Criminals Falsely Claim Holocaust Survivor Ties for German Citizenship

Dozens of individuals, primarily Chinese nationals including internationally wanted criminals, are suspected of obtaining or attempting to obtain German citizenship and passports through document forgery and fabricated life stories linking them to Jewish victims of the Nazi regime. The investigation by German magazine Der Spiegel revealed that these suspects submitted applications between 2020 and 2025 to the German Federal Administrative Office in Cologne.

They falsely claimed descent from Jewish families who fled to Mandatory Palestine, naming families like Zisskind, Ratzkovsky, Warschawski, and Drucker. This scheme exploited Article 116 of the German Basic Law, which grants citizenship eligibility to descendants of Nazi persecution victims, a pathway through which approximately 52,000 people have received citizenship since 2021.

Notable cases include a Chinese national known as Liu H., wanted in China for kidnapping and murder, who obtained citizenship under the name Derrick Wong after paying $600,000 to intermediaries and was arrested earlier this year. Another Chinese national, Tian Xi, sought by Interpol for multi-million dollar bank fraud, received citizenship in 2024 using false identities linked to the Zisskind couple. A third suspect, Ou Jia Y., who ran a $255 million Ponzi scheme in China, claimed to be Wong's brother and filed a similar application in London.

The perpetrators researched details of Jewish families online to construct their false narratives. Tamir Rosenblum, a New York lawyer and grandson of Holocaust survivors Arthur and Ruth Ratzkovsky, discovered his family's name was attached to unrelated foreigners, calling the misuse of his family's persecution story "disgusting."

The investigation also points to the alleged involvement of Israelis without prior criminal records, including a doctor who returned to Israel after being contacted by the magazine and a psychiatrist living in the Tel Aviv area who have not yet been investigated. Additionally, a woman who worked at a psychiatric clinic in Tel Aviv and was suspected of impersonating a descendant of Holocaust survivors provided incorrect answers when confronted with details of her alleged family's biography.

Currently, the Public Prosecutor's Office in Düsseldorf and the Federal Criminal Police are investigating 32 individuals for forgery and violations of citizenship law, with half having already fraudulently obtained citizenship. German authorities have sought legal assistance in Israel, Canada, and the UK to gather evidence for revoking citizenship, a process legally limited to ten years.