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[EXCITED CHATTER]
[NEWSCASTER] New evidence is casting doubt on Israel's case
against the man facing trial there
as the notorious Nazi death camp guard, Ivan the Terrible.
[REPORTER 1] Eliahu Rosenberg was the key eyewitness
for the prosecution.
[SPEAKING HEBREW]
[SHOUTS]
[LEVIN, IN HEBREW] Mr. Rosenberg...
[REPORTER 1, IN ENGLISH] But new evidence emerged
that undermined Rosenberg's dramatic testimony.
[REPORTER 2] The veteran Nazi hunter, Tuviah Friedman,
has now produced a signed statement,
taken from a Treblinka survivor 39 years ago,
in which the witness said Ivan the Terrible had been killed
during a 1943 uprising by camp inmates.
"Ivan, uh, the... the Terrible was killed
by... by, uh... the Jewish uprising."
[FLAMES CRACKLING]
[HOD] On the 2nd of August, 1943,
the uprising started.
The prisoner understood it's kind of a suicide activity,
but in that time,
everyone know that there is no other option.
They decided they will go to the Ukrainian guards,
kill them, and steal their weapons,
so they will have more power to run away from the camp.
[EXPLOSION BLASTS]
[HOD] Most of the people got shot.
The others were killed, there and then.
From the uprising, less than 300 succeeded to escape.
At the end of the war,
uh, there were 70 people from Treblinka that survived.
[GABAY] Rosenberg had written an account of the revolt at Treblinka...
that Ivan was killed.
He wrote that in 1947.
And it was a concern that, at that point,
a good defense attorney would jump on that point.
"Hey, you wrote this. What do you say to that?"
[SHEFTEL] We read to him, word by word, translated to Hebrew from Yiddish,
how he described the killing,
not only in front of his eyes,
but how he takes part in that killing.
So, how can you say that this poor man,
uh, sits behind me, uh, is, uh, Ivan the Terrible?
I mean, you just...
I read to you how you killed Ivan the Terrible 40 years ago!
Mr. Rosenberg, did you not, in fact, tell Tuviah Friedman...
in the first person plural...
not that you had heard by hearsay,
but that, in fact, "we," as a collective term,
had burst in and killed the sleeping Ivan?
[ROSENBERG, IN HEBREW] It was my heart's wish.
Of course I believed that he was killed.
It was a success!
Can you imagine, sir, the uplifting of this great success,
of this great event,
that someone killed our murderer?
Is there any doubt? I believed it with all my heart!
I wish it was the truth.
I wish.
That's the whole truth.
We wished. Every one of us wanted to brag about how he did it.
It was grand!
But here... the creature sits before us.
[SHAKED, IN ENGLISH] Rosenberg was summoned again to testify,
and he gave the best, I think, explanation to it.
That it was his wishful thinking.
And everybody can understand it,
that, uh, you want to show that you managed to kill the evil,
or the embodiment of the evil, by yourself,
which is not true.
[IN HEBREW] If he died over there, he wouldn't sit here before me.
Staring and laughing...
This hero is laughing!
[IN UKRAINIAN] Mr. Rosenberg, you are a liar, liar, liar!
[AUDIENCE MURMURS]
Advertise your product or brand here contact www.OpenSubtitles.org today
[HOD, IN ENGLISH] People in Israel didn't know how to treat
the survivors that had just arrived.
"How can it be that..."
you survived, and six million didn't?
What have you done...
"to survive this horror?"
People in Israel were very cruel
to those people that just, uh, survived this tragedy.
And you discover that, through the years,
they developed a different image of how they survived.
I think that the witnesses touched, a bit,
their very deep guilt feelings
that they stayed alive.
That they didn't commit suicide.
That maybe someone will ask,
"How come you stayed alive?" And...
they wanted to live,
and they did their utmost to live.
And...
and maybe Rosenberg needed something heroic
to balance, uh, this guilt feeling.
I think that the solution was the right one.
That no one killed the operator of the gas chamber,
and it was part of the myth
that, uh, was told after the uprising.
[REPORTER] There are probably ways of ascertaining
whether Ivan the Terrible was,
in fact, killed at Treblinka.
German records from the Nazi period,
maybe the testimony of Treblinka supervisors
still in German jails.
That may be necessary to rebut Demjanjuk's claim:
"I wasn't following orders;
I wasn't even there."
