Demjanjuk Jerusalem Trial | 06Feb1990 | Myroslav Dragan
/tp/Demjanjuk2009/dragan19900206TrawnikiForgery.html
DOCUMENTATION OF THE FORGERY
OF JOHN DEMJANJUK’S
TRAWNIKI ID CARD
Draft by M.J. Dragan, M.D.
February 6, 1990
CONTENTS
List of Chapters
(Within Letter to West German Historian, Dr. Wolfgang
Scheffler) ............ i - iii
List of Groupings
of Documents and Exhibits
.................................................................... iv
- v
List of Documents and Exhibits
.......................................................................................
vi- xix
Letter to Dr. Scheffler, Who Testified at the Jerusalem Trial
to the
Authenticity of John
Demjanjuk’s Trawniki ID Card. Text of Letter Documents Forgery of this
ID Card ......... 1 - 57
Facsimili of Documents
................................................................................................
1 - 213
Exhibits
...........................................................................................................................
A - J
LIST OF CHAPTERS
(Within 57-page Letter to Dr. Scheffler)
1.Introduction
..........................................................................................................................................................
1
2.
Imprints of Outdated and Forged Seal of SS-Brigadefuehrer Globocnik
Present on Trawniki ID Cards .................. 2
3.
Even SSPF Globocnik Could Not Use a Seal Invalidated More Than a
Year Earlier .............................................. 3
4.
The Trawniki Camp Commander, an Effective Administrator, Would Have
Prevented the Use of Illegal ID Cards .. 4
5.
Forged Seal of the Chef
der Ordnungspolizei on Trawniki ID Cards
....................................................................
6
6.
Suspect Zweigstelle
Trawniki Seal
......................................................................................................................
8
7.
Forged Juchnowskij’s ID Photograph
.................................................................................................................
10
8.
Slang Used Instead of Proper Military Expressions in the Forged
Police Rank Stamp on Trawniki ID Card
.......... 11
9.
Was it SS-Sergeant Teufel or the Soviet Forgers Who Forgot his Rank?
............................................................. 12
10.
Irreconcilable Historical Asynchrony in Trawniki ID Cards Reveals
Forgers’ Hand:
- Globocnik validates Trawniki ID cards months after he was dismissed
by Himmler ...................................... 14
- Trawniki ID cards allegedly validated by the SS, one year before it
took over the camp.................................15
- Trawniki ID cards allegedly prestamped and presigned months before
establishment of the camp
................. 15
11.
Globocnik’s Chief of Staff, an Effective Administrator, Would Not
Have Validated Outdated Globocnik’s Seal
.. 18
12.
Globocnik’s Chief of Staff, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer H. Hoefle, Demoted
by the Forgers on Trawniki ID Card
...... 19
13.
The Only Possible Date of Issue of Wolembachow’s ID Card, July 20,
1942, is Tenuous for Many Reasons:
- Captain Hoefle could not
presign
Wolembachow’s ID card
........................................................................
21
- Captain Hoefle could not sign Wolembachow’s ID card
.............................................................................
22
- Sergeant Teufel would not have had, in one day, a new rank stamp
ready by July 20, 1942 ......................... 23
- Teufel could not obtain sergeant’s rank rubber stamp until several
weeks after his promotion took place
...... 23
14.
Proof Presented that Trawniki ID Cards Were Not Prestamped
.......................................................................
24
15.
Alteration and Erasure of Third Reich ID Documents Was Considered
and Punished as Forgery
.......................
26
16.
Soviet-provided Trawniki ID Cards Are Laced with Fictitious
Geographical Names .......................................... 28
17.
Why Did Soviet Forgers Use Fictitious Geographical Names on the
Trawniki ID Cards? .................................. 29
18.
Analysis of the Printing Technique and of the Organizational
Structure of the Trawniki Camp by
Dieter Lehner Documents Forgery of Trawniki ID Cards
........................................................................................
31
19.
A Peculiar Lettering Suggests that a Warsaw Underground Press,
Captured by the Red Army,
Was Used to Print Trawniki ID Cards.
...................................................................................................................
33
20.
Fives Versions of the Alleged Demjanjuk ID Card
............................................................................................
35
21.
Jerusalem Court Exhibits Indicate that SS Paybooks But Not ID Cards
Were Used
at Treblinka by Trawniki Guards:
- Military dog tags were
issued for
Trawniki Trainees
....................................................................................
37
- SS paybooks were issued to Trawniki guards at the Treblinka Labor
Camp ............................................... 38
22.
Were ID Cards Issued For the Trawniki Guards?
.............................................................................................
40
23.
Statistical Analysis Points to Soviet Forgery of Trawniki ID Cards
....................................................................
42
24.
Failure to Probe Suspect Provenance of Trawniki ID Cards at the
Jerusalem Trial ............................................. 44
24a.Past
Soviet Forgeries.
....................................................................................................................................
45
25.
The Need for Further Historical Research
........................................................................................................
47
26.
Other Deficiencies of Trawniki ID Cards Which Might Be of Interest
to You .................................................... 48
27.
Why the Alleged ID Trawniki Cards Were ”Crudely" Forged.
..........................................................................
50
28.
Why Additional Forged Trawniki ID Cards Were Provided by the
U.S.S.R ...................................................... 51
29.
The Inept Defense of Demjanjuk
......................................................................................................................
52
30.
Other Unanswered Questions About the Treblinka II Camp
.........................................................................
....53
31.
Tragic Injustice at Majdanek
............................................................................................................................
56
LIST OF GROUPINGS OF DOCUMENTS AND EXHIBITS
1. Facsimili of alleged Trawniki ID cards, all issued in late 1942 two
validated with a Globocnik
defunct hyphenless
seal ............................................................................................................................................
vi
2. Authenticated use (until mid-1941) of erroneously hyphenless seal by
Globocnik ................................................... vi
3. Authenticated use (from mid-1941 onwards) of corrected hyphenated
seal by Globocnik ...................................... vi
4. Analysis of outdated (by eighteen months) and crudely forged,
unhyphenated Globocnik seal on
Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards, allegedly issued and used in the
fall of 1942 and onwards .................................. vii
5. Analysis of other seals and stamps on Soviet-provided Trawniki ID
cards shows each of them to
have been carelessly forged.
.....................................................................................................
..............................
vii
6. Analysis of printing techniques of Soviet-provided ID cards and of
documents manufactured by Polish
Resistance suggests that a camera-ready mechanical of Trawniki ID card
was perhaps made on a Polish
Underground linotype captured by the Soviet Army
................................................................................................
viii
7. Five different versions of Demjanjuk ID card
........................................................................................................
ix
8. Forged Juchnowskij photograph
...........................................................................................................................
x
9. Administrative inconsistencies on Trawniki ID cards
..............................................................................................
x
10. The Prosecution’s allegation about sloppiness of SS Administration
contradicted by authentic
documents ............ xii
11. Historical asynchronies of Trawniki ID cards
.....................................................................................................
xii
12. Inappropriate military ranks on Trawniki ID cards
............................................................................................
xiii
13. Invalidating alterations on Trawniki ID cards
....................................................................................................
xiv
14. Documentation of military unworthiness and security risk of
Trawniki guards ......................................................
xv
15. Other Soviet forgeries
......................................................................................................................................
xv
16. Doubtful credibility of Holocaust survivors
........................................................................................................
xvi
17. Fictitious localities listed on Trawniki ID cards
.................................................................................................
xvii
18. Ineffective defense of Demjanjuk
....................................................................................................................
xviii
19. Jerusalem court exhibits indicate that no ID cards were issued to
Trawniki guards at Treblinka ......................... xviii
20. Archeological findings are consistent with euthanasia (but not
shooting) being practiced
at Treblinka’s Lazaret
............................................................................................................................................
xix
21. Jerusalem court exhibits indicate that ID cards were issued only to
Trawniki guards
whose duty required frequent
travel ........................................................................................................................
xix
22. Miscellaneous documents and exhibits.
.............................................................................................................
xix
LIST OF DOCUMENTS AND EXHIBITS
document
& exhibit
page
Facsimili of alleged Trawniki ID cards all issued in late 1942
(two validated with a Globocnik defunct hyphenless seal)
1. Alleged Bondarenko’s Trawniki ID card
.....................................................................................................
88
- 89
cop: 8, 9,
11, 12,
33, 37,
50.
cop = cited on page: ”cop"
indicates pages of the text
in the letter to Scheffler where the above exhibit is cited.
2. Alleged Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID card
.................................................................................................
90
- 91
cop: 9, 11,
14, 15,
17,
18, 20, 33, 50.
3. Alleged Juchnowskij’s Trawniki ID card
.....................................................................................................
92
- 93
cop: 9, 11,
33,
50.
3a. Alleged Demjanjuk’s Trawniki ID card
.....................................................................................................
94
- 95
cop: 8, 11,
12, 15,
16, 33.
Authenticated use (until mid-1941) of erroneously hyphenless seal by
Globocnik
4. Examples of authenticated, brief use of erroneously unhyphenated
seal and stationery by the
SS- Brigadefuehrer Odilo Globocnik from Feb. 3 until March 4,1941
..................................................................
1- 4
cop: 2, 23,
3.
5. O. Globocnik’s personnel file indicates only eight years of
schooling
..................................................................
186
cop: 2.
Authenticated use (from mid-1941 onwards) of corrected hyphenated seal
by Globocnik
6. Examples of authenticated use of grammatically correct, hyphenated
seal and stationery
by O. Globocnik from Aug. 5, 1941 onwards
....................................................................................................
5 - 24
cop: 2, 14,
16, 17,
18, 23.
Analysis of outdated (by eighteen months) and crudely forged,
unhyphenated Globocnik seal on
Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards, allegedly issued and used in the
fall of 1942 and onwards
7. Transparencies of seal imprints prove forgery of O. Globocnik’s seal
on Trawniki ID cards. To see the
difference between authentic and forged imprints, superimpose
transparencies Exhibits A over B
...................... 40 -
41
cop: 47.
8. Third Reich’s wartime Regulations Manual indicates that outdated or
defunct seals such as the
unhyphenated seal of O. Globocnik had to be delivered to and destroyed
at the Spandau Arsenal .................
163 -164
cop: 3.
9. ”The Case of a Missing Hyphen", an easy-to-read article describing
Soviet forgery
of Demjanjuk’s ID card
..................................................................................................................................
42 - 55
cop: 47, 51.
Analysis of other seals and stamps on Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards
shows each
of them to
have been carelessly forged
10. Analysis of the authentic Ordnungspolizei
(Der Beauftragte) seal
imprint
in R. Reiss’ SS paybook from
Trawniki ..................................................................................................................
84
cop: 6, 7.
11. Analysis of the forged Ordrzungspolizei
(Der Beauftragte) seal
imprint on Juchnowskij’s ID
card .................... 85
cop: 6, 7.
12. Examples of authentic Zweigstelle
Trawniki seal imprints
........................................................................
107-108
cop: 8.
13. Premature use (by about twelve months) of seal with a suspect
Waffen SS subscript is seen
on a high resolution photo of Demjanjuk’s ID card
..................................................................................................
56
cop: 4.
14. Analysis of suspect Zweigstelle Trawniki seal imprints on the
Soviet-provided ID cards
of Demjanjuk and Bondarenko
...................................................................................................................
109 - 110
cop: 8.
15. Examples of German WW II multiple issue seals
.......................................................................................
86 - 87
cop: 7.
16. Two examples illustrate the range of over 200 various types of
German ID cards studied:
those of H. Himmler and an East European POW slave laborer
...............................................................................
34
cop: 47.
Analysis of printing techniques of Soviet-provided ID cards and of
documents manufactured
by Polish Resistance
suggests that a camera-ready mechanical of Trawniki ID card was
perhaps made on a Polish
Underground linotype captured by the Soviet Army
17. Book by D. Lehner documents that Trawniki ID cards were printed
with an offset
technique, reserved during WW II for important documents only, utilized
by a few, selected,
state-run printing factories in the Altreich, and then unavailable in
the Lublin District in Poland .........................
Exhibit H
cop: 30
18. Facsimile of "Czech-type" "t” font used by one of the Polish
Underground printshops ....................................... 167
cop: 32.
19. Facsimile of ”Czech-type" "t" font used in printing of Trawniki ID
and Personnel Index Cards ................. 165 - 166
cop: 32, 33.
20. Examples of fonts used by the Underground printshops, out of over
2,500 clandestine
newspapers printed in Poland during World War II
......................................................................................
169 -170
cop: 32.
21. Plans and locations of the numerous Underground’s printshops during
World War II in Warsaw
...................... 168
cop: 32.
22. Examples of superbly forged ID cards by Polish Underground ..... .
........................................................... 25
- 33
cop: 3, 49.
23. Documentation of semi-industrial manufacturing of forged German ID
cards by Polish Underground ....... 148 - 149
cop: 49.
24. Lublin, an ancient center of Jewish printing in Poland, as
described in The Encyclopedia Judaica,
1979 .............159
cop: 16, 30.
Five different versions of Demjanjuk ID card
25. A manipulated Demjanjuk ID card with the photo of an unidentified
man illustrates an article
published by the Molod’
Ukrainy in its April 30, 1986 issue of this
Soviet newspaper ..................................... 35 -
37
cop: 34, 43, 44.
26. Unidentified man from the photo on Demjanjuk’s ID card encountered
in the documents
of the Vinnitsya Prosecutor’s Office (KGB)
............................................................................................................
38
cop: 35.
27. Facsimile of altered Demjanjuk ID card published in the Soviet
newspaper
"News from Ukraine" in September of 1977 .............. .
..........................................................................................
96
cop: 26, 34.
28. Metamorphosis of the five versions of the Demjanjuk Trawniki ID
card during 1977-1988 ........................ 96 - 98
cop: 9, 34.
29. Reluctance of U.S. prosecutors to reveal the exact provenance of
the Trawniki ID card ............................. 82 - 83
cop: 6, 19.
Forged Juchnowskij photograph
30. ”Female style" closure of Juchnowskij’s uniform, evident on
enlargement of his
ID photograph, proves that this photograph was forged; see also Exhibit
E ............................................................ 129
cop: 10.
