One Word Stalls Saudi Visa:<i> Jewish</i> : Religion: Auction firm said it had a difficult time getting permission for L.A. businessman to bid at disposal of U.S. goods from Gulf War.

A Woodland Hills businessman who spent five months in a Nazi concentration camp may miss an auction of U.S. war materiel left in Saudi Arabia after the Persian Gulf War because he has refused to hide his Jewish faith.

John Schwartz, who has earned a living for 25 years buying and selling surplus government equipment, wants to travel to Saudi Arabia in two weeks to bid on millions of dollars worth of scrap metal, trucks, tents and other military hardware no longer needed by the Department of Defense.

At first, the Saudis all but said no to Schwartz, a native of Hungary whose parents were executed by the Nazis in 1944. The problem: The word Jewish under the religion classification on his visa application.

In a letter June 3 from the Saudi firm contracted by the Defense Department to run the auction, Schwartz’s business partner was advised to send “someone else who is other than Jewish” because “it is difficult to get the visa for a person who is Jewish.”

An official with the visa section of the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles said Monday that requests from Jews to visit Saudi Arabia are almost always refused. But on Tuesday, after repeated calls from a reporter and letters of protest from the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Saudi Embassy in Washington indicated it would issue a visa, denying that Schwartz’s religion was ever an issue.

An embassy spokesman said Saudi Arabia does not “discriminate in the issuing of visas to American citizens” and said Schwartz--and any other American interested in attending the auction--would be provided a visa. The spokesman said the letter from the auctioneer to A. Lowy Enterprises of Long Beach did not reflect the views of the Saudi government.

But Marhoon Nasser, the auctioneer in Khober, Saudi Arabia, said his company was able to obtain a visa for Schwartz only by sidestepping the question about his Jewish faith. He apologized for the “misunderstanding” and said Schwartz and other American buyers were welcome.

“We got the visa for him,” said Nasser, general manager of Marhoon Nasser Auctioneers, explaining that his firm submitted Schwartz’s passport information to the Saudi foreign ministry rather than the original visa application, which included the religion question. “Nothing in the passport mentioned religion. If it mentioned it, he can’t come.”

Schwartz is scheduled to visit the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles this morning, but he said Tuesday that he had not yet decided whether the Saudis’ apparent change of heart was good enough. Even if they agree to issue a visa, he may not accept it, he said.

“My whole family was wiped out because of our being Jewish; for the convenience of business I am not going to deny it now,” Schwartz said. “They told me that I have to fill out an application. They can try to explain it and weasel out of it, but the fact is I am not going to fill out an application leaving out religion. I will put down Jewish again.”

Schwartz’s predicament has attracted the attention of various Jewish groups across the country, which have joined the Wiesenthal Center in complaining to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the White House and various legislators on Capitol Hill.

“I find it absolutely remarkable, sloppy at best and maybe a lot worse, that the United States military would allow such an operation to take place without our rules of fairness to be followed,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “It violates everything that we were supposedly in the Gulf War for.”

Schwartz, a onetime member of the Wiesenthal Center, turned to the organization for help after he picked up a brochure at a military sale near Oxnard announcing “Operation Desert Auction.” The brochure said that applicants must provide information about their religion in order to attend the auction.

“I am a Holocaust survivor and a veteran of the Korean War, and I just didn’t expect this kind of treatment,” said Schwartz, 63, who immediately complained to Department of Defense officials.

Schwartz, who came to the United States in 1949 and joined the Army a year later, said he was disappointed in the Saudis and deeply hurt by the seeming concurrence of his own government. He accused the United States of condoning Saudi anti-Semitism by holding the auction in the Arab country.

Spokesmen for the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees the sale of surplus military equipment for the Department of Defense, said the U.S. military is obligated to operate under the rules of host countries when holding auctions. The spokesmen said it would be impractical to move the auction, particularly since it involves thousands of items, including 20,000 tons of scrap metal and more than 1,700 trucks and other vehicles.

In a statement released Tuesday in response to inquiries from The Times, a spokesman for the deputy assistant secretary of defense for near-Eastern affairs said Schwartz’s allegations were under investigation. The spokesman said it “would have been highly improper” for the auctioneers to recommend that a non-Jew be sent in Schwartz’s place.

For years, Saudi Arabia has joined other Arab countries in refusing to provide entry visas to Jews, with only few exceptions, as an outgrowth of an Arab boycott of Israel. In recent years, however, the kingdom has opened its doors to a variety of Jewish businessmen, politicians and community leaders.

In January, the American Jewish Congress led the first delegation of American Jewish leaders to Saudi Arabia, a four-day visit that included a meeting with the Saudi foreign minister. David Lehrer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the more lenient Saudi policy has become increasingly common.

The Saudi Embassy spokesman said the primary reason his government requests information about religious affiliation is because non-Muslims are barred from entering Mecca. He said non-Muslims are turned away at a checkpoint outside Mecca, based on the visa information.

Schwartz hopes his run-in will help others. “I had hope in the concentration camp,” he said, “why shouldn’t I have hope now?”