An Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) deportation hearing against accused Nazi war criminal Vilas A. Hazners went into its third week here today, it was reported by Frederic Dicker, reporter for the Times-Union. Several witnesses from Israel have testified that Hazners, 73, of Dresden, N.Y., some 70 miles north of here, “led the whole operation” at the Riga police station in Latvia during the Nazi occupation.
Witnesses also testified that they saw Hazners pushing and beating Jews and forcing Jews to move inside the burning Choral Synagogue in Riga, where as many as 1000 Latvian Jews may have died.
WITNESSES PROVIDE TESTIMONY
Jacob Wagenheim, 59, of Herzliya, said he heard Hazners giving orders to punish people in the Riga Jewish ghetto. “They were beaten according to his order and many disappeared,” he said. Wagenheim, who said he was a prisoner in the ghetto, often saw Hazners there. “He didn’t talk, he screamed,” the Israeli, speaking softly in Yiddish, testified. Last year in Israel, police authorities showed Wagenheim several pictures of suspected war criminals. He said he “immediately recognized” two pictures of Hazners, Dicker reported.
Meyer Loewenstein, 63, of Yaffo Daled, said he was taken to the ghetto with his family from his Riga home in early August, 1941. While returning to the ghetto from a forced work detail in October, 1941, he was forced to stand in line as guards searched the prisoners for food. While there, Loewenstein testified, he saw Hazners dressed in a Latvian army uniform with a revolver at his side. “It was just seconds but I succeeded in seeing him (Hazners) pushing and shaking the people,” Loewenstein said.
Ber Mandelkorn of Tel Aviv, testified that Hazners was the Latvian police officer who, in July 1941, beat him so hard that “two or three” of his teeth fell from his mouth a few days later.
In addition, Mandelkorn, speaking in Hebrew, testified he saw Hazners, armed with a revolver and dressed in a military uniform “push people inside” the burning Choral Synagogue. “He pushed the people inside. People went out and he yelled at them and pushed them back into the synagogue,” Mandelkorn said. The INS provided an interpreter for translations from Hebrew and Yiddish.
JUDGE REFUSES LINE OF QUESTIONING
Hazners is a nationally prominent Latvian emigre who once made broadcasts for the U.S.-sponsored Voice of America and for Radio Liberty. He is accused by the INS of having entered the United States in 1956 from Hamburg, Germany by failing to declare his role in Nazi-sponsored war crimes during World War II. If found guilty, Hazners, who is not a citizen, but who holds permanent resident alien status, could be deported.
Hazners’ attorney, Ivars Berzins of Babylon, I.I., has attempted to link the three witnesses to Soviet Communist authorities and to the Soviet secret police, KGB. He claimed the government’s charges have “made in Moscow” written all over them. However, the IRS Judge, Anthony De Gato, has refused to allow Berzins to pursue that line of questioning.
REPORT SLOPPY INS PREPARATION
Meanwhile, the Times-Union, which has given extensive coverage of the trial, reported that the INS’ nationwide effort to deport suspected Nazi war criminals has been severely damaged by sloppy preparation of cases and those responsible for the breakdowns may be disciplined. Among the cases endangered are those of Hazners and two who are alleged to have been his subordinates in Latvia: Boleslav Maikovskis, now on trial in New York City, and Karlis Detlavs, whose trial is scheduled to begin today in Baltimore.
The government’s principal problem, the Times-Union reported, is believed to be a lack of coordination of the various prosecutions which may eventually number more than 20 and the incompetence of some of the INS authorities.
Attempts are now underway the INS Washington headquarters to correct the situation and disciplinary action may result against the lawyers, investigators and administrators responsible, it was learned. Martin Mendelsohn of Washington, a lawyer in private practice, was named last month special chief prosecutor by David W. Crosland, the INS general counsel, to spearhead the effort. The government has been preparing the cases for more than a year.
“I am dismayed at what has been happening,” Mendelsohn, who attended the Hazner hearing last week, said from his Washington office. Cros-land said he was unfamiliar with Mendelsohn’s view but would speak to him soon about it, the Times-Union reported. Crosland conceded the INS had suffered from “diffused responsibility” in the war crimes cases but he said he had taken several steps, including the appointment of Mendelsohn, to correct the problem.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