Administrative inconsistencies on Trawniki ID cards
31. Trawniki ID cards, with preprinted rank of commanding officer,
unique among millions
of wartime ID
documents .....................................................................................................................................
134
cop: 47.
32. Absence of date of issue and/or expiration date on Trawniki ID
cards unique among billions
of ID cards issued worldwide
...............................................................................................................................
210
cop: 47.
33. Linguistic deficiencies of Trawniki ID cards reveal their forgery
...............................................................
188 -189
cop: 5.
34. Compulsory use of Amtdeutsch
(official German), conspicuously
absent on Trawniki ID
cards, is discussed by former German state officer (Staatsbeamter)
......................................................................
205
cop: 11, 51.
35. Examples of printer’s codes on German ID cards (conspicuously
absent on Trawniki ID cards) .............. 131 - 133
cop: 30, 47.
36. Authenticated order of the Chief of the German Civil Order Police,
K. Daluege, identifies Globocnik
as the ”Sonderbeauftragte”,
while Trawniki ID cards identify him
incorrectly as the "Beauftragte"
.................... 106
cop: 4.
37. Genesis and chronology of the development of the Police Outposts
for the Eastern Territories
indicate that Globocnik was not in charge of administrative procedures
at Trawniki ....................................... 120 - 121
cop: 12, 15.
38. Facsimili of the correspondence from 1941, regarding planning and
establishment of Police
Outposts for the New Eastern Territories, indicate that K. Daluege and
the Civil Order Police,
but not O. Globocnik, were in charge of administration at the Trawniki
Camp .............................................. 123 - 124
cop: 16.
39. Powers of the SS and Police Leader, as described by the April 1945
Official Allied Intelligence
Report, do not include administrative duties, contrary to the contents
of the forged Trawniki ID cards ............ 171 -172
cop: 2, 4.
40. SS and Police Leader J. Stroop commanded mixed, ”borrowed” troops,
during quelling
of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
............................................................................................................................
156
cop: 4.
41. Nueremberg Trial document describes restricted powers of the SS and
Police Leaders
which exclude administrative duties, contrary to the contents of the
forged Trawniki ID cards ................................. 157
cop: 2, 4.
42. H. Hoefle, characterized as an experienced bureaucrat in his
personnel dossier at the Berlin
Document Center but hardly as a military man, would not commit blatant
administrative errors
evident on the forged Trawniki ID cards
...............................................................................................................
155
cop: 17.
43. Regimental Order #33 indicates that the Trawniki Camp was put under
Civil Order Police
administration as of August 1, 1942
......................................................................................................................
137
cop: 36.
43a. By virtue of this letter of agreement, the Trawniki Training Camp
management and
administration were to be taken over by the SS- WVHA (SS Headquarters
of Economy
and Administration) as of August 13, 1943. Consequently, the
Soviet-provided Trawniki
ID cards validated by the SS Administration in mid-1942 must be
fraudulent ...........................................................
77
cop: 4, 18.
The Prosecution’s allegation about sloppiness of SS Administration
contradicted
by authentic documents
44. Even trilingual ID cards and other elaborate governmental forms,
designed for Jews destined for
extermination, were impeccably printed in theGeneralgouvernement; two
examples presented here. .............. 100 -
101
cop: 30, 47.
45. Punctiliousness of the SS Administration demonstrated in authentic
documents ............................................. 58-61
cop: 5, 17,
39, 49.
46. Trawniki Commander K. Streibel described in his personnel file as
good administrator but not a military man ...
190
cop: 4.
47. O. Globocnik seal and stationery with typographical error quickly
replaced and removed from circulation ....... 2 - 4
cop: 1.
48. Supposed sloppiness of SS Administration demonstrated by the
up-side-down application of the
main rubber stamp with the name of the issuing camp on the alleged
Trawniki ID card .............................................
57
cop: 5, 17.
49. The word "to arrest" grossly misspelled in an important rubber
stamp imprint on Trawniki ID cards .................. 135
cop: 34, 48.
Historical asynchronies of Trawniki ID cards
50. Facsimile of H. Himmler’s letter dismissing Globocnik as a
commissioner on March 31, 1942 ............................ 55
cop: 14.
51. H. Himmler upholds dismissal of Globocnik as the Commissioner
Extraordinary in his Administrative
Order dated May 15, 1942. Responsibilities of the Chief of Civil Order
Police, Kurt Daluege, specified ................ 158
cop: 14.
52. Trawniki ID cards imply that O. Globocnik disobeyed H. Himmler and
substituted
for K. Daluege (Ordnungspolizei)
in fall of 1942 by validating these
cards ............................................. 90, 91
and 95
cop: 14.
53. Sergeant Teufel ”forgets” his new rank despite the fact that he was
promoted during
momentous visit (shown on this photo) of H. Himmler to Trawniki Camp on
July 19, 1941 ...................................... 79
cop: 12.
Inappropriate military ranks on Trawniki ID cards
Sergeant E. Teufel’s:
54. Corporal E. Teufel promoted to Sergeant on July 19, 1942; facsimile
of his personnel dossier ........................... 99
cop: 12, 18.
55. Sergeant Teufel ”forgets” his rank and signs alleged Bondarenko’s
ID card as corporal ................................... 130
cop: 12.
56. Sergeant Teufel’s personnel
dossier........................................................................................................111
- 112
cop: 13.
57. Example of standard delay in notification of promotion during WW
II; here in the case of Major H. Hoefle ...... 204
cop: 22.
Major H. Hoefle’s:
58. H. Hoefle addressed as a captain in correspondence dated before and
on July 15, 1942 .................................. 152
cop: 19.
59. H. Hoefle promoted to Major on July 21, 1942 according to his
personnel dossier at the
Berlin Document Center
.......................................................................................................................................
153
cop: 17, 18, 19.
60. Three diaries describe the presence of Major H. Hoefle in Warsaw at
10:00 AM on July 22, 1942 ........ 182
- 183
cop: 19.
61. Warsaw Ghetto Diary decribes details of H. Hoefle’s three week
presence during the
Great Deportation of Jews from Warsaw during July and August of 1942
.............................................................. 184
cop: 19.
Oberwachmann A. Matschke’s:
62. Examples of appropriately abbreviated ranks of Schutzpolizei
...............................................................
136 - 140
cop: 11.
63. Inappropriately abbreviated rank stamp of Matschke on the alleged
Juchnowskij ID card .................................. 92
cop: 11.
Invalidating alterations on Trawniki ID cards
64. Alterations or erasures in German ID cards considered by the law as
forgeries ....................................... 125 - 126
cop: 25.
65. Alterations of the alleged Demjanjuk Trawniki ID card: see Exhibit
C. ...................................................... .
.... 127
cop: 25.
66. Erasures and alterations on the alleged Bondarenko ID card
...........................................................................
128
cop: 26.
Documentation of military unworthiness and security risk of Trawniki
guards
67. Documents indicating political unreliability and desertions of
Trawniki guards ................................................... 201
cop: 39.
68. Ex-prisoner Kohn describes corruptiveness of Trawniki guards at
Treblinka .................................................... 202
cop: 40.
69. Ineffective Trawniki guards were removed from action during the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
according to General J. Stroop’s report
................................................................................................................
174
cop: 39.
70. lneffective and unreliable Trawniki guards were recalled from the
Ghetto and assigned to
daytime-only, rear guard duties during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
according to General J. Stroop’s report ... ..... 175
cop: 39.
71. Platoon of Trawniki guards, grandiosely labeled as ”Askaris”, is
photographed,
inappropriately dressed and armed, at the Ghetto wall in Warsaw
.........................................................................
122
cop: 25, 39.
72. Onomastic analysis reveals that Trawniki guards were not of
Ukrainian but of ethnic German background
........ 173
cop: 39.
Other Soviet forgeries
78. The August 21, 1989 Newsweek report about the ”Soviet’s [sic] $4
billion-a-year "active measure"
program (disinformation and forged documents) designed to embarrass the
United States overseas" ....................... 180
cop: 44.
79. Various documents forged by Soviets for their agent-assassin
Stashinsky
(a.k.a. Josef Lehmann) in West Germany
.....................................................................................................176
-
178
cop: 43, 44, 49.
80. Forgery of the so-called ”Waldheim Telegram” revealed by Stern
Magazine .................................................... 181
cop: 45.
81. Diary of slain Solidarity priest J. Popieluszko and comments of its
editor indicate and
remark upon Polish secret service forgeries
..........................................................................................................
179
cop: 44.
Doubtful credibility of Holocaust survivors
82. Examples of martyrological phantasmagorias in the Holocaust
Survivor Syndrome ...................................... 66 - 70
cop: 52.
83. 20,000 onlookers watch an ex-prisoner, German survivor of the
Majdanek camp, misidentified
by co-prisoners as the chief of crematoria, hanged there on December
23, 1945 .............................................. 74 - 75
cop: 55.
84. Real (self-admitted) chief of crematoria at Majdanek hanged there
on December 30, 1947 ................................ 76
cop: 55.
85. Severe deficiencies of the Demjanjuk identification procedure are
described in a book by
Prof. W. Wagenaar of Leiden University in the Netherlands
..................................................................................
203
cop: 51.
86. Articles by Jewish authors in The Cleveland Jewish News from 1986,
Cleveland’s Plain Dealer from
1987 and Jerusalem Post International from 1986describe unreliability
of survivor and eyewitness testimony . 150 -
151
cop: 52.
87. Director of Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem Dr. S. Krakowski,
according to
Jerusalem Post, has "Doubts over evidence of camp survivors"
.............................................................................
206
cop: 52.
Fictitious localities listed on Trawniki ID cards
88. Fictitious (according to the History of Towns and Villages of the
Ukrainian S.S.R. and the Columbia
Gazetteer) name ”Kloschko" is indicated as Bondarenko’s birthplace on
his Trawniki ID card ...................... 191 - 192
cop: 27.
89. Fictitious (according to The Columbia Gazetteer and the Webster New
Geographical Dictionary) name
”Woronin” is indicated as the county or district of Wolembachow’s birth
on his Trawniki ID card ................. 193 - 194
cop: 27.
90. Name of fictitious (according to The Columbia Gazetteer) ”Iwanowka”
is indicated as
Wolembachow’s birthplace on his Trawniki ID card
.............................................................................................
195
cop: 27.
91. Badly misspelled or fictitious name of ”Schebelni” is indicated as
Juchnowskij’s
birthplace on his Trawniki ID card
..............................................................................................................
196 - 197
cop: 27.
92. Examples of three Soviet testimonies taken during investigation of
suspect collaborator,
in this case, J.
Demjanjuk ............................................................................................................................
198 - 204
cop: 28.
Ineffective defense of Demjanjuk
93. Jewish journalist-historian G. Sereny critically evaluates the
Jerusalem trial .............................................. 103 - 105
cop: 51.
94. Copy of article with a self-explanatory title "The Terrible Defense
of Ivan the Terrible"
published in The American Lawyer, October 1988
........................................................................................
Exhibit I
cop: 29.
95. A recognized, questioned document expert, W. Flynn, fails to
conduct the first and the
most basic test of his profession on the suspect Trawniki ID cards,
namely determination
of whether the cards were printed with the letterpress or offset
technique
............................................................... 209
cop: 51.
Jerusalem court exhibits indicate that no ID cards were issued to
Trawniki guards at Treblinka
96. Trawniki to Treblinka personnel transfer list indicates that ID
numbers ("dog tags”)
were issued to Trawniki guards
...................................................................................................................
142 -
144
cop: 36, 41, 49.
97. Example of a typical, hefty SS paybook
..........................................................................................................
141
cop: 37.
98. Treblinka Labor Camp personnel list indicates that SS paybooks were
issued to Trawniki guards .......... 145 - 147
cop: 36, 37.
99. Statements of ex-Wehrmacht soldiers attest that ID documents of
soldiers in training
were kept at the base in the administrative offices
.................................................................................................
160
cop: 31, 38.
Archeological findings are consistent with euthanasia (but not
shooting)
being practiced at Treblinka’s Lazaret
100. November 1945 exploration reveals lack of archeological
evidence of shooting and
cremations at Treblinka’s Lazaret
....................................................................................................................
71
- 73
cop: 53.
101. Report of the court-ordered archeological exploration of the
Treblinka Camp
lists 76 coins found (but no bullets). This was entered as evidence by
Examining
Magistrate (Judge) Z. Lukaszkiewicz on December 16, 1945
...............................................................................
207
cop: 53.
102. The absence of spent bullets at the Lazaret makes plausible one
part of the reminiscences
of ex-prisoner S. Willenberg, suggesting that Jewish
physicians-prisoners practiced euthanasia
at the Treblinka camp. Facscimili from his 1989 book
..........................................................................................
208
cop: 53.
Jerusalem court exhibits indicate that ID cards were issued only to
Trawniki guards
whose duty required
frequent travel
103. Correspondence from 1943 regarding lost Trawniki ID cards
.................................................................. 80 -
81
cop: 39, 49.
Miscellaneous documents and exhibits
104. Diesel exhaust, the "mass murder weapon" at Treblinka, proven
harmless by the facts
of everyday life and the data of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency .......................................................
62 - 65
cop: 52.
105. Retired judge of Israeli Supreme Court says that there is no
amicus curiae
provision in lsrael’s jurisprudence ...
78
cop: 55.
106. German documents in the Soviet Archives are now available to
Western historians ........................................ 102
cop: 46.
107. Aerial and surface photos of the Treblinka Camp from 1944 identify
the only mass
grave as measuring 65x5 meters
..................................................................................................................
113 -
114
cop: 53.
108. Probably the only extant photodocumentation of mass cremations in
Europe ......................................... 115 -119
cop: 53.
109. Typical, narrow, two lane highways in Lublin District,
photographed during WW II and in 1987 .................... 185
cop: 19.
110. Positive evaluation of D. Lehners’s book, "Thou Shall Not Bear
False Witness" by
J. Marszalek, editor of Zeszyzy
Majdanka and co-director of the
Majdanek Museum in Lublin ............................ 162
cop: 31.