[INSTRUMENTAL THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
[WATER POURING]
[SHEFTEL] There is a lot of art on the walls in my house.
All together, 177 original paintings
in, uh, nine rooms.
Uh, if we take, uh, for instance,
uh, this painting,
it was painted by a notorious murderer.
And you could see that, uh, the man is, uh, problematic,
if we use understatement,
from the figure of the painting.
But it's a...
it's a good quality painting, no doubt about it.
Now, this is the most famous and the best photograph
live from the Demjanjuk case.
He was conducting the prosecution case,
Michael Shaked.
That's O'Connor.
Not at this point,
but very soon later,
I was leading the defense.
[HENRY] Good evening. I'm Ted Henry with the latest
on the John Demjanjuk war crimes trial from Israel.
He continues to say he's the victim of mistaken identity.
Yet, one of the most important pieces of evidence
linking John Demjanjuk to the Nazi death camps in Poland
surfaced in the trial today.
If it's not discredited,
it could single-handedly bring about a conviction,
which in turn, could lead to the death sentence for John Demjanjuk.
[AUDIENCE CLAMORING]
[IN HEBREW] Prof. Sheffler, I present you with a document marked M1
and ask you to look at the document
and tell the court what it appears to be.
[IN GERMAN] This document is a service ID of a soldier.
THE NAME ON THE DOCUMENT IS:
"Demjanjuk, Ivan."
[SHAKED, IN ENGLISH] The Trawniki card, which was his membership card in the SS,
was the most important evidence in this trial.
Because this really moved him
from a condition that he was mistakenly brought to Israel
into collaboration with the Nazis.
[REPORTER] The German identity card was issued at Trawniki
in Eastern Poland in 1942.
Thousands of Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis were trained there.
[ROSENBAUM] This ruthless force trained at the Trawniki training camp,
a school for mass murder,
did the dirty work.
They all took part in every phase
of the operation of the death camps.
[REPORTER] The card shows a soldier called "Ivan Demjanjuk"
was posted to Sobibor,
an extermination camp for Jews.
There is no mention of Treblinka, about 60 miles away,
but the prosecution argued he'd worked at both.
The card is damning proof.
[YOUNGER SHAKED SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
[ROSENBAUM] The Trawniki card has multiple details
that apply only to Demjanjuk,
beyond his name, his birthplace,
his father's name, the scar on his back...
and an old black-and-white photo taken decades earlier.
[CLERK, IN HEBREW] All rise!
[REPORTER] With the enlarged photograph overlooking the proceedings,
questions were asked once again.
How can you measure visual similarity?
[IN ENGLISH] Um... When I was first asked to give an opinion in this case,
I WAS PRESENTED WITH TWO PHOTOGRAPHS:
photograph number one and photograph number four.
[SMITH] To prove that he is that man
and has done these things,
it's a big responsibility.
I looked at the photos.
Yes, there's a resemblance,
but... it was important
to see which features were easily identifiable.
[YOUNGER SMITH] As the video shows,
you can see the exact continuation
of the position of the earlobes,
the shape, direction, inclination,
every detail on the nose and the upper lip,
the distance between the eyes,
the interpupillary distance is identical.
[SMITH] The upper face, for example,
except for the cheeks,
doesn't change, uh, during life.
The distance between the eyes doesn't change.
The shape of the head doesn't change.
The very marked widow's peak,
which you can see in all of the photos.
[YOUNGER SMITH] The results of these many hundreds
of studies all show that the probability
that two individuals should be so identical
in so many features is,
to all intents and purposes, none.
[REPORTER 1] Very methodically, Shaked was able to add support to his claim
that the Trawniki ID card authentically belonged to John Demjanjuk.
[REPORTER 2] A day of high-tech drama
at the trial of alleged Nazi war criminal, John Demjanjuk.
A prosecution witness made a controversial visual presentation.
"Demjanjuk's lawyers called it a "Hollywood production
by an unqualified witness."
Uh, this is, you know, a real, uh, frame-up.
We hired an expert
and asked whether what she's doing is worthwhile.
And he said...
"No, it's absolute garbage.
It's worthless!"
If you would look at where the shoulders are beginning,
on the picture of John Demjanjuk,
you can see clearly the difference in the shoulders
where, in fact, you have indicated that the heads were, at this point,
were pretty much the same.
