Mechanic of Death: the Case of "Ivan the Terrible"
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Is John Demjaniuk really "Ivan the Terrible'? Yes, say five identification experts. Mechanic of Death: The Case of "Ivan the Terrible" Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer uring 1942 and 1943 they arrived at Treblinka, some Treblinka, writing before the end of the war: fifty miles east of Warsaw, in daily trainloads— Jewish families being "resettled," they were told, and The bedlam lasted only a short while, for soon the door[s] D were slammed shut. The chamber was filled, the motor turned taking with them only the possessions they could carry. Had on and connected with the inflow pipes and, within 25 minutes they looked more closely, they could have seen that the at the most, all lay stretched out dead or, to be more accurate, "transfer station" was something quite different: a single track were standing up dead. Since there was not an inch of free ran by the platform, and the hands on the big station-house space, they just leaned against each other. clock were painted on. Even in death, mothers held their children tightly in their arms. There were no more friends or foes. There was no But as they emerged from the boxcars, the Nazi SS guards more jealousy. All were equal. There was no longer any beauty hurried them along, men steered one way, women and children or ugliness, for they all were yellow from the gas.3 another.2 Inside the "station" they found themselves in a barracks where they were ordered to strip naked. They were After the mass execution, the so-called work Jews were then herded into a large room with benches, where their hair forced to drag out the bodies, remove the gold teeth, and was shorn. (Later it would be baled and used to make felt push the wagon-loaded corpses to the pits. Originally they for the war effort.) Already their possessions were being sorted: were simply dumped and covered with lime and sand, but fountain pens here; eyeglasses there; valuables, cash, clothing, a more efficient disposal system was needed. Therefore, a "grill" each in its place, soon to be shipped to Germany. Scrapbooks was fashioned from railroad tracks and the bodies were burned, and photographs were burned. producing a perpetual haze over the Polish landscape. They were driven outside, naked parents carrying naked Ivan—who had actually volunteered for the gruesome work children in their arms, whipped, urged at a panic-pace by in order to get out of a POW camp—served at Treblinka rifle butts and snarling dogs down a ninety-meter path the for more than a year, during which perhaps as many as a Nazis dubbed Himmelweg, "The Road to Heaven." At the million Jews were executed in this cowardly fashion. Ivan end of the path, out of sight around a bend, was their final served as a mechanic, maintaining and repairing the motor destination: a forbidding stone structure. They were brutally that pumped the carbon monoxide into the death chambers. driven inside by two Ukrainians: Ivan and an assistant, Nikolai. According to contemporary descriptions—including one What happened next was described by a survivor of taken from the 1945 diary of a camp survivor—Ivan was about twenty-five years old; was tall and muscular; and had eyes Joe Nickell, former investigator for a world-famous detective that "seemed kind and gentle."4 However, he was a sadist, agency, is best known for his solution to the Shroud of Turin known to hack off an ear or split skulls with a gas pipe he forgery. He is a collector of antique writing materials and brandished. Since the work-Jews did not know his last name, documents, and is a member of the Manuscript Society as they called him Ivan Grozny, "Ivan the Terrible," after a former well the International Association of Master Penmen, Russian czar who had killed countless Jews. Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting. After the war Ivan disappeared, and over the next three decades his whereabouts were unknown. However, in 1975 the name of man living in Cleveland appeared on a list of John F Fischer is a forensic analyst in a Florida crime suspected Ukrainian war criminals supplied by an informant laboratory whose fields of expertise include microchemical (a Ukrainian living in the United States). Two years later and instrumental analyses. He is also president of a corporation the Immigration and Naturalization Service included the man's specializing in forensic research, especially in the field of laser picture in a photospread (or "photo lineup') sent to Israel technology. His articles have appeared in such publications for the case of Feodor Fedorenko, a former guard at the as Identification News and Law Enforcement Technology. Polish death camp. At the time, the Cleveland