August 13, 1987
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THE OIVL Y ENGLISH-JEWISH ~VEEKL Y IN R.l. AND SOL'THEAST MASS. XXIV, NUMBER 37 THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 1987 Holocaust, A-Bomb ==========Demjanjuk Sticks To Alibi Survivors Linked by David Landau Reason For Lying proceedings - that he had never To The Americans actually been in Sobibor (nor in American cleri c participating, said (JTA) - J ohn Demjanjuk, into by Robert Israel Demj anjuk says he li ed to T reblinka). (JTA) - The survivo rs of t he in an interview here. "Now, when his second wee k of testimony in Americans in order to avoid being we return to our countri es, we his own defense, is plainly not But Sobibor was an unfo rtunate atomic bomb dropped here 42 repatriated to the USSR. The choice if it really was arbitrary as years ago are both distinct from must see to it that we continue our going to be broken by the prosecution says he lied in order to interfaith wo rk ." prosecution in one sudden collapse the defendant claims, fo r the town and connected to the survivors of conceal his true identity - Ivan of Sobibor hosted another the Nazi Holocaust, according to T he religious leaders have of his alibi. Rather, as the long the Terrible, butcher of Treblinka. offe red proposals to solve court sessions proceed, it seems notorious concentration camp. Rabbi J oseph Glaser, executive His claim to have lived outside And Sobibor is also me ntioned on international conflicts such as clear that State Attorney Yona vice president of the Central Blattman and his able assistant, Ru ssia prior to and during the war, the defendant's alleged SS Conference of American Rabbis. Demjanjuk says, left the ~~:[!~;i~rm:n~ac:h~t ~~~l~t:r Michael Shaked, hope to chip identity card, as the camp he was " In the case of the Jews, it was a Americans no reason to suspect sent to on completion of his SS calculated, cold- blooded plan to they conducted a silent vigil for away at the accused man's story, him of membership in the Red wo rl d peace and rang a peace bell bit by painstaking bit, and in this guard training at Trawniki. murder an entire people," he Army, even though he was of Demjanjuk maintains that the explained in an interview here. "In at the Enryaku Temple. way cause it to crumble eventually conscription age at the start of the Glaser said wherever he has in the eyes of the three-j udge card, a central piece of evidence in the case of the J apanese, the war. the case, is a KGB forge ry as the traveled throughout J apan he has Jerusalem court. bombings we re a cruel act of war." In fact, he says, he did serve in Soviet Union's revenge against However, he added, "the been asked about the Nazi The court for its part is the Red Army. He claims to have Holocaust. watching attentively to see him. survivors of both events are linked whether the prosecution's feared repatriation because of his But perhaps, Shaked pressed by the fact they have suffe red and "The Japanese have told me, cumulative assault wi ll undermine all eged membershi p in the on, Demjanjuk chose the town of have a responsibi li ty to tell their 'Our witnesses are dying off, and the defendant, or whether, after turncoat Vlasov army, a Russian Sobibor because he was indeed story to humanity to insure many of them are unwilling to POW di vision that fo ught on the fami liar with it - it being fairly neither will ever happen again." share their stori es with others.' 1 his gruell ing wee ks in the witness German side. In Russia he would told them this is true wi th t he box, Demjanjuk can emerge with close to Treblinka - and because Glaser was in J ap·an to attend his story, though bruised and have been considered a traitor and he preferred for obvious reasons two major gatherings. On Jewish survivors, too. Often I have buffeted, still sufficie ntly intact to would have been executed. not to cite Treblinka itself. Thursday, he joined an estimated hea rd survivors of the camps say avoid a conviction. Demjanjuk's lie may have been Demjanjuk replied that the 55,000 people in the Peace that people look at them in understandable in the di sbelief and that people do not Last Tuesday, Judge Dov Levin friend had suggested Sobibor Memorial Park here fo r a circumstances, Shaked conceded, because it had a substantial believe their stori es. But they are gravely and repeatedly warned memorial service for the victims of but why did he choose t he town Ukrai nian population. o th the bomb that devastated the city. ur wi tnesses and we must listen." Demjanjuk at he was Sobibor as his false residence in Contradicting his previous