Uh, certainly, there's a difference in the position of the, uh, body.
Now, if you'd direct your attention to the top of the head.
What I'm specifically referring to, Professor Smith,
is the position of the head is slightly higher
in one photograph than in the other,
as it blends in and changes over.
Yes, there is a slight difference.
Now, clearly you saw that the ear on the left was much higher,
and at the same time that the ear was higher,
the eyes appear to be somewhat lower.
[YOUNGER SMITH] There is a minor discrepancy, yes.
Now, obviously, you can detect that the eyes are totally different
with regard to the depiction of what you have on the videotape.
Is that not correct?
Um, I... I'm sorry, I... I'm used to making a, uh...
evaluation. I... I can't really judge from that photograph.
[SMITH] You want the honest truth?
It's... It's a contentious topic.
It's a contentious topic.
I was very... uh, tense the whole time.
Superimposition had been used occasionally beforehand.
But the superimposition was really more of a show.
Because he was walking around, he wasn't posed for it...
it wasn't a... precise, uh, image.
[REPORTER] In court today,
it seemed Demjanjuk's photo is still a matter of dispute.
But now, Demjanjuk's defense has a new card to play,
claiming the Trawniki card itself is fake.
[SHEFTEL] The prosecution says that this is authentic document.
But the point is,
the photograph is not originally on the card.
The card is false.
[AUDIENCE CHATTERING]
[IN HEBREW] The defense will not only state
that the document is a forgery,
we will summon experts of the highest caliber
who will shatter this document and leave nothing of it.
Not the signatures, nor the photo.
Nothing will remain of the entire document.
We will shatter and pulverize this document.
We will leave nothing of it.
[LEVIN] But please leave us the original, okay?
Definitely.
[LEVIN] Good. Thanks.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
Only the original will remain.
[REPORTER, IN ENGLISH] It is an identity card from Trawniki.
This copy shows a photograph, the name Ivan Demjanjuk,
and a signature.
The prosecution says it's genuine.
Demjanjuk's defense lawyers say it's a fake,
a forgery done by the KGB.
Not one government expert ever said he ever saw anything like that before.
This strange card,
which is a mixture of God knows what. This is what Schafer said.
Not only was it not an ID card, he didn't know what it was.
They had all the documents. Germans are ver-very good with documents.
They had every single document, but not one like this one.
[REPORTER] These copies of file cards, issued at Trawniki to Ukrainian guards...
They are completely different in shape and design
from Demjanjuk's alleged card.
They had Streibel, who was the head of the camp.
His name was on it.
He was still alive.
We talked to him.
They had two or three of the paymasters on there.
They looked at it,
and they said, "Certainly, it's... it's not an ID card."
[SHEFTEL] It was in the possessions of the KGB
at least from 1948.
How do we know?
There was a stamp.
Did you attach any significance
to the fact that the ink seems to just be on the photograph
and not on the paper?
This indicated to me that we had a stamp impression
that was made with two different stamps
to give the impression that one stamp had been used.
It's possible to see that the stamp,
which should be applied afterwards,
does not register with the portion on the card.
The card, obviously, from an historical standpoint,
was in the hands of the KGB.
[ROBERTSON] The signature, "Demjanjuk," on the ID card,
was not done by the same writer.
The fact that the Demjanjuk signature, in my opinion, is forged,
then there has got to be something wrong with the document.
[REPORTER] Flynn noticed something else about the card.
The photograph of Demjanjuk contained
what were obviously two large staple holes.
But the staples had not penetrated through to the back of the card.
It's obvious to even nonexperts
that the photograph itself had to have, uh, been attached
to another document.
[REPORTER] Flynn is convinced that it was the Soviets, not the Germans,
who had attached the photo to the card.
The only evidence they had against him was from the Soviet Union,
and the Soviet evidence, and the Soviet Union cannot be trusted.
[SHEFTEL] The Red Army entered Trawniki
and collected all the papers,
all the documents.
Everything was there,
including empty ID cards like this.
Which then, uh, there is a complete possibility
of the KGB to forge such a card.
They did it in order to break up the cooperation
between the chauvinist, neofascist,
Ukrainian, Lithuanian,
and Jewish, uh, communities in America
with their anti-Soviet activity.
[O'CONNOR] The chain of custody is right from the KGB.