111. Positive evaluation of D. Lehner’s book ”Thou Shall Not Bear a
False Witness"
by Dr. J. Hoffmann from the Military History Research Institute at
Freiburg
........................................................... 161
cop: 31.
112. In his recently published autobiography, Jewish American
industrialist Armand Hammer
describes his go-between role for the Israeli and Soviet authorities
regarding the Demjanjuk ID card ...................... 211
cop: 6.
113. A few examples of ID documents from various countries with
essential and ubiquitous
dates of issue and/or expiration of these documents
..............................................................................................
210
cop: 47.
114. Authentic blanks of the Third Reich documents are available
through various mail order catalogues ................ 213
cop: 52
cop = cited on page: ”cop"
indicates pages of the text
in the letter to Scheffler where the above exhibit is cited.
1.
[Page 1]
January 6, 1990
Dr. Wolfgang Scheffler
Markgrafen St. 1-2 .
West Berlin, Germany
Tel.: 011-4930-801-8606
Re: Evidence in Demjanjuk Trial
Dear Dr. Scheffler,
According to the verdict of the District Court in Jerusalem, Mr. John
Demjanjuk was sentenced to death, in part due to the weight assigned by
that court to your testimony at Demjanjuk’s trial. In your testimony,
you assured that court that to the best of your knowledge, the Trawniki
ID card of Demjanjuk is authentic.
With the help of documents, which perhaps were not available to you at
the time of the trial, but are enclosed with this letter (213 numbered
pages), you will realize that the Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards are
forged. The ineptness of this forgery may be due, in part, to the
fragmentation of the Lublin District records between various archival
holdings with only a part of them being available to the forgers.
[Page 2]
2.
Imprints of
Outdated and Forged Seal of SS-Brigadefuehrer * Globocnik Present on
Trawniki ID Cards
Early in his career in Lublin, SS- u. Polizei Fuehrer (SSPF) ** Odilo
Globocnik used an unhyphenated, grammatically incorrect seal and
letterhead for a brief period (see pages 2-4). However, in the spring
or summer of 1941, he replaced this hyphenless seal and stationery with
properly hyphenated ones (see pages 5-24).
An error such as this in the personal seal and stationery would have
caused great embarrassment to this highly placed, but poorly educated
(see pages 1 and 186) Nazi official in the punctilious SS
administrative structure. Thus, O. Globocnik himself would most likely
have made sure that the erroneous materials would not be used, once the
errors were brought to his attention.
Nevertheless, imprints of Globocnik’s personal seal on the Demjanjuk
and Wolembachow ID cards (see pages 90, 91 and 95) allegedly issued in
mid-1942, at least a year after the use of unhyphenated seal and
stationery was discontinued, still lack a hyphen after the runic sign
of SS. This asynchrony indicates forgery, because important documents
are always validated with seals in an on-going, retroactive manner,
rather than prestamped in quantity, so as to prevent potential
unauthorized use.
--------------------
* SS-Bridagefuehrer: SS rank equal to Brigadier General.
** SSPF: Best translated as district’s chief coordinating liaison
officer between political, secret, and uniformed police forces and
military and civilian governments (see pages 171-172), with executive
but not routine disciplinary or administrative powers (see page 157).
[Page 3]
3.
Even SSPF
Globocnik Could Not Use a Seal Invalidated More Than a Year Earlier
As a historian in the field of SS and German Police Administration, you
must know what was the fate of outdated seals, letterheads and blanks
for ID documents during World War II. According to the rules and
regulations of the German military authorities, old, damaged and
defunct seals had to be delivered to the Arsenal at Spandau for
destruction (see pages 163-164). The purpose of that was to prevent
possible diversion of such valuable, validating instruments to the
black market and especially the Resistance.
You also must be aware of the concentrated effort and expertise the
Nazis put into the tracking down, of false ID cards, which were
frequently used by the Resistance, most notably in Poland.
Forgery sections of underground organizations, such as Zegota in Warsaw
and the Home Army throughout Poland, produced such large numbers of
superbly forged documents (pages 25-33 and 148-149) and signatures that
the Germans were forced to change their blank paper, forms
and seals periodically, because the forgeries were indistinguishable
from the real issues of the German documents. For this reason,
prestamping of ID documents was not practiced.
Furthermore, the IV A2a department of the Gestapo in the Lublin
District was specifically assigned to detect and eradicate forged
documents and forgers (see page 212).
Review of major archival holdings predictably demonstrates that
Globocnik’s old unhyphenated seal (and stationery) was not used after
it was replaced by a hyphenated version in early or mid-1941.
Therefore, there is no evidence and little chance that more than a year
later, in mid-1942, Globocnik would or could have allowed the use of an
officially invalidated and therefore illegal seal, undoubtedly
destroyed at Spandau, to stamp Trawniki ID cards. For the same reason,
blanks of Trawniki ID cards prestamped with the replaced seal would not
have been issued to new recruits in 1942.
[Page 4]
4.
The Trawniki Camp
Commander, an Effective Administrator, Would Have Prevented the Use of
Illegal ID Cards
From Captain Streibel's personal file, kept at the Berlin Document
Center, we know that this Trawniki commanding officer was considered by
his superiors to be an effective administrator (see page 190). Thus, he
would not have permitted an en masse use, in 1942 and 1943, of a
prestamped, outdated, and therefore illegal seal imprint in his German
Police/Waffen SS unit.
In addition, if Trawniki guards (Trawniki
Wachmaenner) were issued ID
cards in 1942, Streibel could not have allowed the seal of SSPF
Globocnik to be used by his unit because Globocnik as SSPF and/or
Commissioner Extraordinary for Establishment of Police Outposts in
Eastern Territories (Sonderbeauftragte
i.e. political officer) did not
have administrative jurisdiction over this auxiliary police
training-camp or even any Waffen-SS unit (see page 106 and 157).
SS and Police leaders such as O. Globocnik, or J. Stroop, who
liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto, or even Higher SSPF* such as F. Krueger
in Krakow, did not command their "own" armed forces units but had to
request them on "loan" for a given action from the Wehrmacht, police or
Waffen SS commands (see page 156). They also did not have routine
administrative, disciplinary or promotional powers over such forces
(see page 157).
Close inspection of the alleged Demjanjuk ID card reveals that the
photo is stamped with a seal of the Waffen SS. The imprint is faint,
but is clearly seen on enlarged, good resolution photographic copies
(see page 56). This would have been an impossibility in 1942 (assuming
the unlikely event that several thousand ID cards were prestamped by
Globocnik in 1941 and then illegally used by Streibel in 1942), since
the Trawniki camp came under the Waffen SS Administration (WVHA) only
in mid-1943 (see page77).
--------------------
* Higher SSPF: Land’s or Province’s chief liaison officer between
political, secret and uniformed police forces, and military and
civilian governments (see pages 171-172).
[Page 5]
During your examination of Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID card, you were
probably struck by the fact that the imprint of the title stamp of the
camp is in the up-side-down position (see page 57). You probably also
noticed that odd, inappropriate, and misspelled words, not used by the
German administration, are imprinted on all of the questioned Trawniki
documents (see pages 188-189). By authenticating them, you must have
assumed that Commandant Streibel was indifferent to those errors,
improprieties and illegalities.
However, during the Jerusalem trial, it should have been stressed by a
historian that the Trawniki camp was well run with accountability and
punctiliousness, not only in 1942, but also in the later years, when
the Nazis were losing the war (see pages 58-61).
[Page 6]
5.
Forged Seal
of the Chef der
Ordnungspolizei on Trawniki ID Cards
For over ten years, until about 1987, the Soviet Government claimed
that Demjanjuk’s Trawniki ID card was the only one available. That card
was brought to Cleveland from the Soviet Embassy in Washington in
February 1981. It was allowed to be examined for a brief time only, and
then it was quickly returned to the U.S.S.R. for safekeeping, where it
remained inaccessible for six years.
While only out-of-focus, partially occluded, black and white
enlargements of the card were available for study in the U.S.A., their
poor resolution precluded meaningful scrutiny and analysis (see pages
82-83).
Almost one year after J. Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in February
1986, that Trawniki ID card was unexpectedly brought to Israel through
the good offices of American industrialist Armand Hammer (see page
211). In addition, it was accompanied by three more ”newly discovered”
Trawniki ID cards. These were provided explicitly to support the
authenticity of the questioned Demjanjuk card.
Many critical observations can be made about these questioned
documents. However, for the sake of brevity, I will bring only some of
them to your attention.
First, please look closely at the appearance of the authenticated
imprints of the Chef
der Ordnungspolizei (Der Beauftragte) seal in
Rudolf Reiss’ Soldbuch,
entered as evidence in the Jerusalem trial
record (see page 84). Even to a casual observer, it is clear that the
tip of the right wing of the eagle points to the space between the
words "die Errichtung".
On the other hand, in the Soviet-provided Juchnowskij’s Trawniki ID
card, the tip of the right wing of the eagle on a similar seal points
to the letter ”i" in the word ”Errichtung"
(see page 85). This implies
a slight (18 degree) twist in the position of the wing of the eagle in
the questioned Trawniki card, one of the many signs of its forgery.
[Page 7]
In order to justify the discordant position of the eagle in the
questioned seal of the Soviet-provided ID card, one might postulate
that more than one Chef
der OrPo (Der Beauftragte) seal were used
simultaneously at Trawniki. This idea is administratively farfetched
and unproven.
It also cannot be physically sustained, because multiple issues of the
same seals were made from the same die, and were identical, except for
the tiny serial number located below the wreath encircling the swastika
of each given seal (see pages 86-87). This identical nature of the
multiple issue seals is easily proven with the use of transparencies of
the imprints: the imprints of such seals merge into one, except for the
serial numbers (see exhibit J).
In any case, I am not aware of any authenticated imprint of the Chef
der OrPo (Der Beauftragte) seal with the eagle’s wing
pointing to the
letter "i".
Furthermore, in the authenticated imprint of the OrPo (Der Beauftragte)
seal in Reiss' Soldbuch,
the symbols of SS are executed in a runic
script, commonly called ”thunderbolts” (see page 84), while in the
questioned document one sees them imprinted in Roman lettering (see
page 85).
Consequently, one has to conclude that Juchnowskij’s Trawniki
ID card is stamped with a forged Chef
der Ordnungspolizei (Der Beauftragte) seal, and therefore
it does not support the alleged authenticity of the Demjanjuk ID card.
[Page 8]
6.
Suspect Zweigstelle
Trawniki Seal
The first and second Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards, supposedly
those of Demjanjuk (see page 94) and of Bondarenko (see pages 88-89),
were stamped with a Zweigstelle
Trawniki seal with an inappropriate
subscript ”Waffen SS". This single issue seal is unknown to me from any
extant authenticated document. The imprints of this seal are
suspiciously similar to the several authenticated Zweigstelle Trawniki
seal imprints in Reiss’ Soldbuch
(see page 107) and one on the letter
written by a Trawniki policeman, Oberwachmann
Matschke on March 6, 1943
(see page 107).
However, by containing the subscript ”Waffen SS" in the Zweigstelle
Trawniki seals, these imprints on the Soviet-provided ID
cards vary
grossly from the authenticated seals.
This incongruity is further substantiated through a more detailed
evaluation of these imprints. Examination reveals that the axis of the
swastika in the authenticated seal points to the space between the
letters "nd"
in the word "Standortverwaltung",
while in the
Soviet-provided ID cards of Demjanjuk and Bondarenko it points to the
space between the letters "ta" in the same word ”Standortverwaltung"
(see pages 109-110 and exhibit G). This approximately 10 degree twist
of the axis of the arms of the swastika proves that these seals were
made from two different dies.
However, at a small place like Trawniki, it would be extremely unlikely
that two different, single issue Zweigstelle
Trawniki seals, one with a
redundant subscript "Waffen SS" and one without, would have been used
at the same time. Therefore, unless the authenticity of the seal with
the added subscript is confirmed, the Zweigstelle Trawniki, Waffen SS
seal found on the alleged Demjanjuk and Bondarenko cards has to be
considered forged.
If by some chance you are aware of any authenticating documents for
these suspect imprints, please let me know. However, even this would
not explain the premature use of SS seals in this auxiliary police
training camp. Although the Trawniki Camp was a mixed service unit, it
was not under SS WVHA administration for almost another year, that is
until the summer of 1943.
[Page 9]
For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that the third
Soviet-provided Trawniki card (Wolembachow’s, see pages 90-91), is
validated with a forged and outdated seal of Globocnik, the same one as
on Demjanjuk’s card.
Therefore, at present each of the three additionally provided Trawniki
ID cards (see pages 88-93) appears as much forged as the five versions
of the Demjanjuk card (see pages 96-98).
[Page 10]
7.
Forged Juchnowskij ID
Photograph
In authenticating Juchnowskij’s Trawniki ID card, you and all others in
the Jerusalem court apparently overlooked the unique nature of the
man’s garb in the card’s photo, as well as two less apparent but
important details.
1. The subject’s military uniform is buttoned right to left, with the
buttons being over the left chest and the buttonholes on the right
lapel (see page 129 and Exhibit E). As a military historian and a man,
you know that for a long time military uniforms have been closed with
buttons on the right part of the garment, as are all buttoned coats and
upper clothing for men. This worldwide convention apparently evolved
centuries ago to facilitate the rapid removal of a sword from a
scabbard, especially from under a coat for the majority of men, who are
right-handed.
2. Looking at the man’s photograph, one will note that the man is
facing slightly to the left, which is reverse of the norm. (Normally,
in Nazi ID photos, the required gaze was to the right.)
3. However, the clearly seen numerals "47” on the white ID tag on the
chest are not reversed. (The number on the ID card is 847, but the "8"
is not grossly visible on the photograph).
Such a discordant combination of simultaneous findings could have
occurred only in a photography lab, rather than in real life. Even if
an inverted photographic negative had been printed by chance, all three
findings (the uniform, the gaze, and the numerals) would have been the
reverse of the norm.
While adding the white ID tag onto the photo of this husky man, the
forgers must have inadvertently inverted the negative before pasting on
the made up ID tag. Therefore, their manipulation resulted in a
spurious and inappropriate closure of Juchnowskij’s uniform from right
to left and correct (not reversed) placement of the numerals "47" in
the ID tag.
