OF OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS WASHINGTON, D.C. — Eli Rosenbaum has been named director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Jo Ann Harris, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, announced today. OSI is the unit of the Criminal Division that identifies and takes legal action against those who participated in prosecutive activities of the Nazi regime during World War II. "OSI's outstanding work has led to the successful deportations of many such individuals from the United States," Harris said. At the same time Harris also announced the appointment of Ronnie L. Edelman, a career Justice Department attorney, as Principal Deputy at OSI. A native of New York, Rosenbaum, 39, came to the Department through the Honors Program after his graduation from Harvard Law School in 1980. He was a trial attorney with OSI from 1980 to 1984. In 1984, Rosenbaum left the Department to work as a corporate litigator with a New York law firm and then as general counsel for the World Jewish Congress. He later returned to OSI in 1988 where he was appointed as Principal Deputy Director. Edelman, who received her law degree from New York University in Buffalo in 1979, also was an Honors Program attorney when she joined the Department. Initially she was assigned to the Fraud Section. There she moved up through the ranks, serving as Deputy Chief of the Consumer and Institutional Fraud Branch, and as Acting Chief of the Government Regulatory Branch. In 1982 she joined OSI and was named Deputy Director in charge of litigation in 1990. "Ronnie and Eli are a tremendous pair who have dedicated extraordinary efforts to further OSI's mission," Harris said. "They represent the highest degree of professionalism and integrity and I am grateful that they will continue to provide OSI with their exceptional leadership." In 1994, OSI filed seven new cases, the highest yearly total in the last decade. To date, some 42 persons have been removed from the United States and 50 have been stripped of their citizenship. 95-081 |
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| November 22, 1999 |
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Blatman: Now, Dr. Arad, could you tell us something about the setup of the camp. I gather that the camp was obliterated entirely. There are no original maps extent and that all descriptions and all research into the manner in which it were set up are based on evidence and trestimonies by witnesses. Arad: Both Treblinka and other camps, once they had fulfilled their task of extermination they were liquidated, disbanded, they were obliterated, they were turned into agricultural land and some greenery was planted. All we do have is survivors' evidence and testimony, especially Yaakov Vernick, who a few months after he escaped from the Treblinka Camp at the time of the revolt — I will come back to that at a later stage — he had prepared a drawing, a sketch or diagram of the Treblinka Camp and he in fact constructed in Israel, at a later stage, a scale model of Treblinka on the basis of the drawing he had brought along. And this is the main source for our information about the camp. Demjanjuk trial transcript, 17Feb87, pp. 229-230. All errors in the Demjanjuk trial transcript (such as the "trestimonies" above) can be credited to the original Israeli document, and were not introduced by the Ukrainian Archive. |
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Levin: The camps of Belzec and Sobibor, were they also destroyed, or does anything remain of these camps? Arad: Sobibor and Belzec were totally eliminated, same innihilation. Sobibor was almost an exact duplicate of this and Belzec, the first camp was somewhat different. But, on the basis of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were built and along the same lines — all three of them were utterly eradicated. Now, afterwards the government of Poland decided to establish monuments but there are no remains of the camp as such. Demjanjuk trial transcript, 17Feb87, pp. 242-243. |
| A group of Scharführers and Ukrainian guards, headed by Untersturmführer Franz and his dog Barry stood before us.
Jankiel Wiernik describing Treblinka, One Year in Treblinka, 1944, in Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, 1979, p. 152. |
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Oskar STRAWCZYNSKI: The SS Unterscharführer Franz was looking man, tall and young. He had a dog named Bari. The dog was trained that at the words "Mensch, nimm den Hund," he jumped at the worker and tore him to pieces.
