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  • Arad - Israeli historian

    ARAD01.doc = Yitzhak Arad testimony on Feb. 17-19, 1987 on pages T000161A to T000619 of the English language translations of the John Demjanjuk trial in Jerusalem, Israel, Feb. 16, 1987 - Apr. 24, 1988. (Criminal Case No. 373/86)
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    SUMMARY by Will Zuzak, January 02, 1999

    PREFACE:

    Although John Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel on Feb. 28, 1986, his trial did not commence until Feb. 16, 1987. The Israeli judges were Dov Levin, Dalia Dorner and Zvi Tal. The prosecution team consisted of Yona Blatman, Michael Shaked, Dennis Gouldman, Michael Horowitz, Eli Gabay (although I did not notice any participation of Horowitz and Gabay in the transcripts).

    The defense (at this initial stage) was represented by Mark O'Connor and Yoram Sheftel. Because he did not speak or understand Hebrew and was unfamiliar with Israeli law and culture, Mark O'Connor was at a tremendous disadvantage. Especially during impromptu discussions, he was always apologizing for having to wait for the translation, asking for the judges' patience and complaining about the noise from the audience. In my opinion, he exhibited undue deference to the judges, the prosecution and especially to the first witness, Yitzhak Arad, head of Yad Vashem.

    Yoram Sheftel, on the other hand, was in his element. Being articulate and combative, he appears to have gone deliberately out of his way to mock and antagonize Judge Levin. During the whole trial (as well as before and after the trial), the position of Yoram Sheftel was that he would not dispute the "FACTS of the Holocaust". He was only concerned about the case of mistaken identity of John Demjanjuk being Ivan Grozni. This position allowed testimony of the prosecution and their witnesses to be accepted and entered into the court records unchallenged, even if such testimony were implausible, improbable and, in many cases, impossible.

    The following statement of Yoram Sheftel on Feb. 16, 1987 (T000102) is also revealing:
    +++++++++
    "We will, under no circumstances, ask for the assistance of Ukrainian or German officers of the Treblinka death camp who were the murderers of hundreds of thousands of Jews, even though we may be tempted to do so, because one need not be very imaginative to understand the kind of benefit that the defense could have derived from such testimony. We have no intention of deviating from this intention despite the reservation expressed by the prosecution with respect to the testimony of Otto Horn and prosecution witness number 40 as well. The defense has no intention of using testimony of such witnesses under any circumstances."
    ++++++++++

    This eliminated the danger that an alternate version of events of the "facts of the Holocaust" would be entered into the court records. A version which, perhaps, would be more believable than that of the Jewish Nazi collaborators that testified against Mr. Demjanjuk.

    From the very first day, the judges indicated that "education of the public" was of the highest priority. They insisted on hearing all the details of the Holocaust, despite the unreserved acceptance of Arad's written testimony by the defense and Sheftel's argument that Arad's verbal testimony was therefore not necessary.

    There can be little doubt that the prosecution (with the support of the judges) deliberately attempted to promote Ukrainophobia and Ukrainian - Jewish dissension by insisting on referring to the guards as Ukrainians. Ukrainians are always portrayed as victimizers and never as victims.

    In reading the 460 pages of dull, mind-numbing testimony, I was reminded of the learned discussions during the Middle Ages as to how many angels would fit on the head of a pin. Everything is ephemeral. All physical traces of Treblinka (as well as Sobibor and Belzec) have vanished. There is no solid evidence of anything. Yitzhak Arad can say anything he wishes and it is impossible to either prove or disprove it. He often refers to documents allegedly in some archives which he interprets in a fashion to support his own view of events which are likely different from the reality.

    For greater clarity in my summary below, I will refer to the two earlier Treblinka trials as follows:
    Dusseldorf 1964 refers to the trial of Kurt Franz and 10 other German personnel at Treblinka.
    Dusseldorf 1970 refers to the trial of Stangel, who was extradited from Brazil for the trial.

    My personal comments are normally enclosed in square brackets.