I know active measures.
I know how effective they are. They can forge anything.
They can bring dates forward, they can bring dates back.
They are the best in the world, and we acknowledge that.
[GABAY] It sometimes amazed us that Demjanjuk's lawyer
was the son of... of the commissioner
who had actually written the law
to allow certain individuals into the United States.
O'Connor's father was a biggie.
Edward O'Connor worked with refugees in Germany after the war.
And he was so humanitarian,
the United States raised him up to the Displaced Persons Commission.
And there, he set policies
that favored Nazi collaborators.
They are some of the most anti-communistic people you can find,
and therefore, they're an asset
because they will fight communism in the United States.
[CROWD CLAMORING]
[DOUGLAS] Mark O'Connor's father is already someone
who has kind of very dubious credentials.
I mean, this is a guy who seemed quite anti-Semitic,
flirting with Holocaust denial,
and I don't think it's defamatory, in any way, to describe him
as with real Nazi sympathies.
[O'CONNOR] Yes, my father
was very instrumental in reaching out to these people
submerged behind what Lenin called "the prison house of nations."
If you're saying, "Okay, by saving them, he let the Nazis in," that's nonsense.
Absolute nonsense.
Total nonsense.
Not everybody's gonna agree.
They're gonna say, "Okay, this O'Connor's a phony."
There's something behind him. He's an anti-Semite, he's a racist,
he's a revisionist, he's...
"Look at this. His father did this and that." Okay, um...
Okay, I accept that.
[RASHKE] So, Edward O'Connor said, "Go to my son, Mark.
He is a very good attorney."
He may have been good at wills... [CHUCKLES]
And the birth certificates,
but he had very limited courtroom experience.
[YOUNGER O'CONNOR] Your Honor, may it please the court,
we continue our objection with regard to the introduction
of the questioned documents supplied
by the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
[SHAKED] The whole idea of forging the Trawniki card
is completely far-fetched.
WE HAVE CHECKED THERE EVERYTHING:
paper, photos,
signatures, ink, stamps on it.
Everything was checked by top experts from the world.
To say that the... the Trawniki card was a forgery is completely...
It is not serious.
[IN HEBREW] We overrule the objection
heard by Adv. O'Connor.
[IN ENGLISH] Your Honor, this is a terrible obfuscation.
At least I'll attempt to. You can certainly overrule me, Your Honor,
and make a judgment today on this case if you wish,
but I humbly and respectfully would at least try to get on the record
what I'm attempting to do with the obfuscation
that's developing here with the prosecution.
[IN HEBREW] Mr. O'Connor, just stop shouting.
When you raise your voice,
it's quite disruptive.
Kindly moderate your voice. Am I understood?
- [IN ENGLISH] Whatever the court wishes... - [IN HEBREW] That's better.
[IN ENGLISH] ...is my desire. If my level is too high, Your Honor,
I will make it lower at any time you say, Your Honor.
We submit to the jurisdiction of this court in that regard.
[IN HEBREW] Thank you. Now, please...
[REPORTER, IN ENGLISH] O'Connor's rhetorical excesses have drawn criticism
even from the judges hearing the case,
and his inability to stop the introduction of a critical
and controversial identity document into evidence
raised questions about the quality of his representation.
[TEICHOLZ] Over time, when the Demjanjuk family came
and saw the case,
they began to be concerned
'cause they wondered whether O'Connor was effective or not.
My belief in him waned very quickly
when I would try to ask him something.
We're in the Demjanjuk backyard, for instance,
and I'd say, [STAMMERS] "Wh-What do we got going on here?
What... What... What kind of witnesses do we have?"
And he'd go...
Like, really weird eyes, you know, like this...
and then he'd go...
You know, like...
the... like the frickin' CIA is sittin' in the... in... in a pear tree or something.
You know? Uh, don't... don't give me that. Uh...
Don't... Don't... Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining outside,
'cause, hey, it... it's piss.
[REPORTER] The three lawyers representing Demjanjuk
have been bickering among themselves of late,
and this morning, they moved to have the case dismissed
because of insufficient evidence,
to which the judges hearing the case said no.
The trial has gone into recess now until July 27th,
and on that date, John Demjanjuk will walk the 45 feet across the courtroom floor
and take the stand himself.
The three-judge panel hearing the case will return its verdict
in about six weeks.