In this case, this error
in the photo printing lab provides us with
absolute proof of forgery, and by association, casts great
doubt on the
authenticity of the questioned Demjanjuk Trawniki ID card.
[Page 11]
8.
Slang Used
Instead of Proper Military Expressions in the Forged Police Rank Stamp
on Trawniki ID Cards
The imprints of many stamps and seals on Trawniki ID cards are faint
and blurred (see pages 88, 89, 91, and 94). However, the boldest and
clearest imprint is found on the Juchnowskij card and reads: Obw. d.
Schupo d. Res. (see page 92). The content of this stamp is
meant to
represent the rank of a police official at the Trawniki Camp, Arthur
Matschke. It can be translated as ”Senior Guard in the Reserves of the
Uniformed Security Police". *
The inappropriate slang expression ”Schupo”
found in this imprint
attracts attention of one even with only average knowledge of Third
Reich military terminology. The slang expression "Schupo", on any ID
card, would make an even greater impression during WW II and would
immediately be suggestive of forgery since, in all written
communications, officials strictly adhered to standard military
language, so-called "Amtsprache"
(see page 205).
A number of examples of appropriately abbreviated police ranks are
provided in the accompanying pages (see pages 136-140 and 144). Some of
these abbreviations are illustrated through facsimili of ID documents,
while others appear in contemporary correspondence. These abbreviations
demonstrate that the alleged rank stamp of Arthur Matschke with the
colloquial term "Schupo"
is forged, because this term was not used in
print or official writing.
This forged rank stamp of a Trawniki official, Arthur Matschke, on a
Trawniki ID card, alone constitutes sufficient proof of forgery of the
Juchnowskij card, and by association and inference, of all Trawniki ID
cards presented at the Jerusalem court.
Although the fact of this inappropriate abbreviation in a police rank
stamp was not considered at the trial in Jerusalem, it should be raised
now as an amendment during the appeal phase of this case.
--------------------
* For an American reader, this rank stamp could be more appropriately
translated as: Senior Guard of the Reserve Security "Cops".
[Page 12]
9.
Was It
SS-Sergeant Teufel or the Soviet Forgers Who Forgot His Rank?
Quartermaster Teufel was promoted from corporal to sergeant on July 19,
1942 during Himmler’s inspection of Trawniki (see pages 79, 99
& 120-121). Teufel allegedly signed the undated Trawniki cards
issued to Demjanjuk with accession #1393 (see page 95) and to
Bondarenko with accession #1926, (see page 89) with the rank of
corporal (see page 130 and exhibit F). On the other hand, he signed and
stamped Wolembachow’s Trawniki card, of a considerably lower accession
#1211, (see page 91) with the stamp of a sergeant (see page 90).
This discrepancy would be of small concern if the serial numbers of the
cards were preprinted on the blanks. In this case, the cards could have
been issued out of sequence. However, the accession number of all the
questioned Trawniki cards was typed in by the same typewriter,
apparently at the same time as the personal data of the alleged
bearers. * This indicates, prima
facie, that the cards were filled out
”on the spot", and that the ID cards at Trawniki were not prenumbered
in hundreds in advance.
Thus, SS-Sergeant Teufel apparently forgot his new, higher rank when he
signed Demjanjuk’s and Bondarenko’s cards!
I made an informal survey among war veterans of various ranks from
American and other armies in this respect, and was assured by all of
them that the promotion from corporal to sergeant is the most
momentous, never-to-be-forgotten event in a soldier’s life.
Furthermore, these veterans claimed that a sergeant, even when "stiff
drunk", will never forget his rank. On this basis alone, they felt that
the Demjanjuk card is a fake.
--------------------
* With use and the passage of time, the metal typeface characters of a
typewriter equipped with a reusable, fabric ribbon become gradually
clogged with ink and fibers. Thus, if the typeface is not frequently
cleaned, texts typed on the same typewriter over time can be relatively
dated.
[Page 13]
The chronology of the Soviet-provided Trawniki cards compels one to
believe that SS-Sergeant Teufel, soon after his promotion, became
incredibly forgetful:
- 1. By using the rank of corporal, he forgot that he had been promoted
to sergeant.
- 2. Teufel forgot that he was promoted during Chief Commander of SS
and German Police Heinrich Himmler’s visit to Trawniki (see page 79).
(Hundreds of thousands of SS officers and soldiers dreamed about it but
died or completed their war duty without seeing the awe-inspiring
Himmler even from a distance.)
- 3. Teufel forgot that he had been issued a sergeant’s stamp.
- 4. He forgot that he had used his sergeant’s stamp in the recent past.
- 5. Teufel forgot that writing in an inappropriate rank constituted a
severe military offense in peace time and even more so during
the war.
In order to accept the authenticity of the Trawniki ID cards, one has
to assume a terrible lapse of memory, and dereliction of duty on the
part of SS Sergeant Teufel. However, Teufel’s personnel dossier does
not reflect such untoward behavior (see pages 111-112).
[Page 14]
10.
Irreconcilable Historical
Asynchrony in Trawniki ID Cards Reveals
Forgers’ Hand
Numerous, chronologically discordant data are noted on the
Soviet-supplied Trawniki ID cards. Some of them are outlined below.
Globocnik validates
Trawniki ID cards months after he was dismissed by Himmler:
All of the expert historians involved in the Demjanjuk trials in
Cleveland and Jerusalem overlooked the fact that SSPF Globocnik was
dismissed from his post as the Commissioner for the Establishment of
the Police Outposts by Himmler in late March of 1942 (see page 55),
while Demjanjuk was still fighting as a soldier in the Red Army. *
Himmler’s order of dismissal was further upheld in his correspondence
dated May 15, 1942 (see page 158), and Globocnik must have known about
his dismissal immediately.
Therefore, it is unthinkable that O. Globocnik would exercise the
powers of the Commissioner against Himmler’s will, in order to stamp
Demjanjuk’s and Wolembachow’s ID cards nearly half a year after his
dismissal, in the late summer of 1942.
In view of the chronology of the above-mentioned, uncontestable,
historical fact of the dismissal of Globocnik as Commissioner by
Himmler in March of 1942, it is apparent that the forgers were unaware
of this when they stamped with a Globocnik seal the made up, purported
Trawniki ID cards (see pages 90, 91 and 95).
Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID card was ostensibly issued after July 19,
1942, because it was signed by E. Teufel as sergeant (see page 90).
However, this would indicate that the card was stamped by Globocnik,
with a hyphenless seal, more than three months after Globocnik ceased
to be Himmler’s Commissioner, which is too late and therefore
impossible.
--------------------
* The reason for this dismissal is not clear. According to Dr. J.
Marszalek, director of the Museum at Majdanek, in Lublin, Globocnik in
his quest for power overextended himself when he planned to expand the
Police Outposts into the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine and even to the
Caucasus (see page 11). At that point, his competitors "clipped his
wings" and assured his dismissal.
[Page 15]
Apparently the documents about Globocnik’s dismissal were available
neither to you before or during the Jerusalem trial, nor to the
forgers, who in error applied a wrong (and forged) Globocnik’s seal on
the Trawniki ID cards probably in the late 1970s, or later.
Furthermore, Wolembachow’s photo made and ID card issued supposedly in
mid-1942 are inexplicably stamped with Globocnik’s seal invalidated and
destroyed at Spandau in mid-1941.
In conclusion, one sees that the forgers provided us with a set of
asynchronous dates and data, which are mutually exclusive and
demonstrate their Trawniki packaging to be fictitious.
Trawniki ID cards
allegedly validated by the SS, one year before it took over the camp:
As mentioned before, the Trawniki camp fell under SS (WVHA)
administration in mid-1943, but the Demjanjuk (see pages 94-95),
Bondarenko (see pages 88-89) and Wolembachow (see pages 90-91) cards
were stamped with SS seals about one year prematurely (asynchronously),
already in mid-1942 (see page 77).
Trawniki ID cards
allegedly prestamped and presigned months before establishment of the
camp:
In order to make any chronological sense out of data contained in the
Trawniki ID cards, one would have to accept that the cards were
prenumbered, prestamped and presigned in blanco before the
establishment of the camp.
But even if, for the sake of argument, one assumes that the absurd and
illegal act of en masse
prestamping, presigning and prenumbering with a
typewriter of a few thousand Trawniki ID cards, and the issuing of
these cards out of numerical sequence took place, one would still be at
loss to explain how this could be done in early 1941 when the
unhyphenated Globocnik’s seal was still being used but the Trawniki
Training Camp as yet did not exist.
[Page 16]
Someone, preferably a historian, should have explained in the Cleveland
and Jerusalem courts that the idea of protecting the Eastern
Territories (neuen
Ostraum) with Police Outposts did not germinate
until April 14, 1941, via
Hitler’s directive to Himmler, and that
Globocnik was nominated as the Commissioner only via a letter written
by Himmler on July 17, 1941, in the rush of the third week of the
Blitzkrieg against the U.S.S.R. (see pages 120-121).
Although the Police Outposts still had not been built, directives for
their plans, construction and assignment of administrative duties were
being issued on July 31, 1941 (see page 123). Four days later, on
August 4, 1941 Globocnik was identified as a subordinate of the Civil
Order Police and as the Commissioner Extraordinary (see page 106).
However, on August 5, 1941 Globocnik already used corrected, hyphenated
stationery and presumably a hyphenated seal (see page 5). Therefore,
from that date on he would have made sure that the old ungrammatical
stationery and the seal were not used again.
At that time, it took days before new stationery could be letterset by
hand and printed, even in Lublin known for its meticulous printers (see
page 159). Therefore, it is almost certain that Globocnik (and his
Chief of Staff H. Hoefle) must have known about the grammatical error
in his seal several days earlier, when he was nominated as the
Commissioner on July 17, 1941.
It is therefore unthinkable that Globocnik, despite the knowledge of
the error in his seal, would proceed with the prestamping of at least
1393 ID cards (see page 95) with such a defective instrument. This
becomes even less likely when one realizes that:
1. The Trawniki Training
Camp was not as yet in existence and its commander did not arrive until
three months later, that is on October 10, 1941 (see page 14), and
2. Globocnik knew that within days the corrected stationery and the
seal would be available.
Anyway, Globocnik would hardly have enough time to have about 2,000 ID
cards designed, proofread, approved and printed in a few days between
his nomination as Commissioner on July 17 and August 5, 1942 [1941]
when the
corrected stationery (and presumably his corrected seal) were already
in use.
[Page 17]
No matter how much leeway is given to the Jerusalem Prosecutors, the
asynchrony of the entries in the Trawniki ID cards cannot be explained
away.
Pertinent historical chronology demonstrates these cards to be fakes.
[Page 18]
11.
Globocnik’s
Chief of Staff, an Effective Administrator, Would Not Have Validated
Outdated Globocnik’s Seal
Even if one could prove the unrealistic and illegal, en masse
prestamping of Trawniki ID cards by Globocnik with his unhyphenated
personal seal, then one will have to document and explain the ignorance
and dereliction of duty by his Chief of Staff, Hermann Hoefle, who
countersigned Wolembachow’s ID card, stamped with this defective and
invalidated one year earlier Globocnik’s personal seal (see pages
90-91). This again is impossible to prove or even to imagine.
One could postulate that Trawniki Commander Streibel could permit use
of ID cards with an unhyphenated (outdated) seal because he could have
been unaware of the blunder of the missing hyphen and the
discontinuation of the use of Globocnik’s ungrammatical seal in Lublin,
about 30 km away. However, it would be extremely unrealistic to assume
that Globocnik’s Chief of Staff was unaware of this seal revision and
replacement in 1941, when he signed Wolembachow’s card in 1942. This is
even more true if one considers that:
1. H. Hoefle was described in his personal dossier at SS Headquarters
in Berlin as an excellent administrator but hardly a military man (see
page 155).
2. Much if not most of the correspondence from Globocnik’s office in
Lublin was marked by the characteristic H. Hoefle’s initials of "HH"
(see pages 6, 16, 24 and 61). This proves that Hoefle, Globocnik’s
Chief of Staff, was intimately
familiar with the office procedures
which included the invalidation of the use of the ungrammatical,
hyphenless seal.
Considering Hoefle’s characterization in Berlin as an efficient
bureaucrat (see page 155), it is also most unlikely that this exacting
and important official would countersign an ID card with the main title
stamp of the issuing organization in an up-side-down position (see page
57) either if it had been filled out for Wolembachow, or especially
while it was still a blank, as the Prosecution and the Defense assumed
had happened through presigning of ID cards.
[Page 19]
12.
Globocnik’s Chief of
Staff, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer * H. Hoefle, Demoted by the Forgers on
Trawniki ID Card
One of the most egregious historical errors of the forgers on the
Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards is that they demoted SS Major Hermann
Hoefle to the rank of a captain. As an efficient administrator and
office manager, H. Hoefle would not have demoted himself on the
Wolembachow Trawniki ID card, by signing his name to the preprinted
rank of captain, instead of his current rank of major (see page 91).
Extant documents allow us to track down the actions, movements and
personal history of Hermann Hoefle on a daily basis in the summer of
1942. It was governed by Himmler’s tour of concentration camps in
Poland in July of 1942. In the beginning of that month, Himmler went to
visit R. Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz and then the Higher SSPF F.
W. Krueger, at Krakow.
Then on July 17, Himmler went to Lublin for a staff conference of
Operation Reinhardt and to issue orders to Globocnik and Hoefle to
proceed with deportations of Jews from the Generalgouvernement
(Poland).
From Lublin, Himmler made a side trip to the Auxiliary Police Training
Camp at Trawniki on July 19, 1942. Incidentally, on this date and
during this visit, Himmler promoted Corporal Teufel to sergeant (see
page 99).
From Trawniki, Himmler returned to Lublin and approved the long pending
(since the fall of 1941) Globocnik’s petition for promotion of Hoefle
to SS major (see pages 10-11). Himmler finalized this petition and the
promotion became effective on July 21, 1942 (see page 153). It was a
timely and necessary decision because Hoefle was then also appointed as
the director of the great deportation of 350,000 Warsavian Jews which
commenced the next afternoon, namely at 4:00 PM on July 22, 1942.