    [1987/02/17, Tue.; T000161A, Vol. 1; Arad]
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    I. YITZHAK ARAD for the Prosecution

    A. (T000161A - T000169) Skirmish amongst judges, prosecution and defense concerning necessity of Arad testimony.
    Sheftel: No need for Arad's testimony since the defense accepts Arad's testimony (indictment 1 - 46) fully.
    Levin: "The court is interested in hearing the facts and it is a public hearing." ... "But it is inadmissible to claim that evidence is presented not for the court's sake, but for the public."
    Sheftel: Refers to the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930's.
    Levin: Objects to reference to Moscow, tells O'Connor to sit down, calls Arad.

    B. (T000170 - T000171) Background of Yitzhak Arad "I was born on November, 1926 in Sifrana, which is now in Lithuania, the Soviet Union. When I was born, it was still in Poland. In 1937 I moved to Warsaw and when the war broke out I was in Warsaw. Three months later I escaped from Warsaw, which was by then occupied by the Germans to my town, my hometown, where the Soviet Army was stationed. My parents remained in Warsaw. And their fate was similar to the fate of all Jews. In June, on the 24th of June, 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and within 2 days my hometown was conquered. It was the 22nd of June they invaded, and on the 24th it was conquered. So again we were subject to German rule and within 2 months all of the Jews of that town were evacuated from the city and were shot. Just before then, I escaped from that town - I wandered through various towns, through the forests of Russia, I returned to a small ghetto in Svinjahna with 230 craftsmen - Jewish craftsmen - where I was among those who established an underground group - we got hold of some ammunition and in the spring of 1943 we set out for the forests as partisans. I fought in the ranks of the Soviet partisans until the summer of 1944 when the Soviet army reached our area. I continued to fight until the end of the war. At the end of the war, in May 1945, through various routes I managed to escape and to come by illegal immigration into Palestine. By '45, by July 1945 I was in Israel. Two months later I joined the Palmach fighting forces. I was an officer. I was a pilot. I continued in the War of Independence."

    - Discharged from army with rank of Tatalouf (chief education officer).
    - Chairman of Yad Vashem since 1972.
    - Ph.D. on Vilno Ghetto.
    - Book on Treblinka published in 1983.
    - Book on Operation Reinhardt - Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka - to be published by Indiana University Press in 1987.

    [ W.Z. comments:
    (a) When he escaped from Warsaw, did Arad maintain contact with his parents?
    (b) Arad should be closely questioned about his role with the Soviet partisans. Were these the infamous commandos of Kovpak and Medvedev? They murdered opponents to Communism indiscriminately. For every German functionary that they assassinated, the Germans would shoot 50 civilians in reprisal. In Ukraine, the UPA fought them tooth and nail.
    (c) What was Arad doing after the advent of the Red Army? Was he perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity during the repacification of the local population to Bolshevik rule?
    (d) Did Yitzhak Arad participate in the Deir Yassin Massacre of Palestinians in 1948? Did he participate in other war crimes and crimes against humanity before, during and after the establishment of the Jewish state?
    (e) There appears to be a direct correlation between war crimes trials and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinians. The Demjanjuk Show Trial of 1987 coincided with the Palestinian Intifada. It seems that "education of the public" resulted in the brutalization of Jewish soldiers, such that they were more prone to kill, maim and torture Palestinian youth. Does Yitzhak Arad feel any responsibility for this?]

    C. (T000172 - T000180) Attempted submission of list of publications and documents of Arad.
    - Levin resists accepting the prosecutions documents, whereas Blatman keeps insisting and refers to stamps of archives.
    - O'Connor: "... I have complete faith and confidence in Dr. Arad, who I have had the pleasure of knowing and meeting on several occasions ..." Supports Blatman's position. "I would never attack Dr. Arad under any circumstances."

    D. (T000181 - T000206) Arad outlines Operation Reinhardt
    (a) First Stage - started with Hitler coming to power in 1933. - Isolate Jews from German society, excommunicate, dispossess, confiscate and "finally force them to emigrate from Germany".
    - Nurnberg Laws climaxed in deportation from Germany and the great pogrom of Krystal Nacht in 1938.
    - Tav-1 = Hitler's sixth anniversary speech of January 30, 1939 : "Today I once again wish to express a prophecy, to ask myself whether Jews, the capitalist Jews in Europe and beyond it, will succeed once again in bringing to ruin the population of the world, then the result will not be Boshevization of the world - in other words the victory of Judaism - but on the contrary, the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe."