Oskar Strawczynski testifying concerning Treblinka, Extracts from the particulars of evidence in support, in Marian Muszkat, Polish Charges Against German War Criminals (Excerpts from some of these) Submitted to the United Nations War Crimes Commission by Dr Marian Muszkat, Polish Main National Office for the Investigation of German War Crimes in Poland, Warsaw, 1948, p. 195. The words "was looking" were in the original, and probably should have been "was a good looking" |
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Attorney General This Franz amused himself with the prisoners. Can you describe this? Teigman Yes. He had a large dog named Barry. Upon a shout of Jude or Mensch, schnapp den Hund! (Man, catch the dog!), the dog would attack people and actually tear off pieces of their flesh. Kalman Teigman describing Treblinka, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 66, 06Jun61, p. 1209. |
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The dog Barry was brought to the Treblinka extermination camp either late in 1942 or early in 1943. He was the size of a calf, with a black and white spotted coat, a mixed breed but with the physical characteristics of a Saint Bernard predominating. At Treblinka he attached himself to the defendant Franz and adopted him as his master. Mostly, when Franz made the round of the "Lower" and "Upper" camps, Barry would accompany him. Depending on his mood, Franz would set the dog on inmates who for some reason had attracted his attention. The command to which the dog responded was, "Man, go get that dog!" By "Man" Franz meant Barry; the "dog" was the inmate whom Barry was supposed to attack. But Barry would attack an inmate even if he merely heard Franz shouting at that individual. In other words, the command "Man, go get that dog!" was not always necessary to galvanize Barry into action. Barry would bite his victim wherever he could catch him. Barry was the size of a calf so that, unlike smaller dogs, his shoulders reached to the buttocks and abdomen of a man of average size. For this reason he frequently bit his victims in the buttocks, in the abdomen and often, in the case of male inmates, in the genitals, sometimes partially biting them off. When the inmate was not very strong, the dog could knock him to the ground and maul him beyond recognition. Excerpt from First Düsseldorf judgement, in Alexander Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, Holocaust Library, New York, 1979, pp. 312-313. |
| A: Lulke would appear and would torment inmates without any reason whatsoever. He had a sort of blood thirst, he had this dog, a Bernadine dog, the dog was called Barry and Barry he would call Mensch and he would call the inmates Hund. He would call the dog and say 'Mensch beiss der Hund', [Bite the dogs] and the dog was commanded to bite them brutally.
Pinchas Epstein describing Treblinka, Demjanjuk trial transcript, 24Feb87, p. 885. |
| Yosef Czarny: Your Honors, in Treblinka there was another murderer, not a human being — he was a dog and this dog was called Bari. It was Lalke's dog. I remember this dog, Your Honors. Quite big, with brown spots and this dog had an adjutant — an assistant — I was told that he wasn't a Jew, he was related to the President of Czechoslovakia at the time — Yan Masaryk. I don't know why he had got there. He may have had a Jewish wife. But he was the adjutant of this dog. And this dog — at the time that I had to transport one thing — from one place to another — Lalke would promenade with this dog and he would say to one: mensch, man, take this dog and this dog had been trained to snap off the genitals, the sexual organ. [...] But whoever was called out for this and he would say — he would call to this dog. And the dog would tear of the sexual organ and of course, blood would flow all over the place. And he would walk with his legs astride. Yosef Czarny describing Treblinka, Demjanjuk trial transcript, 03Mar87, p. 1530-1532. |
| O'Connor: He [Kurt Franz] was the biggest sadist in the camp. I have once, although it was forbidden, laid down in the chicken pen. He found me out through his tracking dog which had the name of Barri. He has trained the dog to bite. The dog bit me.
Yosef Czarny describing Treblinka, Demjanjuk trial transcript, 03Mar87, p. 1613. Defense counsel Mark O'Connor reads from a letter written by Josef Czarny in 1959. |
| Q: Do you know who Kurt Franz was? A: Unfortunately yes I know. That was the assistant commandant of Camp I and II. The Assistant Commandant of Treblinka Camp. I also knew his dog. Chil Rajchman describing Treblinka, Demjanjuk trail transcript, 11Mar87, p. 2292. |
| Interpreter: Witness said: he slapped me on my face and I had to get slapped on the other side, too. He then addressed his dog and said: man, bite this dog! The man was the dog. And the dog was the man.
Chil Rajchman describing Treblinka, Demjanjuk trail transcript, 11Mar87, p. 2294. The interpreter reads back Chil Rajchman's testimony to judge Levin. |
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A. Right from the first day, people were killed, shot, set on by a dog called Beri. Q. Whose dog was it? A. At first, the dog belonged to an SS man of Camp 3 who was called "Beider" (bathhouse attendant), because he was in charge of the bathhouses, the gas chambers. Afterwards, the dog was passed on to Unterscharführer Paul, one of the greatest sadists in the camp. He used to call the dog and say: "Beri, my man, grab that dog — Beri, you are acting in my place." Generally speaking, very few of the people who were mauled by the dog remained alive, since the Germans could not stand injured persons, sick persons. I was bitten twice by that dog — I still bear the marks on my body. By chance — and everything was a matter of chance — I remained alive. There was one other dog, but he was less powerful. The dog "Beri" I am talking about was the size of a large calf, and if he got hold of a man, that man was helpless. The dog would attack him, and he had to submit to it. There were latrines there. After work, people were afraid to sit there. The dog was very well trained; if he came to any place, he would finish off anyone who was there. Dov Freiberg describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 64, 05Jun61, p. 1168. |
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A. When we were running two hundred metres with the bundles, there was a pit, and when someone was injured or had his sexual organs bitten by the dog Beri, Unterscharführer Paul Grott would say to him: "What happened to you, my poor man?"