--------------------
* Sturmbannfuehrer: SS rank equal of a major.
[Page 20]
SS Captain Hoefle, on July 20, 1942, or the just promoted SS Major
Hoefle, on July 21, 1942, left Lublin for a grueling day-long trip to
distant Warsaw. To this day, in 1989, the one and only narrow, two-lane
Lublin-Warsaw highway at that time of year, is jammed with oversized,
slow moving, horse-driven wagons (see page 185). Nevertheless, at 10:00
AM, on July 22, 1942, Hoefle appeared with a group of SS officials at
the office of the Warsaw Judenrat Chairman, Dr. Czerniakow, where he
signed and issued the order of deportation (see pages 182-183).
While in March of 1942, and on July 15, 1942, H. Hoefle was still
referred to as a captain (see page 152), on July 22, 1942, one day
after his promotion, in Dr. Czerniakow’s office in Warsaw, he was
already being addressed by Dr. Czerniakow as a major (see page 182).
The diaries of Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto indicate that
Major Hoefle remained in Warsaw and personally supervised the
deportations for more than a week (see pages 182-184). Therefore, H.
Hoefle could not have been physically present at Trawniki or even in
Lublin to sign Wolembachow’s card for at least a week after his
promotion.
Consequently, the Wolembachow card could have been signed by Hoefle at
the earliest only upon his return to Lublin, in early August of 1942.
By then, Wolembachow’s ID card could not have been signed by Hermann
Hoefle to the rank of captain, because his promotion to major had taken
place on July 21, 1942, according to his personal file kept at the
Berlin Document Center (see page 153).
While an error of a major signing as a captain is theoretically
possible through the absentmindedness of a busy Chief of Staff, it
would be rather unlikely in the case of Hoefle, a meticulous
administrator, and bordering on illegality.
The inappropriate (outdated) rank to which H. Hoefle countersigned his
name on the Soviet-provided Trawniki ID card again reveals the forgers’
inadequate knowledge of the chronology of promotions and functions of
the administration at the SSPF headquarters in Lublin.
[Page 21]
13.
The Only
Possible Date of Issue of Wolembachow’s ID Card, July 20, 1942, Is
Tenuous for Many Reasons
Globocnik’s Chief of Staff Hermann Hoefle’s itinerary and travels
outside of Lublin in July of 1942 are not the only indication that the
date of issue of Wolembachow’s ID card, as determined by the dates of
promotions, is an unlikely one.
Teufel’s signature over a sergeant’s stamp (see page 90), and Hoefle’s
signature over a captain’s rank appear on Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID
card (see page 91). Since Teufel was promoted to sergeant on July19,
1942 and Hoefle was promoted to major on July 21, 1942, the only day
that this card could have been legitimately issued was July 20, 1942.
Captain Hoefle could not
presign Wolembachow’s ID card:
Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID card could not have been presigned by Hoefle
as captain before July 20, 1942 because:
1. That would have been impractical: the purpose of presigning of ID
cards would have been to save time, avoid the effort and decrease
potential danger of bringing the cards individually for signing from
Trawniki to Lublin. This benefit was nullified, in Wolembachow’s case,
because his card, allegedly presigned by Hoefle, had to be brought to
the office in Lublin a second time for stamping with Globocnik’s seal. *
2. That would have been illogical: because Globocnik and Hoefle worked
in the same office in Lublin, it would have made no sense to have the
cards brought from the distant Trawniki, presigned by Hoefle and not
prestamped by Globocnik. Incidentally, the combination of Globocnik’s
seal and Hoefle’s signature as chief of staff on Wolembachow’s card is
highly suggestive that it was Hoefle himself who would stamp the card
with his superior’s seal.
--------------------
* A hyphenless Globocnik’s seal imprint is seen partially on
Wolembachow’s photo and partially on the ID card itself, which proves
that the seal was applied after the photo was affixed, that is, in
mid-1942.
[Page 22]
3. It would have been dangerous: because of the possibility of the
courier carrying a pack of prevalidated blank ID cards falling captive
to the many units of partisans operating in the Lublin area.
4. It would have been illegal: presigning and prestamping of any
valuable documents are not practiced and are illegal everywhere,
especially so during the war, as was explained in previous chapters.
It should be remembered, however, that the use of the hyphenless seal
by Globocnik was discontinued in mid-1941 and therefore its imprint
applied to the Wolembachow photo and his ID card, purportedly issued in
mid-1942, cannot be authentic.
Captain Hoefle could not sign Wolembachow’s ID card:
It is highly unlikely that Hoefle could sign that or any Trawniki ID
card on July 20, 1942 because:
1. The 30 km distance between Trawniki and Lublin entailed some lag
time with the courier traveling on roads clogged by horse-drawn
farmers’ wagons (see page 185). However, completion of the Walembachow
ID card was of low priority, because according to the card itself,
Walembachow remained at Trawniki for one year, until he was transferred
to Lublin on September 23, 1943.
2. If Captain Hoefle did not leave Lublin with orders for Warsaw on
July 20, 1942, one day before his promotion, then he was extremely busy
on that day with the aftermath of Himmler’s visit in Lublin and
preparations for his own promotion to major, departure for Warsaw, and
the ensuing task of taking command of the greatest mass deportation of
the Second World War, from that city, on July 22, 1942.
3. Since Commander Streibel had signed the two other Soviet-provided
Trawniki ID cards, it is very strange that he also did not sign
Wolembachow’s ID card especially when after Himmler’s visit he was
undoubtedly still at Trawniki. The fact that Wolembachow’s ID card was
singled out for special handling by being sent to Lublin so as to be
signed by Globocnik’s chief of staff, Hoefle, needs to be explained in
the Jerusalem court.
[Page 23]
Sergeant Teufel would not have had, in one day, a new rank stamp ready
by July 20, 1942:
Quartermaster Teufel signed his name above a sergeant's rank rubber
stamp on the suspect Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID card. However, it would
be highly unlikely, or virtually impossible, that one day after his
promotion he could have had a sergeant’s stamp made and issued, and
could have used it on that very day.
Teufel could not obtain a sergeant’s rank rubber stamp until several
weeks after his promotion took place:
During 1942, bureaucratic pathways considerably slowed down the process
of promotions. At that time, it took the Personnel Department of the SS
headquarters in Berlin several weeks to complete and mail the promotion
papers and carbon copies to the recipients (see page 204). The rank
stamps were not issued by the district SS headquarters until all the
paperwork was received. Thus Teufel could obtain his rank stamp at the
earliest in late August of 1942. Therefore, Wolembachow’s card could
not have been legally issued with Teufel’s signature over a sergeant's
rank stamp until after such a date, but by then Hoefle was a major and
not a captain as it is shown on the Soviet-provided Trawniki ID card.
Could Teufel then have borrowed a sergeant’s rank stamp from a neighbor
or a friend? It would be most unlikely that anyone would comply with
such an illegal request.
The above historical facts and observations demolish the theory that
Wolembachow’s Trawniki ID card was issued on July 20, 1942, or that it
could have been prestamped by Globocnik, and presigned by Hoefle, so as
to explain away the chronological discrepancies in it.
Thus, the Wolembachow ID card, proved to be forged, cannot be used to
buttress the authenticity of the Demjanjuk ID card. On the contrary, it
suggests that all the Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards are fakes.
[Page 24]
14.
Proof Presented That
Trawniki ID Cards Were Not Prestamped
In order to consider the Soviet-supplied Trawniki ID cards authentic,
one must maintain, unrealistically, that prestamping of blank Trawniki
ID cards, with Globocnik’s hyphenless seal, took place. This is so
because Globocnik’s ungrammatical seal and stationery could have been
used at the latest on August 4, 1941, * while these Trawniki ID cards
were supposedly issued in mid or late 1942.
Indirect evidence that the cards were not prenumbered was provided by
Globocnik letter requesting promotion for Captain Streibel (see page
14). The letter indicated that by March 6, 1942 at least 1250 guards
were trained , while Soviet-provided ID cards allegedly issued in
summer of 1942 bear significantly lower ID numbers.
Prima facie evidence demonstrated by the recently provided
Wolembachow
ID card indicates that prestamping could not have taken place. Under no
circumstances could this ID card, with Wolembachow’s photo attached,
have been prestamped with Globocnik’s unhyphenated seal in Trawniki,
Lublin, or any other place because a portion of the imprint of the
hyphenless seal is found on Wolembachow’s photo, while the remaining
portion is on the body of the card (see page 90). This means that the
seal was applied to the card with the photo attached at the time of its
purported issuance on July 20, 1942.
--------------------
* Since the new, corrected stationery was in use on August 5, 1941 and
the earliest use of the hyphenated seal, discovered so far in archives,
took place shortly before December 20, 1941 (see pages 8-11). On the
other hand, the last extant, authenticated document where the
hyphenless seal was used is dated March 4, 1941 (see page 4). It is our
working hypothesis that the nine-month time gap in 1941, between the
last use of the unhyphenated and the first use of the hyphenated seal
by Globocnik, represents the period during which the first seal was
officially invalidated and destroyed, and the new hyphenated seal
delivered to his office for subsequent use.
[Page 25]
This finding nullifies by inference the Prosecution’s argument about
the prestamping with the unhyphenated Globocnik seal of the other
Trawniki ID cards, including the Demjanjuk card. It also reduces
dramatically the weight of the Prosecution’s other arguments about
prenumbering, presigning and other glaring signs of supposed
administrative disorder at the Trawniki Auxiliary Police Training Camp.
The imprint of Globocnik’s ungrammatical seal outdated in 1941, on
Wolembachow’s photo, allegedly taken in July of 1942, constitutes an
unintended, major, historical error committed by Soviet forgers who
were obviously unaware that this Globocnik’s seal had been invalidated
and destroyed at Spandau near Berlin in mid-1941. This was an
unavoidable error for these forgers because the SS documents related to
this fact, deposited in Western archives, were inaccessible to them.
[Page 26]
15.
Alteration and Erasure of
Third Reich ID Documents Was
Considered and Punished as Forgery
The Nazi Administration (like all governments) considered alterations,
erasures, and unauthorized entries on ID documents as a sign of forgery
and therefore punishable by law. To forestall such changes, governments
use various technical means (such as erasure-proof paper or tiny stars
or crosses in the rims of the seals) to make them easily visible to an
average official examiner. Indeed, on the back pages of many Nazi ID
documents, the bearers had to sign a statement which made them aware
that any alterations, or erasures would be severely punished as
forgery, and would implicitly invalidate the document (see pages
125-126).
Nevertheless, several erasures and alterations are seen on the
questioned Trawniki ID cards. On Demjanjuk’s ID card, superimposed
writing is seen over the numbers of the equipment and clothing issued.
The superimposed writing is easily visible on page 3 of the ID card
since the original entry was made lightly in pale gray ink while the
correction was executed with pitch black ink (see page 127 and exhibit
C). The superimposed writing indicates that the bearer of the ID card
received two undershirts and two pairs of underpants, instead of the
originally written one item of each. *
According to German laws, such alterations would have made Demjanjuk’s
card invalid. Therefore, it is amazing to see that the Nazi officers
supposedly assigning him to Okzow in September of 1942, and to Sobibor
in March of 1943, did not notice the alterations, and did not replace
that defective card with a legal and unaltered one.
--------------------
* Incidentally, the list of clothing states that Demjanjuk received two
winter overcoats. It would be strange, however, for a soldier to
receive even one winter overcoat at Trawniki during the sizzling
continental summer in the Lublin District, especially since overcoats
issued at Trawniki were unsuitable for summer wear, being heavy and
black (see page 122). Furthermore, all the German soldiers’ ID
documents studied to date indicate that they were issued only one
winter overcoat.
[Page 27]
On Bondarenko‘s ID card, erasures and typing-over are also noted (see
page 128 and exhibit D). Two initially typed-in lines were almost
completely erased. Nevertheless, on close examination one can decipher
at least part of the erased text, namely the word "Mykola” on the
Nazionalitaet
line. Nothing that had been erased on the line geboren
in: can be deciphered without the help of special
illumination or other
techniques. These erasures are typed over with the words ”Ukrainer” and
"Kloschko”, the last one being presumably the name of some village.
Because of alterations and erasures, the Demjanjuk and Bondarenko ID
cards would have been considered invalid or forged during the war.
Judging by the alleged posting entries, it is inexplicable, from a
historian’s viewpoint, how these altered ID cards could have been used
for so long as is consistent with the posting entries in them, or as
claimed by the Prosecution.
Why the forgers resorted to erasing the originally typed text is
unknown. Perhaps they were sloppy, unaware of strict German regulations
about erasures in ID documents, short of the original paper, or all of
the above. *
--------------------
* Once the forgery of Demjanjuk’s ID card was completed, sometime
before September of 1977, the Soviets, nevertheless, continued to alter
it. A Soviet propaganda newspaper, targeted for English-speaking
countries, reproduced a facsimile of the alleged Trawniki ID card of
Demjanjuk in its September 1977 issue (see page 96). All handwritten
(in Russian) annotations on that facsimile had been obliterated,
probably so that readers would not know that the card had been handled
by the KGB (MVD).
[Page 28]
16.
Soviet-Provided Trawniki
ID Cards Are Laced with
Fictitious Geographical Names
To buttress the authenticity of the Demjanjuk ID document, the U.S.S.R.
provided additional examples of Trawniki ID cards. On analysis, the
home towns of Bondarenko and Wolembachow as listed on these ID cards
have never existed, neither in the present nor in the past, according
to the Columbia Gazetteer and the massive, twenty- six-volume The
History of Towns and Villages of the Ukrainian S.S.R. These
publications are so detailed as to list the names of hamlets with as
few as 150 inhabitants, as well as the names of villages and localities
which ceased to exist decades or centuries ago.
The results of analysis and of the futile search for the names of these
localities (or its variants) in the above mentioned reference books are
provided (see pages 191-197). Correspondence regarding the existence of
these home towns of the alleged Trawniki guards with U.S.S.R.
authorities at the Washington, DC Embassy evoked no response.