And if the decision is guilty as charged,
then John Demjanjuk could be sentenced to death by hanging.
- [CROWD CLAMORING] - [CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]
[POLICE SIRENS WAILING]
[MAN] Okay, you ready?
I'm here in the US consulate
in West Berlin,
US Consulate General.
The deposition of Otto Horn.
[SHAKED] Suddenly, we learned from the American prosecution
that there is a Nazi from Treblinka
who identified Demjanjuk as the operator of the gas chamber.
So, from this point of view, it is not a witness that you can let go.
[CLEARS THROAT] Mr. Horn, what kind of place was Treblinka?
[SPEAKING GERMAN]
[INTERPRETER] That was a camp... An extermination camp.
[CONTINUES SPEAKING GERMAN]
[INTERPRETER] People were exterminated there... were gassed.
[IN HEBREW] Otto Horn was an SS man stationed at the upper camp,
not far from the gas chambers.
He was in charge of that area.
And there, the people were run to their death.
That same Otto Horn was also in charge of exhuming and burning the bodies,
the crushing of bones.
[OFFICIAL, IN ENGLISH] This gas chamber, on which you have drawn an X,
where the Jews were brought to be gassed,
were these people all men?
[SPEAKING GERMAN]
[INTERPRETER] No, no, just anything. Men and women.
Were... Were there children included as well?
[INTERPRETER AND HORN SPEAK GERMAN]
[INTERPRETER] Yes.
[O'CONNOR] I was there when he told us.
He said, "Look, I'll let you do this, but you got to promise me one thing:"
don't tell my girlfriend anything about this."
[WHISPERS] "Don't tell my girlfriend."
[IN NORMAL VOICE] And it was chilling.
How long would the process of gassing last?
[HORN SPEAKING GERMAN]
[INTERPRETER] Then, after one hour only, the chambers were opened...
[HORN CONTINUES SPEAKING GERMAN]
And then the corpses were carried away
into the pit, and promptly, for burning.
[SHEFTEL] I said all along,
"I'm not going to involve myself"
in any direct Nazi personalities
as evidence.
"Let the prosecution use the SS Nazis. Not me."
Certainly, it was in our interest to have a Nazi from Treblinka say,
"I recognize that's the guy from the gas chambers."
I admit, it was more important to get the conviction
than that morality
to prove that he was...
Ivan Grozny, Ivan Demjanjuk, Ivan at the gas chamber.
Okay. I'd like you to take your time,
look at these photographs.
Look at all of them.
Ple-Please, first, just look at them.
[INTERPRETER SPEAKS GERMAN]
Just look at all of them.
[INTERPRETER SPEAKS GERMAN]
That's the one.
Which photograph is this, Mr. Horn?
[INTERPRETER AND HORN SPEAK GERMAN]
[INTERPRETER] That is Ivan, probably.
Let the record reflect
that the witness selected Government Exhibit 3E
as the photograph which he identified.
And show it to the camera.
[PEN SCRATCHING]
- [OFFICIAL] Do you have that? - [CLERK] Yeah.
[OFFICIAL] Okay.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[YOUNGER HENRY] Ever so slowly,
the emotion of this long trial is beginning to show on the faces
of the people who are the closest to John Demjanjuk:
the members of his immediate family.
His two daughters, Lydia and Irene, are frustrated, sad, and even angry.
I'm upset. I'm upset about what I'm seeing with the judges.
[SHEFTEL] The wife of Nishnic, she came to my room and asked me,
"Explain me, please..."
what... what's going on in the case?
"What's the role of each one of you, the defense lawyers?"
So, I said to her,
"John Gil is responsible as far as the Trawniki card is concerned.
Me, the identification."
Then, she asked, "And O'Connor?"
I said, "O'Connor generally direct, uh, the case."
So, she said,
"So practically, what you're saying, that we don't need O'Connor."
And then, I jumped on the opportunity.
I said, "Look, you said it",
uh, but, uh, that's more or less, uh...
You... You immediately
"and very quickly understood what's really going on."
[NEWS FANFARE PLAYS]
The alleged Nazi war criminal, John Demjanjuk,
who's on trial in Jerusalem,
has sacked his American lawyer
just a week before he testifies in his own defense.
[O'CONNOR] All this conspiracy behind my back
when I'm over defending this man in Germany.
I had some things to say to him.