    [Note Hitler's equivalence of Bolshevism with Judaism. Hitler specifically created National Socialism as an alternative to International Socialism, which he felt was a Jewish ideology.]

    (b) Second Stage - Ghettoization following outbreak of WWII, Sept. 1, 1939.
    - Heidrich issued order on Sept. 21, 1939 (original in Ludwigsberg archives) to SS Einsatzgruppen operating in Poland. Intermediary stages are concentration of Jews in ghettos near train stations; appointment of Judenrat; German deceit; forced to wear "yellow star of Zion"; horrible conditions, starvation, epidemics, overcrowding, forced labor, wholesale suicide.

    (c) Third Stage - started with invasion of Soviet Union June 22, 1941.
    - 4 Einsatzgruppen to destroy Jews in conquered regions of Soviet Union.
    - Heidrich document of June 2, 1941 [before invasion of Soviet Union?] - "alongside ... and the Communists - - Jews, who are officials of the State, must also be killed."
    - Encourage and instigate pogroms.
    - Have daily records of Einsatzgruppen 3.
    - Sonderbehandlung of Soviet Commissars and also Jewish prisoners from POW's.
    - July 31, 1941, Goering to Heidrich - prepare for Gesamtlosung = comprehensive solution
    - Wansee Conference called by Heidrich, Jan. 21, 1942: Minutes refer to Endlosung = final solution
    - 11 million Jews to be encompassed in this final solution including Great Britain, Ireland, Turkey.
    - General Gouvernment, which includes Warsaw, Cracow, Lviv, contains 2,280,000 Jews.
    - Einsatzgruppen were too slow and cumbersome.
    - (T000200) "The final solution idea and the decision to carry it out was adopted before the Wansee Conference." [???]
    - (T000206) Hans Frank, Dec 16, 1941 - make General Gouvernment judenfrei.

    [It is my understanding that there were no minutes taken during the so-called Wansee Conference. The minutes which Arad refers to were presumably written much later by some woman who had attended. As such, many people consider these minutes to be a forgery. One wonders how many of Arad's documents are of this quality?]

    - (T000201) Euthanasia program from Sept. 1939 to summer of 1941 put to death from 80 - 100,000 Germans (retarded, handicapped, undesirable); used CO bottles, corpses burned in crematoria; shut down by popular German protests. Many of the personnel were transferred to serve in the death camps.

    - Sept. 1941, Auschwitz first attempt to gas groups of Russian prisoners.
    - SS developed gas vans camouflaged as ambulances. Dec. 7-8, 1941, Jews were gassed in vans in Chelmo camp.
    - Chelmo operated until end of 1944.

    [Note that Arad refers to Russian or Soviet (but never Ukrainian) victims. OGPU/NKVD used gas vans in early 1930's - long before the SS invented them. Although Arad testifies that Chelmo operated until the end of 1944, the prosecution later rejected Demjanjuk's alibi that he had been in Chelm digging peat moss during this time.]

    - Belzec started in Dec. 1941, operational mid-March 1942
    - Sobibor started in April 1942, operational in May 1942
    - Treblinka built in May/June 1942 by Treblinka A (penal camp) prisoners, operational July 23, 1942

    - Himmler appointed Odilo Globocnik to set up extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.
    - Tav-3 = chain of command drawn up by one of the survivors in Israel. [??Who??]
    - Reinhardt Heidrich was killed in an ambush by Czech partisans in May 1942. Operation Reinhardt was named in his honor.

    [UPA ambushed and killed some big German about this time. Others have stated that Operation Reinhardt was named after some German flunky in the bureaucracy.]

