BELLEVUE, Wash. -- Peter Egner stopped answering his phone at his home at Silver Glen Apartments, a retirement community, on Tuesday, but everybody else has been talking about the allegations that tie Egner to a Nazi unit that participated in the murder of more than 17,000 Serbians during World War II.

According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court, 86-year-old Peter Egner served in the Nazi-controlled Security Police and Security Service in German-occupied Belgrade from April 1941 to September 1943.

During the first nine months of his service, Egner, who was born in Yugoslavia, allegedly was part of a Nazi mobile killing unit. The complaint said captured documents show that Egner's unit participated in executing 11,164 people, most of them Jewish men, in the fall of 1941.

But for friend and neighbor Bob Withrow, an image of Egner as anything but a "gentleman" seems impossible.

"He's been very happy here, and joined in and has been very cooperative as far as the community (goes. He is) very well-liked in the community," he said. "I've seen nothing that would indicate to me that Peter has done anything that he shouldn't have done."

Henry Friedman of Mercer Island, however, can only think of Egner as a murderer. For Friedman, who survived the Holocaust, the federal prosecutors' allegations against Egner bring back chilling memories.

"It's about time. It's about time justice caught up with this guy," he said. "I hope he's never had a peaceful night in his life for the crimes he committed."

Although Friedman condemns the alleged killings, Friedman says Egner's crimes begin and end with him.

"There's no guilt by association. He's the one who committed the crime. The children should not feel guilt," he said.

Egner's attorney, Robert Gibbs of Seattle, could not be reached for comment.

Egner has been living at the retirement home for the past three years.