I had some things to say to him, and, um...
I lost it.
[REPORTER] Demjanjuk, who is accused of being
the sadistic Treblinka death camp guard, Ivan The Terrible,
has fired controversial New York attorney Mark O'Connor,
but O'Connor refuses to give up the case.
[O'CONNOR] I let him know that he's a traitor...
and, "How could you abandon me?"
'Cause it was a shock. I never thought that day would come,
despite the fact that Nishnic
and all these characters, and Sheftel, and...
they were all working against me.
They were working harder against me than they were Mickey Shaked.
[REPORTER] First and foremost on the list of grievances
against attorney Mark O'Connor
is his refusal to be a team player,
to go along with co-counsel Yoram Sheftel.
[O'CONNOR] Sheftel had a plan.
I know he's plotting.
I know he's turning the family against me.
I know he's doing it because he believes he's gonna get the money.
It's all about money.
THAT WAS THE BIG GOAL: get O'Connor out.
This Wednesday, an Israeli judge will resolve an angry dispute
that's been going on now for weeks.
At issue, who will represent retired Cleveland autoworker John Demjanjuk
for the remainder of the Nazi war crimes trial in Jerusalem?
[IN HEBREW] I would now like to hear from the accused himself.
What is your position with respect to Mr. O'Connor?
Do you wish for him to continue representing you?
[IN UKRAINIAN] My family has decided to dismiss Mr. O'Connor.
[IN HEBREW] The family is not on trial here.
You are on trial here, sir.
What is your decision?
[IN UKRAINIAN] Honorable court,
my decision is to follow the advice of my family.
I am in a cage. I am in jail.
Therefore, I must follow the advice of my family.
Whatever they decide, I must do.
[O'CONNOR, IN ENGLISH] He never reacted. That was the thing that got to me.
Never reacted, never tried to come back.
Never showed any emotion and so on,
except when he turned around and said...
"My family."
THAT WAS ALL HE HAD. TWO WORDS:
"my family."
After I had done all the things with my practice for five years,
after I'd made these sacrifices
for him and the Ukrainian community,
then he did that.
That, for me, was the most difficult thing.
I felt the betrayal.
I felt betrayed by him, okay?
He didn't want to face that,
'cause he felt it, I'm sure.
The rest of the family felt nothing about me.
Nothing.
The Demjanjuk family is staying here at the American Colony Hotel
in Arab East Jerusalem.
John Jr. tells me that his mother, Vera, is continuing to hold up okay.
Meanwhile, the defense is tens of thousands in debt.
Demjanjuk's son-in-law Ed Nishnic says O'Connor was given a blank check,
but that he never paid the bills.
I was under the impression that out of the monies
that had been turned over,
that all these bills were being taken care of, and...
um, only to find out that...
he claims that there wasn't enough money to cover them.
We don't have money. We don't... I don't own a home.
[YOUNGER JOHN JR.] You have to understand, we have nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Coming here to Israel, having the United States working with Israel,
using Soviet evidence.
You've got three governments going against one man.
One man with no funding. Loss is inevitable.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[REPORTER, IN HEBREW] The family of John Demjanjuk
left Israel this Wednesday,
including his son, two daughters, and grandson.
Before returning to Cleveland, they said
they will continue their efforts to clear the Demjanjuk name.
[ED, IN ENGLISH] We were in the Demjanjuk living room.
Mr. D was in Israel.
Irene and her sister came over,
and they says, "It's time to shut the defense down.
There's no way you're gonna win."
Couldn't give up.
I couldn't give up.
I... I... I simply could not allow this to happen
under the false pretenses that I knew took place.
I started my fundraising campaign in Canada.
In 32 days,
we were in 47 separate cities.
You're not gonna pin me down.
[STAMMERS] I'm gonna do what I have to do
and how best I know how to do it.
That's why it was like an adventure for me.
- [REPORTERS CLAMORING] - Good morning. Uh, my name's Ed Nishnic.
I'm Mr. Demjanjuk's son-in-law, and, uh...
[ED JR.] I know he worked on it like a madman.
I mean, he would be gone for weeks at a time,
you know, sometimes a month at a time, traveling, giving speeches.
Um, you know, doing his work with the defense fund and everything else.
[ED] I... I was going to all the churches
to discuss whether they can help us.