    - (T000211) Christian Gvirtz was responsible for building fixed gas chambers with Russian tank diesel engines to provide CO - first at Belzec and then Sobibor and Treblinka (which were virtually identical). Camps contained 20-35 SS personnel, 90-120 Ukrainians from Trawniki, which included some Volksdeutcher, 700-1000 Jews [i.e. Jewish Nazi collaborators]

    - (T000216 - T000229) July 19, 1942 - Himmler ordered all Jews in General Gouvernment to be killed by end of Dec. 1942.
    - January 1944 - Globocnik writes Himmler to destroy all bills, receipts, invoices.
    - Oct. 4, 1943 - speech by Himmler - necessity of secrecy.
    - July 1943 - Martin Bohrman document re secrecy.
    - July 22, 1942 - Diary entry of Judenrat elder Cherniakov re evacuation.

    [To me, the authenticity of all these documents would be suspect.]

    E. Physical description of Treblinka camp
    - (T000229 - T000230) Blatman: "I gather that the camp was obliterated entirely. There are no original maps extant and that all descriptions and all research into the manner in which it was set up are based on evidence and testimonies by witnesses."
    - Arad: "All we do have is survivors' evidence and testimony, especially Yaakov Viernick...", who later in Israel constructed a scale model of Treblinka.
    - Tav-4 = Photograph of model of Treblinka camp as constructed by Viernick.
    - Tav-5 = Chart of Treblinka camp drawn by Israeli police from Viernick model.
    - (T000242) Arad: "Sobibor and Belzec were totally eliminated, same annihilation. Sobibor was almost an exact duplicate of this and Belzec, the first camp was somewhat."
    - (T000243) Format of camp is compatible with presentations in Dusseldorf 1964 and 1970.
    - (T000265) Construction of larger gas chambers started in early Sept. 1942 and lasted 8 to 10 weeks. Yaakov Viernick wrote "Here in Treblinka" in 1944.

    [Does this imply that there were no gassings between Sept. 1 and Nov. 15, 1942?]

    F. (T000244 - T000280) Operational description of Treblinka camp.
    - A train of 60 cars with 6000 people leaves Warsaw, passes through Malkinia on to Treblinka train station (3-4 km from camp), 20 cars are detached and pushed backwards by special engine with German staff to the camp.
    - Children and women go left to shed #4, (leave money and valuables in #6), where they are stripped, shorn and made to run into gas chambers.
    - Men turn right to shed #6 and, after women are exterminated, are made to run in the same manner.
    - Whole process took place in 1 to 2 hours, such that at peak periods as many as 12 - 15,000 were killed in one day.
    - Initially 3 small chambers #19, later larger gas chambers #11.

    - (T000248) Dorner: "Until what month did they still bury the corpses?"
    - Arad: Himmler visited Treblinka at end of Feb. 1943 and ordered corpses to be burned. From March to Aug. 2, 1943 corpses were dug up and burned, and new shipments corpses were burned and not buried.
    - (T000267) Arad: "For at the time of Himmler's visits, in Feb. 1943, already knew that Operation Reinhardt had in fact come to an end, and Auschwitz-Birkenau was taking over with its 4 huge crematoria."
    - (T000274) Arad: "A person who was taken out of any given shipment and was left in the camp could not survive in the camp for more than 2 or 3 months. Very few people, very few indeed survived for any longer period."

    [ ??? What about all the witnesses against Demjanjuk???]

    G. (T000281 - T000286) Aug. 2, 1943 uprising
    - Of the 700 or so Jews, about 150 escaped, but only 50-60 of them actually lived to see the day of liberation.
    - No Germans and 3 Ukrainians killed during uprising. [But not Ivan Grozni.]
    - Gas chambers were left intact.

    - 8000 Jews from Bialystok gassed Aug. 18-19, 1943.
    - Dismantling occurred in Nov. 1943 (Dusseldorf 1964)
    - Nov. 2, 1943 - 42,000 Jewish Nazi collaborators were killed as the last aktzia of Operation Reinhardt.
    - Summary: 870,000 Jews killed in Treblinka between July 23, 1942 to Aug. 19, 1943.
    - Tav 8 and 9 = maps from US archives at locations of Chelm and Oxen [Okzow?].

