La Habra Man, 65, Accused of Being a Guard at 2 Nazi Camps

The Justice Department has begun deportation proceedings against a 65-year-old La Habra man who allegedly was a guard and a dog handler at two Nazi concentration camps between 1940 and 1945.

The show-cause order, the first step in a deportation proceeding, was filed by the department’s Office of Special Investigations against Bruno Karl Blach, who allegedly entered the United States illegally 29 years ago.

The order was filed Monday in Immigration Court in Los Angeles. It said Blach, a native of Czechoslovakia, should be deported because he voluntarily joined the Nazi Party and the Waffen-SS, the military arm and largest branch of Adolf Hitler’s elite protection squads.

Blach’s duties included the supervision of slave laborers, according to the order. The government said he worked at a concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, from 1940 to 1943 and at the Wiener-Neudorf camp in Austria from 1943 to 1945.

Blach also allegedly participated in the forced evacuation of prisoners who were marched from Wiener-Neudorf to Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945, according to the order.

Allegations Denied

Blach, who has not been arrested, disputed the Justice Department’s allegations in an interview at his suburban Orange County home.

“I didn’t do anything wrong at all,” said Blach, visibly upset. “I didn’t have any contact (with the prisoners) at all.”

Speaking in heavily accented English, Blach said he “was the lowest grade you can have in the Army. When you are drafted, what do you do? I didn’t have any choice. I had to do what they told me.”

Now retired, Blach said he previously worked as a clerk in a grocery store distribution center.

Blach said he had been interviewed by Justice Department investigators twice in recent years but was not concerned because, he said, “I have not done anything.”

In Washington, Neal Sher, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Prosecutions, declined to say how Blach’s case came to light. He said Blach’s deportation case is one of about 35 similar cases pending in Immigration Court this year.

The order also charged Blach with illegally entering the United States in March, 1956, by concealing his Nazi activities. In addition, it charged, Blach concealed his concentration camp activities from American authorities when he unsuccessfully attempted to immigrate to the United States under the Displaced Persons Act in 1951.

No hearing date has been scheduled. Blach’s attorney, Ronald Parker, was unavailable for comment.