[REPORTER] All Demjanjuk's friends and relatives can do
is to come here to their church in Parma and pray
and also hope that people will continue to contribute
to the Demjanjuk defense fund.
[GABAY] The community did not want the OSI to delve into the past
of many individuals
who had a Nazi past.
[YOUNGER ED] Court cases cost money.
Right now, we probably have,
and I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that,
maybe $500 or $600 to our name to fight with,
where the government has a blank-check budget.
[TEICHOLZ] The Demjanjuk defense had connections
with Holocaust revisionists
or anti-Semitic points of view.
Pat Buchanan was declared, by the National Review,
to be an anti-Semite.
Jerome Brentar was a representative
of the same Catholic charity
that helped Eichmann escape.
James McDonald had given interviews to Holocaust revisionist organizations.
An axis of people that I always felt...
um, they would have been wise to distance themselves from,
but which, for whatever reason, they continued to... um...
You know.
[REPORTER, IN HEBREW] This is how John Demjanjuk built
his life in prison.
Hundreds of postcards on the walls from supporters and admirers.
Demjanjuk keeps many ties with different people
and organizations around the world.
It's a whole lobby.
He has received thousands of letters and packages to his cell.
[IN ENGLISH] Uh, I got the wall.
I've got the people behind me, writing letter.
I got a letter, not only from America,
from Canada, from Australia, from New Zealand, from Germany,
from Belgium, from Russia, from Ukrainian.
I got a letter from...
[SPEAKS UKRAINIAN]
Even from the China, I got a letter before.
I have a million people behind me here.
[REPORTER, IN HEBREW] We ask him how come
thousands of people support Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka?
[IN ENGLISH] I'm "Ivan from Treblinka"?
I'm not even from Treblinka. I prove it already. Hey?
I'm not against even Prokuror Shaked.
That is his business.
How he against me, I'm not against him,
I'm not against about nobody.
I just wanted to make it...
uh, right, you know?
[IN UKRAINIAN] Justice, that's all.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[ED, IN ENGLISH] They invited me out to Mission Viejo, California.
It was a nice gathering of people,
and at that gathering,
a lady who looked like a... a schoolteacher,
she asked me if I was receiving my mail.
And I says, "Sure, I get my mail. Do you get your mail?"
It's like, you know, "Duh!"
And then, I thought about the stack of documents
that was sent to me in an envelope
with no return address.
No notes, no nothing.
Just the document itself.
And then I says, "Oh! So this is...?"
And... And... And she... she says, "Yeah."
She was an Estonian,
and at least, from these people point of view,
they were afraid they were gonna be the next target of the OSI.
They could do that to Demjanjuk,
then they could do it to them just as easy.
She goes, "Why don't you come visit me when you're out in, uh, Virginia?"
So I did.
We went over her house.
We walked through her kitchen and into her garage.
And in her garage,
from floor to ceiling...
It would fill this whole room up...
All this room...
Were nothing but boxes of garbage.
And it was all OSI garbage.
[REPORTER] K Street, Washington, DC.
This is the old headquarters of the OSI.
Just across the street is a McDonald's restaurant.
Strangely, in the late 1980s,
the OSI's janitor had been dumping garbage
in the McDonald's dumpster.
Unknown to the OSI,
a Demjanjuk sympathizer was lifting the garbage
and handing it over to the defense.
[ED] And so, I used torent a big Lincoln
and fill the car up with boxes of garbage,
bring it back to where I lived,
and many of the documents were torn.
We had a production line set up
to take all the documents and tape 'em back together.
Put them together like puzzles and tape 'em back together.
There was just so much.
And then, you had to be... absorb that all
and then decipher what it really means.
And what it really means
is that there... There was somethin' rotten going on.
[DOUGLAS] When the case against Demjanjuk starts to unravel,
one of the things that emerges, of course,
is that the OSI itself had had doubts
about the Ivan the Terrible theory from pretty early on.
[PARKER] John Demjanjuk is either 6'1" or he's 5'6",
but there was a discrepancy of about five or six inches,
one way or the other, and that was a concern.
[REPORTER] Parker says that concern was not shared
with the Demjanjuk defense.
So, you have the classic smoking gun
in the form of a memorandum from one of the lawyers
and the OSI saying,
Uh, "Maybe he's not Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka."
I have some serious doubts about this."
