Sharon ex-Nazi guard dies, buried in Hermitage

SHARON, Pa. (AP)

A former Nazi concentration camp guard who had been fighting U.S. attempts to deport him has died, his lawyer says.

Pittsburgh attorney Adrian Roe says 88-year-old Anton Geiser, a longtime Sharon resident, was buried Monday in St. Rose Cemetery in Hermitage.

Geiser, a retired steelworker and father of five, was born in what is now Croatia, came to the U.S. in 1956, and became a naturalized American citizen six years later. He had been living in western Pennsylvania for more than 50 years, but didn’t tell his family about the Nazi service until 2004, when the Justice Department began legal proceedings.

Geiser said he was forced to join the SS at the age of 17, in 1942, and that he never killed anyone. But federal prosecutors said his work as a concentration camp guard made him a party to the persecution of countless men, women and children.