orders from the SS intelligence agency.
His unit allegedly attacked a Polish village in 1944, killing dozens of women and children.
It was also claimed that he then lied to the American authorities about his military service to get into the United States after the war.
A second report by AP included testimony by one of Mr Karkoc’s own soldiers, who said he had ordered his men to attack the village in retaliation for the killing of an SS major.
In 2015, German prosecutors said that they had scrapped their case because Mr Karkoc, then 96, was not fit to stand trial.
Public cemetery records show the 100-year-old died on December 14, but news of his death was only reported in the US press this week.
His son, Andriy Karkoc, declined to confirm his father’s death when contacted by an AP reporter.
Officials at the Kozlak-Radulovich Funeral Chapel, which was listed on one website as having handled the funeral arrangements, also declined to comment.
He was buried on December 19 next to his wife, Nadia Karkoc, who died in 2018.
An ethnic Ukrainian, he was born in the city of Lutsk in 1919, according to details he provided to American officials.
In a Ukrainian-language memoir published in 1995 and available at the Library of Congress, Mr Karkoc said he helped found the Ukrainian Self-Defence Legion in 1943 in collaboration with the SS.