[REPORTER] Documents found in the garbage throw new light
on a crucial piece of testimony.
George Garand had sworn an affidavit
saying that Otto Horn had identified Demjanjuk
as Ivan the Terrible unequivocally.
But this report was found in the garbage.
It painted a very different picture.
[DOUGLAS] Otto Horn, it turns out,
far from first picking out Demjanjuk's photograph
with absolute certainty, and saying, "Yep, that's the guy."
Uh, in fact, Horn needs to be prepped.
He needs to have the lawyers for the OSI kind of direct his attention
and kind of... kind of, almost like force him and go,
"Isn't that... What about this guy? How about this guy?
How about... What about this guy here? This guy looks pretty good."
You know? And it's only then that Horn ends up identifying him.
So, again, it ends up being the case that...
what looks like a very probative, very impressive piece of evidence,
under closer scrutiny, starts to unravel as well.
[REPORTER] SHORTLY AFTER 9:00 this morning,
Demjanjuk family members filed the papers at federal court.
Their complaint charges the US Justice Department
with suppressing evidence.
This is a copy of the complaint itself.
- [CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING] - It consists of 678 pages.
Very much new evidence
that was suppressed from the defense team
from the Israeli government since 1979,
by the Office of Special Investigations.
I do remember that, uh, there was an unfortunate...
um, breach of security.
- [INDISTINCT CHATTER IN DISTANCE] - Let's do that again.
Loud people in the library, huh? Okay.
Uh, I do remember that there was an unfortunate breach of security.
Uh, I wasn't there at the time, but I know about it.
As civil discovery was conducted back then...
Basically, you gave the defense what they asked for...
and if they didn't ask for it, they didn't get it.
And... And OSI was faulted for... playing...
what we call in American English,
based on our game of baseball, "hardball," you know?
If they didn't ask for it, they didn't get it.
Um, and that's what happened.
[REPORTER] John Demjanjuk Jr. told me today
the documents will have a major impact on his father's case.
I don't think they want to go ahead
knowing that there's still garbage floating out there,
that there's documents being withheld by the Office of Special Investigations.
How can they possibly make a decision, knowing full well
that all the relevant evidence isn't before them?
[IN HEBREW] And back to the Demjanjuk trial,
which reconvened in Jerusalem today after a month-long recess.
[YOUNGER SHEFTEL] During the last recess of the honorable court,
the defense got lucky.
And out of the OSI,
documents were leaked to us...
that show, black and white,
that when we presented the Trawniki photo spread to Otto Horn,
he looked, and not only didn't he identify Demjanjuk,
he pointed to another photo altogether!
And this material was hidden away from us!
And when the defendant was tried in the US
and was stripped of his American citizenship,
his lawyer wasn't aware this evidence existed.
Who knows if he would even be sitting here if these documents were known?
[IN ENGLISH] Every person from the OSI in this case...
is a kind of legal murderer.
No other way to put it.
They knew all along, Demjanjuk is not Ivan the Terrible,
and they kept their dirty mouths shut,
and they continued to conceal the evidence which proves that he's not.
- [REPORTERS CLAMORING] - [CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]
[YOUNGER HENRY] It's now time for the defense to make its case
in the Holocaust trial, and essentially, their argument is this:
that John Demjanjuk is a victim of mistaken identity,
that he is not Ivan the Terrible, the death camp guard at Treblinka.
AND THE VERY FIRST WITNESS TODAY: John Demjanjuk himself.
[REPORTER 1, IN HEBREW] The defense will begin
its portion of the case this morning.
The courtroom is full of interested spectators
who returned to the hall to hear the defendant's testimony.
Dozens of foreign media outlets
also sent their journalists back into the courtroom.
[REPORTER 2, IN ENGLISH] John Demjanjuk knows it is his life that is on the line.
[REPORTER 3] Today he begins testifying in his own defense.
[SHEFTEL] As far as I am concerned, he would not testify.
But in Israel, refusal to testify
will put him promptly to the gallows.
[REPORTER 4] When John Demjanjuk takes the stand
inside this convention hall courtroom,
it's possible he will face his accusers
and the judges who heard his case for one final time.
[LEVIN, IN HEBREW] Very well, the accused will now testify
on behalf of the defense.
What's your name?
[IN UKRAINIAN] I am John Demjanjuk.
[SUSPENSEFUL INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]
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