In recent months, several undertaking a "grave On Wednesday, Glaser laid a Poland? Why not choose a place testimony, he does not now claim wreath at the Memorial reports have described responsibility" by not giving direct he claims to have been familiar anti·Semi tic publications in answers to the prosecutor. that Sobibor was a misspelling on Centopath in memory of the with, such as Rowno, the POW his U.S. immigration form, and bomb's dead. Japan. Schudrich has been The questions, though camp in Poland where he spent that the town in fact chosen was The rabbi also was participating monitoring these publications. seemingly technical, were key to two weeks, or Chelm, where he Sambor. He now says that only in the World Conference on "To date," Schudrich said, his wartime alibi. They focused on claims to have been imprisoned 18 years later in the U.S., possibly Religion and Peace, which has "there have been at least a dozen his admittedly false entries on his months? after proceedings against him had brought together 500 religious books that are inflammatory in U.S. immigration application, The prosecution placed begun, he tried to find Sobibor on representatives from various nature. Two of those books, by submitted at a displaced persons Demjanjuk at the Treblinka death a map. When he was unable to branches of Judaism, Christianity, Masami Uno, have sold close to camp after World War II. The camp during that 18 month period, find it he presumed that the choice Buddhism, Shinto, Islam and 800,000 copies." defendant had written that he where he is accused of driving must have been Sambor. Confucianism. One of Uno's books, "If You spent the war years as a farmer in hundreds of thousands of Jews to Refers To The The conference began last week Understand the Jews, You Can Poland in the village of Sobibor. their deaths in the gas chamber. Fedorenko Case at Mt. Hiei in Kyoto, a site sacred Understand the World," talks Questioned about the actual Demjanjuk claims his choice of To press his point home further, to Buddhists. The participants, about "international Jewish process of filling out that form, Sobibor was arbitrary. Aided by a Shaked referred to the case of who also included Rabbi Michael capital" that has damaged the Demjanjuk seemed to be avoiding helpful friend at the DP camp, he Feodor Fedorenko, a convicted Schudrich of the Jewish Japanese economy. _ answering, incurring Levin's says he picked any Polish town Treblinka guard recently executed community of Tokyo, then caine "There has historicaily been wrath. "We will take that into that came to mind. But he insisted in the USSR, whose history here for the ceremony and great curiosity about Jews in account" Levin thundered. - repeatedly during last week's (Continued on page 9) travelled to Nagasaki before Japan," Schudrich said. Jews are returning to Kyoto. an enigma to the Japanese and Interfaith Work they are curious about Jews. Must Continue That's one of the reasons these Pollard Scores 1$raeli, U.S. Leaders "There has been a great feeling books have sold so well. But it's {JTA) Convicted spy the now disbanded Lekem the Israelis." of camaraderie among the important to note that what Jonathan Pollard claims the espionage agency that recruited Pollard claims that Weinberger participants," Glaser, the only (Continued on page 9) classified U.S. information he and directed Pollard. has "approved such a radical gave and sold to Israel was for an Jonathan Pollard, 32, received a pro-Arab tilt in U.S. Middle East Israeli-sanctioned high and noble life term in March for his policy" by accepting the Arab Yiddish Eldercamp Hamish cause "pertaining to the covenant espionage activities. A former claim that Israel's strategic villue and survival." civilian analyst for the U.S. Navy, is marginal, by selling He adds in a 14-page he told the federal court that he "ultra-sophisticated" arms and by handwritten letter from federal had come to realize that rather denying Israel "critical prison here, published by the St. than spy, he should have taken his information needed to neutralize Louis Jewish Light, that Israel concerns that Israel wasn't the new generation of Soviet unfairly repudiated him and left rece1vmg enough security weapons being deployed along her him and his wife Anne to take the information through the channels northern border.'' rap. of the Navy and as far as the Regretting that he broke the Pollard's letter is the first President. law, Pollard nonetheless writes communication with a U.S. Jewish He added that he regretted that "after months of agonizing newspaper since he was sacrificing his wife "on the altar of .