Moshe Bahir describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 65, 05Jun61, p. 1179. |
| A: There was a certain Jew there, whom Paul and all the Jews called "Der schreckliche Ivan" (Ivan the Terrible). Half the beard of this man had been shaved off, half the hair of his head, half his eyebrows and half his moustache. Q: Who shaved him in this way? A: A Jewish barber. There was another one, on the other side. They used to appear every day at the roll-call, half shaven. Dov Freiberg describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 65, 05Jun61, p. 1172. |
| Witness Freiberg A Jew. He headed the organization for revolt. And, at that time, there were some individuals amongst the Ukrainians whom we thought it was possible to talk to. They related all kinds of stories about partisans, and a conspiracy was established between him and the Ukrainians to organize a revolt. One of the Ukrainians apparently disclosed this; at a roll-call in the evening, they took him out and began to interrogate him as to who were the organizers of the planned escape. This man withstood beatings and endless tortures and maintained: "I was the only one who wanted to escape." He did not reveal anything. The Germans said that if he would not tell them, they would take all the people of the block — I don't remember how many there were in the block to which he belonged — they would take them to Camp 3, and there they would cut off the heads of all of them in front of him, and he would be the last to be killed. He said: "In any case, you do as you like — from me you will not learn anything." Then an order was given to the entire block to move to Camp 3 — the block numbered eighty persons. The next day, we learned that the Germans kept their word, and all the people were beheaded. And, after the War, there was evidence from a young man who is now overseas, that he caught the German who was responsible, Novak — he was in the Russian zone — they searched his home and found all kinds of photographs; amongst the photographs they found was a picture of the decapitation. Dov Freiberg describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 65, 05Jun61, pp. 1174-1175. |
| A. I saw him [Himmler] for the second time in 1943 — roughly in the month of February, but then it was not a train that arrived — then the officers arrived by plane — we also knew that. I was then working in the German officers' casino. I worked there for eight months, starting the day after the first visit, for on the day after the first visit, the two Jewish girls who worked in the German casino were killed, and, in their stead, I was chosen to work there, together with my friend, Joseph Pines. From that day, I worked in the casino until March 1943, about one month after the second visit of Himmler and his colleagues. Q. Is this Joseph Pines still alive? A. No, he was killed during the revolt. Q. In the casino you were engaged in cleaning, cooking and serving? A. Yes. I was engaged in cleaning, cooking and serving. I also had a special uniform, and I used to change it twice a day, and I also took a shower before serving. Moshe Bahir describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 65, 05Jun61, p. 1180. |
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A: After some time, a buzzing sound would be heard, the floor opened up, and the victims fell into the deep hollow below and were conveyed in this little train into the pit where the eighty men of Camp 3 were working, and they burned the bodies. The fire that was ablaze in Sobibór could be seen, without exaggeration, from a distance of twenty kilometers.
Ya'akov Biskowitz describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 65, 05Jun61, p. 1184. |
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Presiding Judge You described the inside of the gas chamber. For example, you told us how the floor opened up and the bodies fell into the railway waggons. Witness Biskowitz Into the hollow below. Q. Did you see this with your own eyes, or are you talking of things that you heard from others? A. I will describe a shocking scene here. Q. But first of all — did you, in general, have an opportunity of seeing these things from the inside? A. Not everybody had the opportunity, but I, by chance, did. By chance I was taken to bring a cart with a barrel of chloride. When I was passing by the two larger stores in Camp 2, I detached the cart and pushed it towards Camp 3. I was supposed to leave it near the gate, but I could not hold the vehicle back. The gate opened and it pushed me inside. Since I knew I would not get out alive from there, I began to run back at top speed and managed to reach my place of work without anyone noticing. I kept this a secret — I am stressing this — even from the inmates of the camp who worked with me. From a distance, I saw the pit and the hollow and the small train that carried the dead bodies. I did not see the gas chamber from the inside; I only saw, from the outside, that there was a very prominent roof, and that the floor opened and the bodies fell below. Q. You came to this conclusion from the nature of the structure? A. Not from the nature of the structure — I saw it from afar even while I was running away quickly, although I cannot describe it exactly, after nineteen years. Q. Please understand me. You are somewhat familiar with these matters. Did you see the floor when it had opened up? A. I did not see that — I merely saw that underneath the gas chamber, there was a hollow which already contained bodies. Presiding Judge Thank you, Mr. Biskowitz, you have concluded your testimony. I know you have not told us everything. But there was no alternative. Witness Biskowitz There was another shocking case which I witnessed, and I should like to describe just this one further incident. Presiding Judge I am very sorry. I have already explained it to you. It is not only those who appear here who want to relate their story, and it is simply not possible. Thank you very much — and Shalom. Ya'akov Biskowitz describing Sobibor, in The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial, Jerusalem, 1992, Session No. 65, 05Jun61, p. 1188. |