La Habra Man Denies Being Nazi Guard : U.S. Alleges Czechoslovakian Served in Waffen SS at Death Camps

A retired La Habra grocery clerk accused of being a Nazi war criminal denied all the government’s allegations against him at an Immigration Court hearing in Los Angeles.

Bruno Blach, 65, a native of Czechoslovakia, faces deportation if the U.S. Department of Justice can prove its allegations that Blach served as a guard and dog handler at two Nazi concentration camps between 1940 and 1945.

Last Friday, Blach appeared briefly before U.S. Immigration Judge James Vandello to deny the government’s accusations. Vandello set Sept. 8 as the tentative trial date and chose Czechoslovakia as the country to which Blach would be deported if convicted. Blach did not suggest an alternative nation, according to government prosecutors.

“This case ranks among the strongest in my six years of experience with the department,” said Bruce Einhorn, a senior trial attorney for the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Einhorn said the government’s evidence against Blach includes a combination of “people and documents.”

“We have a great many possible witnesses,” Einhorn said. He said government attorneys plan to travel to Europe to videotape interviews with a variety of witnesses. He declined to say how many witnesses would be interviewed but did say: “We are not going to put 100 people on the witness stand.”

Allegedly in SS

Blach allegedly served as a member of the Nazi Waffen SS at the Dachau and Wiener-Neudorf death camps during World War II, according to court documents filed by the Justice Department in early December.

He allegedly supervised slave laborers and prevented prisoner escapes, according to the department’s “order to show cause,” which is the first step in a deportation proceeding. The order also contends that Blach “misrepresented and concealed” his Nazi activities when he entered the United States in March, 1956.

In a Dec. 4 interview with The Times, Blach denied the government’s allegations, saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong at all.” He also said he “didn’t have any contact with the prisoners at all.”

Blach could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Most of the government’s evidence against Blach is 45 years old, and “the reliability and validity is suspect,” said Ronald Parker of Fullerton, Blach’s attorney.

Parker previously said his client was not “a big fish” and “just happened to be serving in Germany at that time.”

Meanwhile, Einhorn said Blach is free to go about his business until the trial, but if he leaves the United States, “he can’t come back.”