Consequently, on the basis of the available data, one can conclude that
the birthplace names are fictitious and that the ID cards are forged.
Unfortunately, the geographic data contained within these Trawniki ID
cards were hitherto never submitted to the scrutiny of experts,
prosecutors, and especially the Defense at the Jerusalem trial. *
While history is not geography, still, the analysis of historical
documents cannot be conducted without paying at least minimal attention
to the verification of the geographical data contained in them. Even at
this late date, the amendment of the court record regarding fictitious
names of localities on Trawniki ID cards will still serve the cause of
justice.
--------------------
* While the Columbia Gazetteer is a standard reference tool at most
public libraries in the U.S.A., the Historia Mist i Sil Ukrainskoj
R.S.R. is to be found in Slavic departments of the larger
or university
libraries. In Israel, these two reference books are available at major
university libraries such as the National Library at Giv a Tram in
Jerusalem. They should have been referred to by the Prosecution and
especially by the Defense prior to the trial in Israel.
[Page 29]
17.
Why Did Soviet Forgers
Use Fictitious Geographical Names
on the Trawniki ID Cards ?
It appears likely that Soviet forgers used fictitious names of
birthplaces on the two, recently provided, Trawniki ID cards because
they correctly foresaw that eventually these cards might be publicized
and examined in the western world as well as in the Soviet Union.
Naming authentic towns and villages might produce attestations that
Bondarenko and Wolembachow never lived there, or, if individuals with
such names were identified and found, that they and Demjanjuk never
served at Trawniki. *
If these questioned Trawniki ID cards were authentic, the Soviets would
have been aware that the birthplaces of Bondarenko and Wolembachow are
fictitious. Handwritten inscriptions on these cards stated that they
were accessed in 1948 by the MVD (KGB).
The purpose of the KGB at that time, was: to make sure that surviving
relatives of these "traitors” were not collecting pensions for these
soldiers lost during the war, and/or to investigate and initiate, if
necessary, a ”Nazi-collaborator hunt".
The Soviet government contacted the family and neighbors of all
"traitors" after World War II to make sure that they are not in hiding
or that surviving relatives were not getting a deceased veteran’s
pension. ** Any attempt at such investigation would immediately have
disclosed to the Soviet authorities that the birthplaces on these
Trawniki cards were fictitious.
--------------------
* ”Schebelni", the alleged birthplace of Juchnowskij, is either
misspelled with three major errors, or is also fictitious. In the later
case, the Defense should have investigated this man’s existence among
his surviving neighbors and relatives, if any, in the village of
Schabelnja.
** Such an investigation in the Demjanjuk case resulted in at least
nine testimonies from his co-villagers and relatives and friends (see
pages 198-200). The voluminous data of this investigation conducted by
the KGB was provided to the United States Office of Special
Investigations, which in turn tried to keep it secret from the Defense
and, presumably, court-appointed, expert historians. Only through an
involved procedure under the aegis of the Freedom of Information Act,
was it possible to retrieve these documents.
[Page 30]
It is possible that the Jerusalem Prosecutors may claim that these ID
cards are authentic, but the two guards provided the Trawniki
administration with fictitious birthplaces for various reasons of their
own. However, in such a case, the Soviets would have forewarned the
Jerusalem Prosecution about this irregularity, namely the fictitious
nature of the geographical names on these recently provided Trawniki
cards. They would also have given the Israelis the results of their
early, post-war investigations regarding individuals named on these
cards, if they were sincere in helping Israeli jurisprudence.
Soviet officials could be reasonably certain that the Jerusalem
Prosecutor would not inquire about the results of the MVD’s (KGB’s)
investigation in 1948-1955 regarding Bondarenko’s and Wolembachow’s
past, because this could be of no possible advantage to him. On the
other hand, the Soviets had to consider that the Demjanjuk Defense
might do it. Consequently, the use of fictitious names of localities on
these ID cards would allow the Soviets to reply to the expected
Defense’s query truthfully and safely that they do not have any
archival material referring to a pension or criminal investigation of
these individuals. What they could not have foreseen was that 'The
Terrible Defense of Ivan the Terrible" (see Exhibit I) would be so
indifferent to its client that it failed to ask for the results of such
an investigation or for any other relevant archival materials.
Whether the U.S.S.R. officials believed the Trawniki ID cards were
authentic or forged, the onus of not reporting the fictitious nature of
the names of the villages on the cards remains with them, and favors
the accused.
[Page 31]
18.
Analysis of the Printing
Technique and of the
Organizational Structure of the Trawniki Camp by Dieter Lehner
Documents Forgery of Trawniki ID Cards
With this letter, I am enclosing a book entitled ”Thou Shall Not Bear
False Witness", written in German by Dieter Lehner (see Exhibit H). It
details the lack of direct administrative jurisdiction of SSPF over the
German Police, and describes independent chains of command and
different duties within the SS and the German Police. In addition, with
well executed illustrations and facsimili, the author convincingly
explains that the Trawniki ID cards were printed by an offset method.
While the offset technique was known during World War II, it was an
esoteric and expensive procedure, used to print only important military
and state documents in the Altreich. The offset technique was not known
to have been used to produce minor, local ID documents, which were
printed by the letterpress (relief) method, or were typewritten in the
later parts of the war.
Production of blanks for ID documents was strictly controlled in the
Third Reich. Each was marked with a printer’s code (see pages 131-133),
conspicuously absent on Trawniki cards. Germans were perfectionist
printers. This is demonstrated not only in German, but even in
trilingual ID cards issued in the Generalgouvernement.
The recently
discovered ID card of the first messenger of Treblinka, Zelman
Frydrych, a Warsovian Jew sent to investigate the camp by the Jewish
Bund (see page 100, 125 and 132), serves as a good example of German
exactness, in dealing even with foreign languages and outside Germany
proper. Besides ID documents, even elaborate, trilingual questionnaire
forms for Jews, destined for extermination, were printed by the Germans
with exactitude (see page 101).
The Jerusalem Prosecutor’s supposition of sloppy printers in Lublin is
not supported by evidence. Incidentally, Lublin was known as a center
of Jewish culture with excellent printers prior to the war (see page
159). During the war, some of them, by their own admission, were
employed in Globocnik’s office.
[Page 32]
The Israeli Prosecution’s other claim, that the sloppily made Trawniki
ID cards were tolerated by the Nazis because they were for internal,
”in-base" use only, is contradicted by prima facie
evidence: the
listings of assignments for the bearers to various parts of the
districts of Lublin, Warsaw and Lviv (Lemberg) (see pages 89 and 92).
This claim of the Prosecution is also incorrect since the soldiers’ ID
cards, when issued in the German training camps, were not given to them
while they were on the base but were retained for safekeeping (and to
prevent absence without leave) in administrative offices. ID cards were
given to their bearers only when they were about to leave the camp
temporarily for a given purpose, or permanently (see page 160).
Lehner’s book received critical acclaim from recognized historians such
as Dr. Joachim Hoffmann from the Institute of Military History (see
page 161), and Prof. Josef Marszalek, specialist on concentration camps
in Lublin District, editor of Annals of Majdanek Zeszyty Majdanka
and
the director of the Majdanek Museum there (see page 162).
[Page 33]
19.
A Peculiar Lettering
Suggests that a Warsaw Underground
Press, Captured by the Red Army, Was Used to Print Trawniki ID Cards
A rare and unusual font with a characteristically shaped letter ”t” was
used in printing the Trawniki ID cards (see page 165). Consequently, at
the Jerusalem trial the Prosecution involved you in a discussion of
this unusually shaped letter "t"
on the Trawniki ID cards with the
stem, above the cross-bar, tilted about thirty degrees to the right.
The only conclusion of that discourse was that this "Czech font" was
used also in the printing of Trawniki personnel index cards (see page
166).
Although the provenance of the latter is unclear at present, these
documents also come from the eastern archives. Historically, they
should have been seized by the Soviet archivists, but allegedly they
were obtained from the GKBZH * in Warsaw.
No further attempt was made
to determine the provenance of this peculiar "t” lettering. In a
capital case, however, this unusual font should be discussed in greater
depth and an analysis of its origin should be undertaken.
Although I have a working knowledge of the Czech language, I have never
encountered such lettering in Czech printing. An informal survey among
scholars during the last several years did not disclose anyone
remembering such a characteristic letter "t" in print in the
Western or
Central European countries.
Only once was I able to locate the use of this font, namely on a small
leaflet published by the Polish Resistance during the Warsaw Uprising
in September 1944 (see page 167). This propaganda leaflet was printed
by a small, clandestine, and literally underground letterpress operated
by the print shop of the Polish People’s Party. There were hundreds of
underground presses and clandestine publications in Poland during WW II
(see pages 168-170), but apparently none of them used a similar font.
--------------------
* GKBZH: Central Commission for Investigation of the Hitlerites’ Crimes
in Poland.
[Page 34]
Although the city was destroyed after the August 1944 Warsaw Uprising
and depopulated by October of that year, it is very likely that this
unusual underground "Czech” letterpress survived abandoned in some
basement. While it is hypothetical, nevertheless it is quite probable
that this press was found by the advancing Soviet Army three months
later in January of 1945, and was shipped as war booty to the U.S.S.R.,
in keeping with a common practice with machinery at that time.
Therefore, it would not be surprising that this antique linotype’s font
was used once again to prepare a portion of the mechanical of the
Trawniki ID cards (and perhaps also index cards) with this "authentic"
letterpress several decades later.
That the mechanical of the Trawniki ID cards (see pages 88-95) and
Trawniki personnel index cards (see page 166) were printed on that
particular linotype machine could not be proved due to poor resolution
of court-provided copies of documents. * However, the scenario
described above is sufficiently plausible to be considered by the court
and by any expert witness on the accused’s behalf.
--------------------
* In case you have high resolution photographic copies of these
documents, I will be grateful if you could share them with me. The high
resolution prints of these documents might confirm or rule out this
hypothesis.
[Page 35]
20.
Five Versions of the
Alleged Demjanjuk ID Card
In its five presentations, the alleged Demjanjuk Trawniki ID card
underwent a multistaged metamorphosis (see pages 96-98). Its various
versions demonstrate manipulation of the photographs and text on the
questioned card, as well as a reluctance by the Soviet authorities to
disclose the back (4th) page of the document.
To buttress the claim of Demjanjuk’s guilt, the Cleveland Court
Prosecutor introduced in the record, as an exhibit, a copy of a page
from a Soviet periodical, the "News from Ukraine", published for a
limited circulation in the U.S.A. (see page 96). Version #1 of the
alleged Demjanjuk ID card depicted in the September 1977 issue is free
of Russian handwriting, and only the first 3 pages of the ID card are
reproduced, with the back page being omitted.
In Version #2
of the card from 1981, the fourth (last and back) page of
the document is still not visible, but handwritten Russian annotations
appeared on its first (front) page.
Three years later in 1984, in Version
#3, the upper portion of the back
page was unveiled and revealed German text, imprinted with a rubber
stamp, which demanded that the bearer of the document be arrested, if
apprehended outside his assigned garrison. It is of interest, regarding
the provenance of the document, that significant spelling and
grammatical errors are noted in the word "to arrest" on that large
stamp (see page 135).
Two years later, Version
#4 of the ID card was published in the April
30, 1986 issue of the Soviet government controlled newspaper, Molod’
Ukrainy. This issue coincided with Demjanjuk’s transfer
from the U.S.A.
to an Israeli jail, and the planned beginning of his trial. The
accompanying long article, entitled "The Ghoul Lived in Cleveland",
served as a further indictment of the extradited prisoner (see pages
35-37).
In Version #4, additional lines of handwritten Russian text appeared,
and, most surprisingly, a photograph of a distinctly different man than
in Version #1 from 1977 materialized on page 4 of the ID card.
This indicated that on a single ID document there were two photos of
two different individuals simultaneously attached!
[Page 36]
One and a half years later, through involved litigation in the U.S.A.,
it was serendipitously ascertained via the Freedom of information Act
that the source of that unexpected photograph was the Vinnitsya
District Office of the Soviet KGB (see page 38).
The final Version #5
of the alleged Demjanjuk ID card was brought to
Israel by industrialist Armand Hammer in late 1986. This was introduced
into the court record as an exhibit in early 1987. Then, several months
later, for the first time, good resolution color photos of the ID card
became available for study. *
In Version #5 of the card, the photograph of the unidentified man
present in Version #4 had been removed, and three additional lines of
Russian handwriting were at last revealed as follows:
Translator of the Fourth Directorate of the M.G.B.
(The Ministry of the
State Security) of the U.S.S.R.
- Z. Bazilevskaja; March 12, 1948.
The evolution of the Demjanjuk ID card casts a grim shadow upon the
process of judicial discovery, a universally accepted civil right in
democratic societies, which was denied to Demjanjuk.
The metamorphosis of the card also casts doubt on the card’s
provenance. Unfortunately, this permutation of the Demjanjuk ID card
was never discussed in the Jerusalem court, not even by Demjanjuk’s
Israeli defense attorney.
I feel that as a historian, you should incorporate this "evolution" of
the Demjanjuk ID card, now provided to you with this letter, into the
amended testimony about this questioned document.
--------------------
* It should be noted that a high resolution photo of the entire
Demjanjuk ID card is still not available and that high resolution
reproductions of the three other Trawniki ID cards are not at all
accessible for study to this date. If you have prints of any such
photos, please kindly share them with me.
[Page 37]
21.
Jerusalem Court Exhibits
Indicate That SS Paybooks But
Not ID Cards Were Issued at Treblinka to Trawniki Guards
Six pages of personnel lists from the Trawniki Training Camp and from
the Treblinka Labor Camp were entered as court exhibits during
Demjanjuk’s trial in Jerusalem (see pages 142-147). The originals are
kept at the State Archive in the Name of the October Revolution in
Moscow. Available photocopies indicate that the quality of the
originals is poor due to the ravages of time and storage.
Military dog tags were issued for Trawniki Trainees:
The first three pages list the names of 55 Trawniki guards and
non-commissioned officers from Trawniki being transferred to the Labor
Camp Treblinka in March 1943 (see pages 142-144). On each page of this
transfer list, the Trawniki guards [including Bondarenko (see page
144)] are clearly identified by their names, and by their ID numbers in
the last column labeled "Erk.Nr."
