Judge rules man helped kill Jews // Suburbanite tied to Nazi camp massacre

As the Russian army neared the Germans' Treblinka concentrationcamp in Poland, the camp's SS guards began massacring hundreds ofremaining prisoners, and Bruno Hajda took part in that slaughter, afederal judge ruled Thursday.

Rejecting the story of the 73-year old retired machinist fromSchiller Park, who claimed he was a victim of "mistaken identity,"U.S. District Judge David Coar said the documentary evidence from aweeklong trial last month showed that Hajda "unquestionably" had beena "watchman" at the camp.

Coar said that the scores of pages of captured German documents,and materials from post-war Russian war crimes tribunals, supportedthe government's contention that Hajda, a Pole who immigrated herefrom Germany, had served the Germans at the Treblinka labor camp,just down the road from the notorious Treblinka death camp.In a 21-page opinion, Coar also noted that after the war, whenHajda's father and sister were denying charges that they hadcollaborated with the Germans, both acknowledged under oath thatHajda had "joined the SS." That was the German security andintelligence unit whose duties included wiping out Jews.Captured work rosters placed Hajda at Treblinka during theperiod in July, 1944, when remaining prisoners were being massacred,Coar said.And testimony by a fellow guard, given during a Russian warcrimes trial, had Hajda participating in the massacre, next to openmass graves, the judge's opinion said.Eli Rosenbaum, head of the Justice Department's Nazi-huntingOffice of Special Investigations, ripped Hajda's story that he, too,had been a "victim of persecution" and had been held at a Germanlabor camp at Pustkow, Poland.Rosenbaum said Hajda's claim "is an affront" to both thethousands of other Poles who died in such camps and to "the millionsof other victims of the Holocaust."Michael Kotzin, director of the Jewish Community RelationsCouncil, said, "No matter how much time may have passed, those whoparticipated in Nazi atrocities must be held responsible for whatthey did."The civil proceeding stripped Hajda of his citizenship on theground that to gain entry to the United States, Hajda lied to coverup his wartime activities.Hajda's attorney, George Collins, said Coar's ruling will beappealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, thegovernment is expected to begin deportation proceedings.