    II YITZHAK ARAD Cross Examination by Mark O'Connor (T000320 - T000509)

    Nun-1 = postcard (photograph?) of plan of Treblinka from Holocaust Museum (Kibbutz Lohamai Hagetot)(T000322)
    - Lazarette is not on this postcard. Viernick did not include it.
    - (T000330) O'Connor points out that in Viernick's model (Tav-4) the rear steps of the new gas chambers are aligned with the front steps of the old gas chambers, whereas in Nun-1 they are not aligned.

    Nun-2 = "Treblinka, Loss and Revolt" by Yitzhak Arad (T000334)
    - The Himmelstrasse was about 100 meters long and 4-4.5 meters wide (p35)
    - Map of Treblinka (p287)
    - "Hanging Tree" is not marked on this map

    [1987/02/18, Wed.; T000336, Vol. 1; Arad]
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    - (T000346) long discussion about east-west barbed wire fence between Arbeitsjuden buildings (#24, 25, 26) and disrobing areas (#4, 5).
    - (T000362) Work and service areas, dental clinic, bakery, goldjuden, hofjuden (cobblers, tailors), Tarnungs (Camouflage) commando
    - (T000385) Tank traps - so-called Spanish Horses
    - [What possible use could tank traps have in a death camp?]
    - sand between wire fence and tank traps
    - Treblinka camp was not mined, whereas Sobibor was mined.

    - (T000389) Discussion of repeated use of the word Ukrainian, but Arad insists that, besides Ukrainians and some Volksdeutcher, there were no other ethnic groups.
    - (T000400) The local population used the term Hiwi (Hilfswillege) for the Ukrainians
    - (T000402) Polish and Ukrainian women were introduced from outside the camp for bakery, etc.
    - (T000409) Testimony from Dusseldorf 1964 of Kurt Franz riding his hose up an "earth embankment"
    - (T000413) Yad Vashem has material on Streibel's trial concerning Trawniki; researched by Arad.
    - (T000417) Arad repeats that physical extermination began before Wansee Conference.
    - (T000420) Einsatzgruppen involved in killing hundreds of thousands of Jews in occupied areas of Soviet Union. Experimented with gas at Auschwitz on Soviet captives.
    - (T000427) Slavs were inferior to Aryans and Jews were at the very bottom.
    - (T000440) In Ukrainian unit the overwhelming majority were Ukrainians with a few Volksdeutcher who helped in translating , interpreting, communication.

    - (T000444) O'Connor: Nikolai is Russian, Mykola is Ukrainian, Grozni is Russian. Why would Russian names Ivan Grozni and Nikolai be used to describe Ukrainians? Arad has no explanation.
    - (T000446) O'Connor: On page 134 of his 1983 book on Treblinka, Arad refers not to Ivan Grozni but to Ivan Demjanjuk (spelled Demaniuk)
    - (T000448) Arad: When writing his book, Ivan the Terrible was under detention in the United States. "... the Courts in several instances, in the United States, had identified Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka as Ivan Demjanjuk."
    - (T000452) Nun-3 = copy of Molod Ukrainy newspaper showing Trawniki ID card.

    - (T000455) The leaders of the Jewish uprising Aug. 2, 1943, the kapo Galetski, Zeev Korlant, Zelo Bloch were all killed. Earlier in 1943 physician Horojesky attempted to get arms with help of Ukrainians. Was exposed and took cyanide.
    - (T000467) Viernick managed to get away, with help of Polish underground got to Warsaw [???], wrote book "One year in Treblinka", smuggled out, published in 1944-45. Was a witness at the Eichman Trial 1960 in Israel - submitted map. According to judge Tal, he gave evidence at Dusseldorf 1964 and 1970.
    - (T000469) Nun-4 = Map of Treblinka from Dusseldorf Trials presumably via the book "Into that Darkness" by Gita Sereni.

    - (T000483) Arad: "... old gas chambers. Where the engine was located, I could not say." " On my map I put the engine on the southern end of the [new] gas chamber building." "Nowhere in my book have I made a specific reference to the engine room for the gas chambers." "..., these engines were also used to produce electric power for the camp itself." Arad does not know how long the engine had been in use as a source of electrical power for the entire camp and if Nikolai and Ivan were responsible for electrifying the camp.

