Justice Department officials today confirmed that the Office of Special Investigations has begun deportation proceedings against a 65-year-old California man accused of membership in the Nazi Waffen SS and serving as a guard at two concentration camps during World War II.
An “order to show cause” was filed last week by the Justice Department against Bruno Karl Blach of La Habra, a suburb near Los Angeles. The OSI alleges that Blach entered the country illegally in 1956, having lied to authorities about his wartime activities. Blach maintains that he was in the German army and air force, according to OSI officials involved in the case.
The OSI alleges that Blach, a native of Czechoslovakia, voluntarily joined the Nazi Party in 1939 and in June 1940 became a member of the Waffen SS. It is further alleged that Blach served as a guard and a dog handler in the Dachau death camp between 1940 and 1943, and at the Wiener-Neudorf camp in Austria from 1943 to 1945.
Furthermore, the OSI alleges that Blach participated in the spring of 1945 evacuation march from Wiener Neudorf to Mauthausen, in which numerous persons died, in an effort to flee from advancing forces. He never applied for U.S. citizenship and has remained a resident alien in the U.S.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
