XoXoL.org | 01Feb2010 | Lubomyr Prytulak
http://www.xoxol.org/ivan-the-terrible/blurb-biography-of-john-demjanjuk.html
http://www.xoxol.org/dem/blurb.html

BLURB BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN DEMJANJUK, SO FAR

[W.Z. As of the beginning of the Munich trial commencing on 30Nov2009 ... ]

From what the mainstream channels of information have been saying, that blurb biography of John Demjanjuk might run something like this:

John Demjanjuk was convicted by an Israeli court of having been the notorious Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, and was sentenced to death, but was saved from hanging by the discovery that it had been another Ukrainian Ivan — Ivan Marchenko — who had really been Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.


[W.Z. Although the term "Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka" has now become popularized in the news media and recent books,  Dr. Prytulak shows that prior to about 1975 the term had never been used. He refers to the testimony of Jacob Apenszlak (1943), Vasily Grossman (1944), Samuel Rajzman (1945), Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946), Marian Muszkat (1948) and Kalman Teigman and Eliyahu Rosenberg at the Eichman Trial (1961).

Dr. Prytulak further demonstrates that many historians know that "Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka" was a recent creation -- Ben Ferencz, Hannah Arendt, Norman Finkelstein and many others, such that he concludes:]

Blurb biography of John Demjanjuk, version four

John Demjanjuk was convicted by an Israeli court of having been an imaginary Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, and was sentenced to death, but was saved from hanging by the discovery that it had been another Ukrainian Ivan — Ivan Marchenko — who had really been that imaginary Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.  In the course of these events, the segment of the population with access to information beyond what was broadcast by the mass media was aware that the story of Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka was fictitious, but that informed segment said nothing, allowing the myth of Ivan the Terrible to pass unchallenged, content to let John Demjanjuk be hanged for crimes they knew he did not commit.

That might be close to the best blurb about John Demjanjuk that any historian might be able to come up with, so far.