FWD: The Demjanjuk Case, Part II

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            However, this argument only strengthened the point that
"Marchenko" was a name Demjanjuk, for quite obvious reasons, sometimes
resorted to when he was in need of an alias. As a name in his family, it
came naturally to him.

            In the same written decision that freed Demjanjuk, the Israeli
court stressed that in its review of the case, it found compelling evidence
that Demjanjuk was far from innocent; that he had served as an SS guard at
the Sobibor death camp in Poland, where 250,000 Polish Jews were killed, and
at Majdanek, Flossenburg and Regensburg concentration camps.

New Evidence:

An Incriminating Paper Trail

            OSI's new evidence, ferreted out from Soviet-era archives,
appears to confirm these findings. In addition to the "Dienstausweis"
identity card that places him at two concentration camps, a disciplinary
report turned up in a Lithuanian government archive. Filled out by an SS
sergeant at the Majdanek concentration camp on Jan. 20, 1943, the report
says Wachmann No. 1393, named "Deminjuk," and another guard, were given 25
lashes for leaving their posts to buy onions and salt. OSI investigators
discovered two transfer rosters from Trawniki, both held in Russian
archives, one listing "Iwan Demianiuk," the other "Iwan Demianjuk," both
with ID No. 1393. They found a duty roster from the Flossenburg camp and a
list of 117 Flossenburg guards in German archives and indicating the
presence of guard No. 1393, "Demenjuk." And, in German records, they
uncovered an armory log from Flossenburg reporting the issuance of a rifle
and bayonet to Wachmann "Demianiuk" on Oct. 8, 1943. "There can be no
question," prosecutors wrote in a trial brief, "that these seven documents
refer to the Defendant."

            As living witnesses could no longer be found to testify in the
latest trial, the OSI's case is based heavily on this archival material.
Edward Stutman, a federal prosecutor, called special attention at the trial
to the identity card, issued at the SS-run Trawniki Training Camp to new
arrival Iwan Demjanjuk, whose face is pictured in the upper right-hand
corner, in black and white.

            The card lists his job as Wachmann, or guard; his date and place
of birth, father's name, national origin (Ukraine) and a physical
description, including a scar on the back, not unlike the one marking John
Demjanjuk of Cleveland. It also has the holder's signature and places him at
the death camp in Sobibor.

            Despite the defense's attempts to debunk the documents'
authenticity, handwriting specialists and other experts took the stand
during the trial to authenticate them, particularly the Dienstausweis, the
identity pass.

            "The case is as clear as the scar on the defendant's back,''
Stutman told U.S. District Judge Paul R. Matia, who will decide whether to
revoke Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship.

"They Killed Jews

For A Living"

            Sobibor was a highly efficient killing camp, historians say,
operated by just a few dozen members of the SS overseeing about 120 guards.
Most Jews were gassed the same day they arrived. Anyone serving there, in
any capacity at all, Jewish groups argue, was an accomplice to systematic,
massive-scale murder. "If someone worked at a Ford plant, they made cars for
a living," said Neal Sher, who headed the OSI from 1982 to 1994. "If someone
worked at Sobibor, they killed Jews for a living."

            Treblinka, Sobibor, and Trawniki were in fact related to one
another, historians have pointed out, and an individual guard could have
served at all three. Each camp had played a major part in Operation
Reinhard, the Nazi plan for exterminating the Jews of Poland. Under this
plan, three camps were built: at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. These were
not concentration or labor camps; their only function was annihilation.

            Over the eighteen months in which they operated, 600,000 people
were murdered at Belzec and 250,000 at Sobibor, in addition to the 800,000
killed at Treblinka. Those who survived were among the tiny fraction singled
out to serve as slaves in the operation of the killing facility.

            In addition to these slaves, and the German SS men who were in
charge, the manpower included a third group, the *Wachmanner, or guards, who
did most of the actual killing. "It was they who rounded up the Jews in the
various ghettos, transported them to the camps, drove them with whips and
clubs to the gas chambers, turned on the gas, shot the ones unable to walk,
and supervised the slaves who carried the bodies to pits for burial and
burning," wrote Joshua Muravchik, in a 1997 issue of Commentary (Demjanjuk:
Summing Up).

            The *Wachmanner-ethnic Germans, Ukrainians, Russians,
Lithuanians, and others-were recruited from among captured Soviet soldiers
in German POW camps. They were sent first to Trawniki, a base camp and
training center. In addition to staffing the Operation Reinhard death camps,
Trawniki-trained *Wachmanner were also assigned to various other
concentration and labor camps.

            One part of the Soviet evidence-the Trawniki identity
card-dovetailed with the eyewitness evidence. Whatever his name in real
life, Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka was surely a Trawniki-trained
*Wachmann. What did not fit so well was the entry on the card showing a
posting of Ivan Demjanjuk to Sobibor, not Treblinka. But a seemingly small
detail removed that difficulty. Demjanjuk's posting to Sobibor was dated
March 27, 1943.

            Since the vast bulk of the killing at Treblinka was accomplished
between July 1942 and January 1943, Demjanjuk could have earned his
notoriety as Ivan the Terrible there and then been transferred to Sobibor in
March. The two camps were only 100 miles apart, and *Wachmanner were often
transferred.

            Demjanjuk, old and frail at 81, was expected to testify during
his trial but never appeared in court. His attorney declined to say why. The
defense called only one witness, Demjanjuk's son, 35, who testified for only
a matter of minutes, saying that his father had never told him he had aided
the Nazis. The defense then rested its case.

"We Will Pursue Them To The Ends Of

The EarthÉ"

            A verdict on the Demjanjuk case will likely be issued before the
summer's end, informed sources say. Government lawyers say their goal is to
have the retired auto worker stripped permanently of his American
citizenship and deported. If Demjanjuk is ordered out of the country, he
would be allowed to pick his own destination, but it would be up to the
country in question to decide whether to take him.

            However, any government that wants to bring a criminal case
against Demjanjuk-including the government of Israel-could ask at any time
for his extradition.

            Was John Demjanjuk the victim of a case of mistaken identity?
For most people, the answer will never be known with full certainty.
However, for some OSI officials, and many others closely acquainted with the 
case, the fact that
eighteen survivors and one former SS male nurse who had worked at Treblinka,
separately and positively identified the Cleveland auto worker as the
vicious Treblinka guard, remains a powerful indictment that-all arguments to
the contrary-is impossible to shrug off.

            But whether Demjanjuk was, in fact, the demonic Ivan The
Terrible, or "merely" a low-level Nazi death camp guard, "the fact remains
that he has much blood on his hands, and lied about it to get into this
country," said one Justice Department official.

            "We will pursue him and others like him into old age, if
necessary, to locations thousands of miles from the scenes of their crimes.
We will pursue them to the ends of the earth. They won't get away with it."


Kurt-Werner Pörtner