*
This transfer took place at the time when the task force for
Establishment of Police Outposts, which allegedly issued Demjanjuk-like
ID cards, had already been dissolved, and while the Trawniki Training
Camp was still under Civil Order Police (Ordnungspolizei)
administration (see pages 137). Therefore, it is not surprising that on
this transfer list, Bondarenko is identified as having been issued only
a dog tag with an ID number, and there is no mention of him using or
having an ID card issued by the now defunct task force.
If the Trawniki guards had actually been issued Demjanjuk-like ID
cards, this should have been reflected on the personnel transfer lists.
The column enumerating each guard’s ID number would have been labeled
"Dienstausweis Nr."
instead of "Erk. Nr."
especially since by March
1943, at least 3078 of such Trawniki ID cards allegedly had been issued
(see page 143).
--------------------
* The "Erk.Nr."
found on top of the last column is an abbreviation for
Der Erkennung Nummer
an ID number, synonymous in German with the
military "dog tag".
[Page 38]
The 1943 Trawniki personnel transfer list is indicative that guards
listed there did not have valid ID cards and therefore contradicts the
existence of Bondarenko’s ID card.
Some of the ex-officials at the Trawniki Camp (K. Streibel and A.
Schaeffer) testified and many ex-Trawniki guards claimed that only dog
tags were issued to the guards as a means of identification in 1943.
The data above, unfortunately, were overlooked by the Demjanjuk Defense.
SS paybooks were issued to Trawniki guards at the Treblinka Labor Camp:
The three pages of the personnel list from the Treblinka Labor Camp are
not clearly titled nor dated, (see pages 145-147). The entire top
margin of the title of the page appears obliterated by a paste-on white
strip, 2.3 cm wide, with a mostly illegible overscript on it. The year
"1944" can be deciphered on the last page, but it is not clear whether
this represents the date of the completion of this list.
The document seems to represent a list of personnel at the Treblinka
Labor Camp in 1944, and clearly indicates that the Trawniki/Treblinka
guards were issued substantial ID documents, the SS paybooks
[Soldbuecher]
(see page 141).
The Trawniki Camp went fully under SS administration in mid-1943. This
was also the time when the Germans were losing on all fronts and began
to enlist foreign-born nationals into SS troops. Therefore, the
Treblinka Camp personnel list stating that foreign born Trawniki guards
posted at the Treblinka Camp were issued SS paybooks is in accordance
with known historical facts, and contradicts existence of alleged,
valid in 1944, ID cards issued by a commission which ceased to exist in
1942.
The Treblinka Labor Camp personnel list indicates that Trawniki guard
M. Bondarenko was holding valid in 1944 SS paybook #1962 [#1926?] (see
page 145). However, according to the Soviet-supplied, alleged
Trawniki ID card, Bondarenko was also issued this undated
Dienstausweis
(see pages 88, 89) in 1942 by the Commission for
Establishment of Police Outposts. *
--------------------
* Incidentally, the Commission ceased to exist in the summer of 1942
(see page 137) before Bondarenko’s ID card was issued, if one dates it
by its relatively high ID number of 1926.
[Page 39]
In this card, his posting at the Treblinka Labor Camp, inferred to have
started in 1943, is entered by stamp on the back pages of the ID card
(see page 89). Since the Bondarenko ID card lacks an expiration date or
any sign of its having been invalidated, one is forced to consider it
valid also in 1944, while the SS paybook’s validity during 1944 is
confirmed by the 1944 personnel list.
Therefore, the Treblinka Camp personnel list and the Trawniki ID card
contradict each other because, contrary to proper procedure, this
guard/soldier thus carried two different and valid ID documents issued
at the same time by the same organization: the SS paybook and Trawniki
ID card (which according to the validating seals it was issued by the
Waffen SS).
These incongruities of the above described documents should be
elucidated before the Jerusalem Court while J. Demjanjnuk is still
alive.
An ex-Trawniki official testified that the ”paybooks were brought for
the guards but never used”, i.e. were not distributed to the guards.
This is in agreement with the known fact that, while on base, soldiers’
ID documents were retained in the administration offices (see page
160), and the cited Treblinka Labor Camp personnel list.
In conclusion, the above six pages of German documents, entered as
evidence at the Jerusalem court, indicate that ID cards were not issued
to Trawniki guards posted at Treblinka in March of 1943 (see page 142),
and that SS paybooks were utilized for identification of these guards
in 1944 (see page 147). These historical observations, drawn from the
court record, and favorable for the accused, were not discussed at the
trial nor in the 768-page-long Jerusalem verdict. Your amended
testimony in this regard could correct this omission.
[Page 40]
22.
Were ID cards issued for
the Trawniki guards?
Onomastic analysis of the names of Trawniki guards reveals that almost
exclusively, ethnic Germans from the U.S.S.R., usually from the POW
camps, were enlisted for the Trawniki Training Camp (see page 173).
Although ethnically German, Trawniki guards were not considered by the
Nazis as a reliable force from security, military and ideological
aspects (see page 201). While at the Trawniki Camp or elsewhere, they
engaged in black market dealings and infrequently even deserted. The
Trawniki guards were superficially trained, poorly equipped, and never
fought as an independent unit. Despite their grandiose description as
Askaris (similar in appellation to the fearless British Ghurka troops),
they never lived up to that name or significance (see page 122). A
Trawniki detachment sent to Warsaw was withdrawn from action on the
third day of the Nazi assault on the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, and
thereafter was used for daytime, perimeter guard duty only (see pages
174-175).
Documents from the GKBZH * in Warsaw, which describe the bureaucratic
pathways of restoration of lost ID cards issued to Trawniki guards (see
pages 58, 80-81), most likely represent exceptions.
These few lost, and re-issued ID cards refer to guards who were posted
at remote and small Police Outposts in distant villages, probably
staffed by a few guards, and one or two Reich Germans. The nature of
their posting and duties required these guards, picked as being
reliable out of the Trawniki trainees, to travel frequently, as we can
see from the quoted documents. Therefore, they needed ID documents.
However, there is no evidence that these ID documents were similar to
the questioned Trawniki ID cards of Demjanjuk and three others,
furnished by the Soviets.
--------------------
* GKBZH: Central Commission for Investigation of the Hitlerites’ Crimes
in Poland.
[Page 41]
Considering the above, one must conclude that Dienstausweisse for
Trawniki guards were apparently rare and were issued only to those who
were posted in tiny Police Outposts, while those who were posted in
platoon or company units carried dog tags only.
On the other hand, there
was no need for ID documents for the
unreliable Trawniki guards posted in a large group at the confined and
self-sufficient Treblinka Camp. The security risk posed by
these guards
at Treblinka is best documented by the presence of a stockade for them
there, desertions, and selling arms to Jewish prisoners, who used them
during the uprising at the camp (see page 202).
In summary, presently available xerographic copies of documents (except
for the four questioned Trawniki cards from the U.S.S.R.) indicate that
genuine ID cards were issued only to a few guards from Trawniki,
assigned to outlying police outposts. The Trawniki transfer list and
Treblinka personnel list indicate that majority of Trawniki guards were
issued ID numbers and then SS paybooks, but no ID cards.
[Page 42]
23.
Statistical Analysis
Points to Soviet Forgery of Trawniki ID Cards
From the statistical and historical point of view, it would be
extremely unlikely that the only three surviving Trawniki ID cards,
recently discovered in the Soviet Union, would each be of a different
kind. That they were lost in 1948 and only recently rediscovered after
39 years is also most strange.
FACTS:
- Copies of Trawniki personnel lists (see page 143) and testimony from
previous Trawniki trials in West Germany indicate that at least about
3,500 guards were trained at that camp.
- Each of the three ID cards, recently discovered by Soviet archivists,
was validated by a different Nazi
official and/or organization, and therefore constitutes a different
variant of the card.
- From the way the cards were delivered, it is implied that these were
random ID documents which survived the war by chance.
ASSUMPTION:
- Let us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that originally there were
only 3,000 cards, and each of the three subsets (kinds) consisted of
1000 cards.
PROBLEMS:
- What was the probability that only exactly three cards from the
original 3,000 would be recovered after 45 years?
- What was the probability that each of these 3 cards would be of a
different kind?
ANALYSIS:
- The probability that only one card survived the war out of a thousand
(instead of 2, 34 or 567 for example), and was rediscovered, after
being lost in archives for 39 years, is small: one in a thousand.
- The probability of a singular card surviving the war of the type of
the second thousand is also one in a thousand. Therefore the
probability of only one card out of each of the two types surviving is
one in a million.
[Page 43]
- The chance of finding a singular card of the third type is also one
in a thousand.
RESULT:
- The mathematical chance of survival and recovery of only three ID
cards, each of different type, would be around one in a billion.
Thus, statistical analysis renders the reappearance of the few,
Soviet-provided Trawniki ID cards most suspect, unless historical proof
is found that this re-discovery did indeed happen and that the ID cards
were not manufactured in the KGB laboratories.
[Page 44]
24.
Failure to Probe Suspect
Provenance of Trawniki ID Cards
at the Jerusalem Trial
It is unfortunate that the puzzling and suspect provenance of the
Trawniki ID cards, as well as the unheard of lack of date of issue
and/or expiration on them, were not questioned at the Cleveland and
especially Jerusalem trials. The old German custom of dating ID
documents and stipulating its expiration date has survived until the
present even in East Germany (see pages 177-178).
The Trawniki ID cards were allegedly accessed not later than 1948 by
the MGB (presently called the KGB), but strangely were not utilized in
Soviet Trawniki personnel trials in the 1960s, e.g. in the Danilchenko
or Engelhardt cases.
Furthermore, a facsimile of the alleged Demjanjuk ID card which
appeared in the April 30, 1986 issue of the Soviet newspaper, Molod'
Ukrainy (The Youth of Ukraine) (see pages 35-37), is
different than the
currently accepted version. In that rendition of the Demjanjuk ID card,
there is a photo of a different man than on the card examined by you in
the Israeli court. This clearly shows that the alleged Demjanjuk ID
card was manipulated in the U.S.S.R. If this fact had been presented to
you and the court in Jerusalem, it could have led to a persuasive
argument against the authenticity of the Trawniki ID cards.
[Page 45]
24a.
Past Soviet Forgeries
Photo and document falsification have been a KGB specialty for decades.
The perfectly falsified documents used by a KGB assassin, B.
Stashynskyj, in order to get to his victims, Ukrainian leaders in West
Germany, may serve as an example. These KGB forged documents were made
public through a trial at a West German court (see pages 176-178). Not
a single historical, graphic or administrative error can be detected in
them because the fakes were patterned on available authentic documents,
and were not manufactured de
novo like the Trawniki ID cards.
Manipulation of photographs by the KGB (previously known under the
names of CI-IEKA, OGPU, GPU, NKVD, and MVD) has been documented in the
past as well as more recently. Many decades ago, Leon Trotzky would be
seen standing next to Lenin in photographs taken in the early years of
the Communist regime. Later, Trotzky’s figure and those of other fallen
leaders were surreptitiously brushed out and deleted, when the photos
were reproduced in Soviet publications in the 1930s. Two decades ago,
in group photographs of Soviet cosmonauts published after accidents,
figures or faces of those who died in space were simply brushed out. In
one such group photograph that had been unskillfully altered, all that
remained of the deceased cosmonaut was his left hand resting on the
left shoulder of his colleague.
Three years ago, the Soviet forgers pasted in error another photograph,
not of Demjanjuk, on the alleged Demjanjuk ID card for all to see,
except for the Jerusalem Court, in the newspaper Molod’ Ukrainy in
April 1986, as described above (see pages 35 and 37).
According to the August 21, 1989 issue of Newsweek, the U.S.A.
protested last fall against "the Soviet’s [sic] $4 billion-a-year
"active measures" program (disinformation and forged documents designed
to embarrass the United States overseas)" (see page 180).
Neither are forgeries unknown in Soviet satellite countries. In Poland,
forged incriminating documents were planted surreptitiously on
Solidarnosc activist Rev. J. Popieluszko (see page 179). Later, he was
brutally killed by Polish Security Service agents.
[Page 46]
Lately, the West German "Spiegel” published information regarding
forgery of the so-called "Waldheim telegram" in Yugoslavia which
relates, as does the Demjanjuk case, to the World War II period (see
page 181). This represents an example of another erroneous, de novo
creation of a fake incriminating document.
Based on the above, the opinion of the Jerusalem court that historical
documents were never forged by the U.S.S.R., as rendered in the verdict
against Demjanjuk, ought to be reversed.
[Page 47]
25.
The need for further
historical research
You might like to know that in the article "The Ghoul Lived in
Cleveland", in the April 30, 1986 issue of Molod’ Ukrainy, the
authors
(V. Pogorilev, a journalist and M. Kamenjuk, a jurist) remarked that
"Among German documents captured by the Soviet Army there is a
”Certificate No. 1393" (i.e. Demjanjuk’s ID card).
Unfortunately, over the years, no one involved in the Demjanjuk case,
neither the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, nor the expert witnesses,
asked the Soviets for review of the entire group of Trawniki and Lublin
District documents captured by the Soviet Army, mentioned in the
article printed by Molod'
Ukrainy. It should be also noted that a
substantial number of such documents was borrowed from Lublin, Poland
by the U.S.S.R. over a decade ago, but these were never returned,
according to Dr. J. Marszalek.
With the advent of Glasnost
it may be an opportune time for you, as an
expert witness at the Jerusalem trial, to request such access now in
order to update your testimony in Jerusalem. Prof. Raul Hilberg, who
researched German documents in the Soviet archives for several months
earlier last year, indicated to me that this may be quite feasible at
present (see page 102).
[Page 48]
26.
Other Deficiencies of
Trawniki Cards Which Might Be of Interest to
You
There are numerous additional deficiencies and irregularities in the
forged Trawniki ID cards which perhaps do not fall exactly into your
field of expertise, but are easy to comprehend.