    [It is incredible that the precise location and characteristics of the instrument of death are not known. That the diesel engine was used primarily for electrifying the camp is highly significant.]

    - (T00487) O'Connor refers to possible engine operators from the Dusseldorf 1964 trial - Ernst Grossman and Franz (Fritz) Schmidt.
    - (T000489) Herbert Flaus was the expert on incineration (p119 of Arad's book) and Otto Haume (p257) was a male nurse who was acquitted at Dusseldorf 1964.
    - (T000501) Orchestra, both in the upper and lower camp of Jewish inmates, which played for the SS and guards.
    - (T000507) O'Connor suggests that "the black one who loved music" refers to the male nurse, Otto Horn, but Arad cannot confirm this.

    [I believe, Otto Horn was also acquitted at Dusseldorf 1964. What did male nurses do at Treblinka?]

    [1987/02/19, Thu.; T000510, Vol. 1; Arad]
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    III YITZHAK ARAD Cross Examination Feb. 19, 1987 (T000510 - T000619)

    In his earlier testimony, Yitzhak Arad implied that only Avraham Goldfarb had stated that Ivan Grozni had been killed during the uprising Aug. 2, 1943, (presumably in a Feb. 13, 1961 statement to Yad Vashem).

    [We note that Turowski and Goldfarb were the first people to identify John Demjanjuk as Ivan Grozni on April 9, 1976 to Mariam Radiwker.]

    Yoram Sheftel questions Arad about 3 other witnesses who claimed Ivan had been killed during the uprising:

    (1) Avraham Goldfarb in a statement to Yad Vashem on Feb. 13, 1961 (presumably) indicated that Ivan Grozni had been killed during the uprising. There were also "the 1979 statements and the so-called Bar Ilan statement by Mr. Goldfarb." (T000567) [Nun/46 = 1979-03-13] On page T000524, Arad reads from Goldfarb's 1979 interview with him.

    Arad repeats that Goldfarb had not seen it himself and had heard it from others. He then mentions that Minzberger at Dusseldorf 1964 claimed that Ivan was with him in Italy fighting partisans.

    (2) (T000511) Otto Helman (who came to Treblinka late Dec. 1942 and stayed to end) stated: "At the same time other groups which attacked the Germans and the Jews - the so-called Feuerleute - overpowered the Germans and Ivan Grozni was overpowered and was pushed into the furnace. At the first camp there was a heavy battle. I set the gas chambers on fire together with others and began to escape." The Otto Helman document is 18 pages long and was handed in to Yad Vashem in 1961.

    Arad rejects the Otto Helman story.

    (3) Eliyahu Rosenberg testimony given in 1947 at the Tuvia Friedman Documentation Center [which states that he personally participated in killing Ivan. There is also his 1945 testimony in Polish(?).] "Since the leaders of the uprising were not to be seen, one of the Ukrainians tried to fire, but he was lost in the pit and then several people attacked the barracks of the Ukrainian guards and amongst others Ivan, the Ukrainian guard Ivan, was sleeping. The Ukrainian guards were after a night watch and they did not wake up all that quickly. Others were using implements, running after the Germans."

    Arad: "Yes, I'm familiar with Rosenberg's evidence as a whole, with his original evidence which was given both in German and in Polish and in other languages." Regards Rosenberg's statement as wishful thinking.

    (4) A letter from Haim Steir from Australia indicating that he personally hit Ivan Grozni with a spade on the day of the uprising, but does not know if he was alive or dead. Z-187 is a literal translation from the original English. The prosecution rejected him as a witness and he declined to appear for the defense.

    Arad: Knows Steir personally, but was not aware of letter. Steir showed Arad a model of Treblinka at his home.

    - (T000528 - T000530) Sheftel: Many Jews from Treblinka ended up in the same DP camps as John Demjanjuk. Did Arad meet anyone who recognized John Demjanjuk as Ivan Grozni?
    - Arad: "... I did not read such testimony so I do not know."

