San Francisco, CA - Woman Who Served As Nazi Concentration Camp Guard Is Deported to Germany

San Francisco, CA - A San Francisco woman has been removed to Germany based on her participation in Nazi- sponsored acts of persecution while serving during World War II as a guard of female prisoners at the infamous Nazi-operated Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in Germany.

A charging document filed in U.S. immigration court in San Francisco by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which investigated the case, and the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alleges that Elfriede Lina Rinkel, 83, a native and citizen of Germany, served as a guard at Ravensbruck from June 1944 until the camp was abandoned in the closing weeks of the war. In a settlement agreement reached with the government, Rinkel admitted that she served as a guard at Ravensbruck.

The charging document states that while serving at Ravensbruck, Rinkel used a trained attack dog to carry out her guard duties. At Ravensbruck, SS female guards armed with attack dogs forced malnourished women inmates to march to slave labor sites each day, guarded them while they performed manual labor, and then force-marched them back to the concentration camp, where they were held under notoriously inhumane conditions. The charging document alleges that Rinkel's activities at Ravensbruck assisted the Nazis in persecuting civilians on the basis of their race, religion, national origin or political opinion, and that her removal from the United States is required by federal law.