The most important is that the imprints of the authentic, unhyphenated
Globocnik seal and those on Trawniki cards do not match spatially. A
translucent overlay is enclosed for you to compare the imprints (see
pages 40-41 and Exhibits A and B) along with an explanatory article by
J. Ramsay (see pages 42-55). The total inability to superimpose into a
single image the imprints of these seals is the definitive and positive
proof, as important as different fingerprints, of sloppy forgery.
In addition, the word "Merkmale”
has never been imprinted or used, to
my knowledge, on German ID cards. I have reviewed about 200 different
kinds of wartime ID cards ranging from a weekend, bicycle-riding permit
for a lowly Ostarbeiter, to Himmler’s ID card (see pages 34, 100-101,
131-133, 136 and 141). The word universally used was "Kennzeichen" or
"Zeichen".
Similarly, the word "Essgeschirr"
has not been used to my knowledge on
any Nazi ID card. Instead, the only word used was "Kochgeschirr".
The same applies to the word "Unterhosen",
a Slavic type plural, since
the singular term, "Unterhose",
was used exclusively by the Germans.
This grammatical error suggests Russian-speaking forgers.
Furthermore, the Trawniki cards are unique among millions of wartime ID
documents to have the rank of the commanding officer preprinted and not
stamped (see page 134). Since the high turnover of commanders and
frequent promotions of ranks would render any blank preprinted with the
rank of a commander quickly obsolete, this was not done. Officers
stamped or wrote their ranks underneath their signatures, or had the
rank typed in on a typewriter.
[Page 49]
Similarly, Trawniki [D cards are unique among millions of ID documents
issued worldwide (authentic or forged) for lacking the ubiquitously
present date of issue and/or expiration date (see pages 26-30, 34, 87,
132, 136, 141, 176-178, 210).
There are many other errors on the Trawniki ID cards which would have
quickly indicated to an average German official that he was dealing
with a forgery, and would have resulted in the immediate arrest of
their bearers. It is most telling that even the imprinted word, to
”arrest”, is grossly misspelled as "fest
zu nehmen" on the cards (see
page 135) instead of ”festzunehmen”.
However, the actual chronology of use of the authentic Globocnik seals
here presented and the deficiencies of his alleged unhyphenated seal
found on Trawniki cards alone should be sufficient for you to reverse
your testimony as to the authenticity of these cards, and perhaps
prevent the execution of an innocent as charged man.
[Page 50]
27.
Why the alleged Trawniki
ID cards were ”crudely" forged
In Jerusalem, the Prosecution acknowledged some of the errors in the
Trawniki ID cards provided by the U.S.S.R., and subsequently was forced
to use contorted logic to justify the authenticity of the cards. The
prosecutors claimed that those incredible mistakes were proofs of the
authenticity of the cards, because "would-be forgers would not commit
such glaring errors" (vide
State of Israel versus
J. Demjanjuk Verdict).
Even the best forger in the best of circumstances is prone to make
significant mistakes in his craft, if he has to create a document de
novo. On the other hand, it is easy even for the KGB
forgers to produce
quality fakes if they have an authentic document to use as a master for
their copies (see pages 176-178). The Polish Underground organizations
excelled at that (see pages 25-33 and 148-149).
It has been documented that some kind of ID card was issued to a few of
the Trawniki guards in the later part of 1942 (see pages 58 and 80-81).
However, most of these guards were issued ID numbers on metal dog tags
(see pages 142-144) which were used for ID purposes by the guards
posted to large camps. However, hitherto none of the infrequently
issued Trawniki ID cards is known to have survived the war. It is
likely that some of the bearers destroyed these documents as soon as
they could while others still might hold on to them. *
Uncancelled, valid personal ID cards or passports are rarely found in
archives anywhere, and accordingly the Soviets have not produced
Trawniki ID cards, authenticated by other documents, to this date. This
indicates that they do not have them.
Therefore, the Soviet forgers had to create Trawniki-ID cards by
invention and not by copying. This is a reasonable explanation for
their ”crude” appearance when the cards are analytically confronted
with relevant authentic documents held in the West.
--------------------
* From my research in Poland and in the U.S.A., it is apparent that
about one person in three preserved his or her ID documents, as
mementos of the World War II era.
[Page 51]
28.
Why Additional Forged
Trawniki ID Cards Were Provided by
the U.S.S.R.
The three additional Trawniki cards, recently "rediscovered” in the
U.S.S.R., appear to have been presented to counteract the previous
mistake of the forgers of using an outdated, unhyphenated Globocnik
seal in the production of Demjanjuk’s ID card in the mid 1970s, which
was publicized by the J. Ramsay’s article (see pages 42-55).
It should be noted that D. Lehner in his book entitled ”Thou Shall Not
Bear False Witness" convincingly explained that Trawniki ID cards
should be validated only with the Chef
der OrPo (Der Beauftragte) seal,
which was not the case with the Demjanjuk card. Subsequently, one card
(Juchnowskij’s, see pages 92-93) which was delivered from the U.S.S.R.
to Israel in early 1987 [1988?],
was validated by the Chef
der OrPo
(Der Beauftragte) seal. This attempt to bolster the
authenticity of the
Demjanjuk card failed because of careless forging of the Chef der OrPo
seal. As mentioned above, it resulted in misalignment of the eagle’s
wings, and the use of Roman lettering by the forger instead of runic
symbols for the SS sign in that seal.
The second card (Wolembachow’s, see pages 90-91) was validated with the
outdated, hyphenless Globocnik seal. The submission of that card had an
overt purpose of proving that there were more Demjanjuk-like documents
with the outdated unhyphenated seal, and that therefore they were valid.
The third card (Bondarenko’s, see pages 88-89) was validated with
Zweigstelle Trawniki-like
seals, except for the additional ”Waffen-SS"
subscript. This card’s purpose was to prove that the incompetently
forged Zweigstelle
Trawniki seal on Demjanjuk’s ID card was used on
other cards and therefore authentic. However, to date no such seal
could be authenticated and there is no explanation for its redundant
subscript (Zweigstelle
Trawniki seal imprints without the Waffen SS
subscript are authentic). Furthermore, inexact forgers misaligned the
arms of the swastika within this seal.
In summary, the last minute Soviet attempt at quasi-authentication of
the Demjanjuk ID card resulted in submission of documents which bore
additional, blatant forger’s errors.
[Page 52]
29.
The Inept Defense of
Demjanjuk
The inept defense of Demjanjuk has been dealt with at length in the
professional and legal literature already. The authoritative magazine,
"The American Lawyer", in an article entitled ”Ivan the Terrible’s
Terrible Defense", published in October 1988 (see Exhibit I), analyzed
its legal aspects.
Psychologists reviewed the numerous improprieties and glaring
deficiencies of the identification process in a book written recently
by Prof. W. Wagenaar, published by the Harvard University Press and
entitled ”Identifying Ivan, a Case Study in Legal Psychology". This
respected scholar, who testified at the Jerusalem trial, established
that out of 46 rules applicable to the identification of Ivan, 37 were
violated by the investigating authorities. He further concluded, "I
will not say that the investigative procedure was a farce, but a total
farce could have violated only few more rules" (see page
203).
Historical deficiencies of the defense were described even in the lay
press, such as in articles by a Jewish journalist-historian, G. Sereny,
and in others which appeared in numerous newspapers in England and the
U.S.A. (see pages 103-105).
Until now, unfortunately, forensic experts (the questioned documents
examiners) have not provided in depth analysis of deficiencies in the
card. To date, they have dwelt upon irrelevant when positive
authentication and dating of the ink and paper of the cards. * They
failed, however, to conduct the most basic examination of their field
of expertise, namely the determination of the type of the printing
technique used to produce Trawniki ID cards, i.e. letterpress versus
offset (see page 209). Clearly, the defense and prosecution alike could
get help from interdisciplinary input including from the printing
industry or even a WW II expert historian like yourself.
--------------------
* I think it would benefit the case, if you could let the prosecution
and defense know that authentic Third Reich paper and ink are
commercially available in the West. Even authentic blanks of Soldbucher
and Wehrpasser
can be readily purchased through sales catalogues in
West Germany today (see pages 50 and 213).
[Page 53]
30.
Other Unanswered
Questions About the Treblinka Death Camp
The Demjanjuk Defense was not interested in utilization of an
interdisciplinary approach.
Although Demjanjuk was proven guilty in the Jerusalem verdict of
killing of hundreds of thousands of people with diesel exhaust, his
Defense failed to obtain and present information that this was
impossible according to the laws of nature. For example, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. readily attests
that diesel exhaust contains a trace amount of carbon monoxide (and
thus is harmless); prolonged accidental exposure to heavy
concentrations of diesel exhaust fumes was proved harmless to humans
(see pages 62-65); and diesel exhaust was harmless to laboratory
animals.
Psychiatrists were not asked by the Defense to testify about the
Holocaust Survivor Syndrome described in many textbooks and in over
1,600 medical articles. This illness distorts the memories of survivors
with phantasmagorias and ”group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics"
(see pages 66-70).
Distinguished Jewish historians such as Dr. R. Hilberg, H. Arendt and
others, who independently realized that survivors’ accounts and
testimony are "Judocentric, logocentric and egocentric”, "unreliable
about names, locations or dates" and a "poor source for the
identification of persecutors, or even of people who helped", were not
asked by the Defense to testify (see pages 150-151).
Neither was the Prosecution’s expert historian, Dr. S. Krakowski, who
testified in the courtroom at the Demjanjuk trial, cross-examined by
the Defense, although well in advance of the trial he was quoted by the
Jerusalem Post as stating that "over half of the 20,000 testimonies of
survivors on record in Yad Vashem have never been used as evidence in
Nazi war crime trials are "unreliable" (see page 206).
Professional personal ID document collectors were not asked their
opinion about the Trawniki cards (historians rarely study personal ID
cards), and linguists were not consulted about the odd verbiage and
Slavic expressions found on the ID cards.
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Aerial photo interpreters did not testify about the size of the mass
grave at Treblinka (see pages 113-114). Meteorologists and mechanical
engineers were not asked how a clam-shell excavator (the "Baegger",
designed to scoop out silt and sand) could dig the graves in severe
winter (minus 30 degrees Celsius according to survivors) in the
rock-solid frozen ground.
Anthropologists were not asked how and with what fuel one million
cadavers were cremated in one hundred days at Treblinka (see pages
115-119).
Military historians were not asked why Soviet pilots, flying over
Treblinka in American-made bombers and reconnaissance planes on their
runs to Warsaw, did not report (nor Soviet propaganda publicized)
having seen an inferno of 10,000 human cadavers consumed daily by
flames at Treblinka below (see pages 113-114, 213).
Archeologists were not asked to testify why no trace of cremations or
burning and none of the supposed 50,000 lead slugs (and equal number of
shells) were found at Treblinka’s Lazaret when looked for by the
Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in 1945 (see
pages 71-73). As we know from the Treblinka survivors’ testimony,
allegedly fifty thousand sick and elderly were killed there with a
bullet in the neck and cremated on the spot. This testimony is
contradicted by the results of archeological excavations conducted at
the site of the above mentioned mass executions at the Lazaret. These
excavations, ordered and supervised by the Circuit Court at Siedlce,
revealed the presence of 84 foreign coins at the site (”including one
U.S. quarter, one nickel, and one dime minted in 1899”) but no spent
casings and not even a single bullet, according to the December 16,
1945 Examining Magistrate’s report (see pages 207-208).
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Although the above information originates from outside of your field of
expertise, its interdisciplinary content would have allowed you to
better interpret the pertinent historical data.
Finally and pathetically, no World War II historian was hired by the
Defense to contest the Prosecution’s experts, all of whose statements
were a priori
mistakenly accepted as being accurate. *
--------------------
* Some testimony of Israeli historians, e.g.:
- that Trawniki guards or the Russian Liberation Army leader, General
A. Vlasov, were Ukrainians;
- that Operation Reinhardt (spelled with ”t") was named to commemorate
Reinhard Heydrich [see:
State of Israel versus
J. Demjanjuk Verdict page 65];
- that the artificial Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-33 claimed only
two million victims; or
- that Vlasov’s army was created three months after the end of World
War II in the later part of July of 1945 ("a year after the liquidation
of the Cholm camp") [see State of Israel versus John
Demjanjuk Verdict;
Conclusions, page 763, paragraph ”C"] is patently erroneous.
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31.
Tragic Injustice at
Majdanek
Since you have testified in "at least 30 or 40 cases“ that you "have
seen everything that has to do within my [your] specific area of
research" which includes ”the situation at the Camp Majdanek" (your
testimony in 1980), you must remember that human memory may be
frightfully inaccurate.
For instance, a German ex-prisoner of Majdanek and survivor of that
camp, Paul Hoffmann, was mistaken by Jewish co-prisoners of being the
chief of the crematoria at the trial in Lublin in 1945. Notwithstanding
his protests, he was hanged at Majdanek for his ”crimes against
humanity" with 20,000 onlookers, some from the West, two days before
Christmas of that year (see pages 74-75).
As you must be aware, the real, only, and self-admitted chief of the
crematoria at Majdanek, Erich Muhsfeldt, was hanged two years later
almost to the day and in the same place for the same crime (see pages
76-[77?]).
I have ended this letter with a human interest story and now plead that
you save the life of the man on death row by amending your testimony in
Israel. The man was falsely accused via a fake Trawniki
ID card, and
therefore he is not guilty as charged. Please act before the time runs
out for him.
There is no amicus
curiae provision in Israeli jurisprudence (see page
78), and therefore I cannot submit the enclosed exonerating data to the
court. Demjanjuk’s Israeli defense counsel, unfortunately, rested his
case a long time ago without considering these points. Therefore, I
hope and trust that your professional ethics will not allow you to
remain silent in this vital matter.
Sincerely,
M. J. Dragan
PS: I am certain that you will not encounter any
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difficulties with authentication of the enclosed documents, since all
of them are held in recognized archives and/or major libraries. lf you
should need assistance with this matter, I will promptly provide it by
phone or FAX.
Please let me know if you find any errors in this manuscript. I would
be grateful for your critical comments, solutions to unanswered
questions, or advice.