    - (T000532) Sheftel: "Do you know that hundreds of thousands, and I stress this number - hundreds of thousands - of POW's of Vlasov's Army who were captured by the Allies and were repatriated at the end of 1945, sent back to the Soviet Union, were all killed. Hundreds of thousands of them were physically annihilated by shooting - that's what I mean - to the very last man."
    - Arad: "All I know is that those who were repatriated were arrested, some of them were sent to detention camps. As far as actual annihilation is concerned, I don't know anything about it, and it's not within the field of my expertise."

    - (T000533) The Black Book by Ilya Ehrenberg and Vassily Grossman
    - (T000535A) "One of them, about 30 years old, was tall, broad shouldered, black hair, and a sallow complexion but brimming with excitement. The other, somewhat younger, short, brown hair. His complexion was yellowish, as if he swallowed Chinin. We know the names of these traitors of humanity, who also betrayed their homeland and their oath of allegiance." (page 414 of Ehrenberg's book)
    - Long discussion but Levin eventually refuses to allow the defense to submit the book as evidence.

    - (T000544) Sheftel: June 25, 1986(?) letter which Dennis Gouldman wrote to Marvin Hyer and Abraham Cooper declining to use them as witnesses because they were in the lower camp only and could not comment on the upper camp.
    [Note that Dennis Gouldman is listed as a member of the prosecution team.]

    - (T000548 and following) Arad responding to O'Connor
    - Over a million, or close to 1.5 million Jews living in Soviet Union were annihilated
    - Ehrenberg and Grossman were members of Jewish Anti-Fascist Council in Soviet Union during WWII. Documented the " tragedy of Soviet Jewry under Nazi Germany and in the process of the liberation of Cracow, Kiev, and Smolensk, he and Grossman or someone else on their behalf made sure that testimony was taken concerning deeds of murder of the Germans and especially the Einsatzgruppen, ..."
    - Grossman apparently visited Treblinka after the war and published another small book "Treblinka" in 1945. Arad: "I know the book because it includes a preface of my own, concerning the Holocaust of Soviet Jewry."
    - (T000554) Quotation from p402 of Ehrenberg-Grossman book about Swidersky (who was tried in Germany according to Blatman): "We know of a certain Swidersky, with one eye, known as the hammer ... of his ability to kill without ammunition. He lashed, using an iron axe - he lashed - he hit 15 children between the ages of 8-13, who were declared to be children who were unfit to work."

    - (T000560) "The Death Camp Treblinka" by Alexander Dunat (deceased), who owned the Holocaust Library in New York. He published Arad's biographical book. It is a compilation of testimonies of Treblinka survivors and it contains a map. Presumably the name Ivan Demjanjuk is not mentioned in it.

    - (T000562) "Into that Darkness, from Mercy Killing to Mass Murder", 380 pages by Gita Sereni based on interviews with Stangel in prison after his trial and just before he died. The names Ivan, Ivan Grozni, Ivan or John Demjanjuk do not appear in the book.
    - Arad: Gita Sereni "is here right in this hall".

    - (T000571) Tav-6 = Official testimony of Stangel at Dusseldorf 1970 Trial.

    - (T000577) Tav-10 = Legend of Treblinka diagram drawn by Viernick.

    - (T000596) Arad: "Between Yad Vashem and the Polish Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German War Crimes, there has been over many years a cooperation and collaboration which is expressed in an exchange of material in reciprocal visits of research personnel as well as scientific discussions on subjects concerned with the period of the Holocaust."
    - Blatman: "It is also a commission which by virtue of its stand affirms the authenticity of documents."

    - (T000600) Stangel from Dusseldorf 1970: "I remember the names Ivan and Nikolai.. These Ukrainians, who were working constantly near the gas chambers, were billeted together with the other guardsmen outside of Camp I and II."

    - (T000602) Reference to Franz Yuchenblitz testimony (in charge of goldjuden) at Dusseldorf 1964.

    - (T000616) Arad: "...Volksdeutch from the Baltic countries, had come to Germany on the basis of an agreement between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union following the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement of Aug. 25, 1939."


    D:\d&d99\ARAD01.doc; Will Zuzak; 1999-01-02

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