man was not even suspected of having been at Treblinka; his photo was 26 FREE INQUIRY merely included as one of seven extras to complete the lineup. had been abandoned ten months before, as an expert Nevertheless, in Israel, Elijahu Rosenberg, who had escaped established—thus discrediting Demjanjuk's alibi. from Treblinka in a 1943 uprising, carefully studied the More than six years later—after he had been stripped of photospread while an investigator from the Nazi War Crimes his American citizenship, deported to Israel, and placed on Unit of the Israel National Police waited patiently. Soon trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity—Demjanjuk Rosenberg identified Fedorenko; then he pointed to another was still blaming his faulty memory, together with his fourth- photo: this was Ivan from Treblinka, he said. grade education, for what the Associated Press termed No, the investigator replied, based on the information he "contradictions in his testimony about his whereabouts during had, the man had not been at Treblinka. But Rosenberg was the war." In the course of a week-long cross-examination, adamant: "I'm identifying him," he insisted. However, he he said, "My tragic mistake is I can't think properly. I don't added, "The picture is not precisely the way I saw him in know how to answer."8 Treblinka; it seems to me this photograph is—more mature."5 The most incriminating evidence against Ivan/John Indeed, the photograph was taken eight years after Demjanjuk—presented at both trials—was an SS identifica- Rosenberg and Ivan had been at the death camp, and was tion card, bearing what appeared to be his photograph and used for the 1951 visa application of John Demjanjuk. Two signature. It surfaced as a result of the efforts of Allan A. other Treblinka survivors were summoned to Israeli police Ryan, Jr., who became a "Nazi hunter" in 1979 when he headquarters to study the photospread. Independently, each took command of the U.S. Department of Justice's newly looked at eight pictures, then pointed to the one Rosenberg created Office of Special Investigations (OSI). When Ryan had selected. Each identified it as that of Ivan from Treblinka. inherited the INS file on Demjanjuk and discovered that three As it turned out, Demjanjuk had anglicized his first name; Treblinka survivors had identified him from a photospread, he had been born Ivan Demjanjuk at Dub Macharenzi in he cabled Moscow. Ryan knew that in 1944 the Soviets had the Ukraine, in 1920. A big, beefy fellow, he matched the captured the SS facility, Trawniki, where death-camp guards description of Ivan from Treblinka; and, curiously, as if he had been trained, and he thought the Soviets might have had simply resumed his former livelihood, he was working retained the captured records. as a motor mechanic at the Ford Motor Company plant in In January of 1980 the OSI received from the Soviet Cleveland. archives a photocopy of the incriminating Trawniki ID card. Moreover, he had lied about his background when he Together with the name Ivan Demjanjuk was the information immigrated to America, covering up his Russian military that he was born on April 3, 1920, that his father's name service and subsequent capture by the Germans with the claim was Nikoli, and that he had a scar on his back. All were that he had been a farmer—in Poland—during the war. true of John Demjanjuk, as he admitted in U.S. federal court, In 1981, Demjanjuk was given a chance to explain his but he was evasive. Was it his signature? "I don't think so." reason for lying. The opportunity arose when the United States His photograph? "I cannot say. Possibly it is me." Department of Justice prosecuted him in federal court in Because the eyewitness Rosenberg (who had picked him Cleveland, seeking to revoke his American citizenship. out of the photospread in Israel) had testified that Ivan's eyes Testifying in Ukrainian, through an interpreter, Demjanjuk had been gray, Demjanjuk's attorney queried his client: said he had been motivated by fear of repatriation: "Because I had been a soldier in the Red Army and there was a regulation "What color are your eyes?" that if you were going to be taken prisoner of war, you had "Blue." "What color were your eyes in 1942?" to shoot yourself, and I hadn't done so."6 "Blue." However, the prosecution attempted to show, by the testimony of various federal officials, that by 1951—when his visa had been granted—Demjanjuk had little cause to fear repatriation. (In fact, Demjanjuk admitted that his "strongest fear" had been during 1945 to 1947.) On the other hand, he would have had an obvious motive for lying if he had been on the staff of a Nazi death camp: No such person would have been eligible to receive a displaced-person visa for admittance to the United States.