U.S. Will Deport La Habra Man for Activities as Nazi

A retired La Habra grocery clerk accused of being a Nazi war criminal has been ordered deported to Germany by a federal immigration judge.

Bruno Karl Blach, a 66-year-old native of Czechoslovakia, served as a guard and dog handler at two Nazi concentration camps between 1940 and 1945, according to court records and testimony at a deportation hearing last November.

“I find the respondent himself participated in the persecution of prisoners,” wrote U.S. Immigration Judge James P. Vandello in his 28-page ruling, which was dated April 28.

Blach allegedly served in the elite Nazi Waffen-SS, according to court documents filed by the Justice Department in December, 1986. As a member of the SS Totenkopf (Death’s Head Battalion), Blach allegedly supervised slave laborers and prevented prisoner escapes at the Dachau and Wiener-Neudorf camps, according to evidence presented at the hearing.

“I find . . . Bruno Karl Blach both assisted in and participated in the persecution of persons because of race, religion, national origin or political opinion between March 23, 1933, and May of 1945 under the direction of or in association with the Nazi government of Germany,” Van dello wrote, adding that “guards at concentration camps were part and parcel of a criminal system.”

Under the ruling, Blach will be deported to West Germany, said Ronald G. Parker, Blach’s attorney.

Government prosecutors alleged that Blach lied to immigration officials when he immigrated to the United States in 1956. However, Vandello ruled that since Blach later corrected the information, that alone was not a deportable offense.

In an interview in November, Blach said he was just a private who was forced to follow orders.

“When you are drafted, what do you do? I didn’t have any choice--I had to do what they told me,” said Blach, who did not testify at his deportation hearing.

Attempts to reach Blach Friday at his well-kept suburban home in La Habra were unsuccessful.

“The decision was not a shock or surprise,” Parker said. “When I called him with the news on Thursday, he said, ‘OK--I understand.’ ”

Parker said he plans to appeal Vandello’s ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals in Washington. If the board rejects the appeal, Parker said, he may appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal process could take one or two years, he said.

‘Close Call’

“At this point in time, it could be a close call,” Parker said. “I believe Vandello’s opinion relies in part on a case that was overturned by the 9th Circuit.”

In the 1985 ruling, involving a Latvian sports coach, the court ruled that merely being a member of an organization such as the Nazi Party was not a deportable offense.

Government prosecutors could not be reached for comment late Friday.

However, before the hearing began, Bruce J. Einhorn, a senior trial attorney with the Justice Department’s office of special investigations, said the “case ranks among the strongest in my six years of experience with the department.”

At the hearing, Alexsy Bialas, a former concentration camp inmate, identified Blach as the guard who shot an old man on a march between two camps.

In 1943, Bialas, then 22, was forced to march from the Dachau concentration camp in Germany to the Wiener-Neudorf concentration camp in Austria. Bialas testified that prisoners who could not keep up on what historians call the “Death March” were shot and killed by dog handlers, including Blach.

“I saw him (in a ditch) . . . ,” Bialas testified. “I can’t ever forget. The old chap was looking at me when he died.”

Bialas testified that Blach pulled the old man out of line without warning, hurled him into a ditch and then machine-gunned him to death.

Bialas, who now lives in Niagara Falls, Canada, also identified Blach’s picture from a group of photographs presented by government prosecutors.

‘Credible, Convincing’

“The testimony of an eyewitness, Mr. Bialas, was credible, convincing and persuasive,” Vandello said in his ruling.

Blach’s deportation hearing was an emotional and painful experience for both witnesses and participants.

“It is very hard to be here--very, very hard,” Blach said at the end of the first week of testimony.

Dozens of concentration camp survivors attended the hearing, listening attentively to the testimony. During a break in the proceedings, one woman confronted Blach as he tried to leave the court room.

“How much blood has passed through your hands?” Anna Fischer asked. Blach stared at her but did not answer.

“I felt like spitting in his face,” said Fischer, who works as a docent at the Martyrs Memorial and Museum of the Holocaust in Los Angeles.