A former commander of a Nazi-allied unit in World War II has been found living in Minnesota, according to documents discovered by the Associated Press.

Now 94 years old, Michael Karvoc emigrated to the United States in 1948, gaining entry to the country by lying about his military service. Karvoc apparently led the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, which became part of the Galician Division of the infamous Nazi SS, the paramilitary organization that carried many of the crimes against humanity ordered by the Nazis.

Karvoc himself seems to have been an officer in command during a massacre that killed at least 40 villagers in what is now Chlaniow, Poland in 1944.

"It was all like a trance: setting the fires, the shooting, the destroying. Later, when we were passing in file through the destroyed village, I could see the dead bodies of the killed residents: men, women, children," said Vasyl Malazhenski, a soldier who served under Karvoc at the time, in testimony he gave in 1967.

A former villager told a communist inquest in 1948 a similar story. "The Ukrainians were setting fire to the buildings. You could hear machine-gun shots and grenade explosions. Shots could be heard inside the village and on the outskirts. They were making sure no one escaped," said Stanislawa Lipska.

Karvoc has also been tied to another massacre in 1943, in the village of Pidhaitsi in what is now Ukraine. In all, 21 people, including nine children were killed.

"When we came out we saw the smoldering ashes of the burned house and our neighbors searching for the dead. My mother had my brother clasped to her chest. This is how she was found -- black and burned," said Heorhiy Syvyi, who was 9 years old at the time.

Karvoc was discovered after incriminating evidence was unearthed in a Ukrainian-language memoir he wrote in 1995 was examined by amateur Nazi hunters. Neither Karvoc nor his family has responded to questions from the media.

If an investigation by the U.S. government corroborates the evidence against Karvoc, he could be deported to face trial in Germany. The United States has deported some 100 hidden Nazis since the end of World War II.