Richard Rashke - Useful Enemies

Horrigan showed Schaefer the photos of the Trawniki card.

“Calling your attention to the area right of center, at the bottom… can you identify the writing there?”

“It’s Mr. Teufel’s signature.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw the signature frequently,” Schaefer said. “In particular, the way he started… the first letter. It’s like a big 7.”

“On what kind of documents?”

“Various.”

The video showed Horrigan handing Schaefer the two photos of the Trawniki card.

“Can you identify the card?” Horrigan asked.

“An official ID card like the people who received training in Trawniki had,” Schaefer said.

“Did you have one?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see what appears to be a signature?”

“That’s Streibel’s signature and he was commander of the camp.”

“Do you recognize the writing as Streibel’s?”

“I remember the writing as such because I often had leave passes signed by him,” Schaefer said.

By the end of the videotaped testimony, Schaefer had scored two strong points and one weak one. He had established that every Trawniki man had his picture taken and every Trawniki man received an ID card. And he had supported Epstein’s conclusion that the signatures of Streibel and Teufel were authentic.

In his cross-examination, Martin scored a big point. Although Schaefer was working in the Trawniki office as paymaster when Iwan Demjanjuk allegedly enrolled in the school, he could not remember an SS guard by the name of Demjanjuk, nor could he identify his photo.

If Martin scored a big point, he also made a huge mistake. He failed to ask Schaefer a critical question. Although Schaefer testified that he was issued a card similar to but not identical to the alleged Demjanjuk card, Martin chose not to ask him how his card differed from Demjanjuk’s or whether he had ever seen a Trawniki card exactly like Demjanjuk’s. More important, he never asked Schaefer if he thought the Demjanjuk card was authentic. Had he done so, his answers would have shocked the court:

• The Trawniki card listed the items of clothing given to Iwan Demjanjuk. Schaefer would later say in a sworn affidavit, “There never was issued an identification paper to a guard, which at the same time contained a list of objects which were received by him. The list of equipment was a special document, which was kept at the camp administrative office where I worked.”

• The equipment list on the Demjanjuk Trawniki card did not include a rifle. Schaefer would later swear: “It is completely unimaginable that there was no carbine given to a guard. That was, to a certain extent, his right arm, without which he could not perform his duty.”

• The name Demjanjuk appeared on the Trawniki card twice. Schaefer would later swear: “Every guard in Trawniki, including myself, had an identification paper on which his name appeared only once. A card such as the one which was shown to me and which shows the name Iwan Demjanjuk twice, was never issued by me. I know of no such cards.”

• The Demjanjuk Trawniki card stated that Iwan Demjanjuk was posted to Okszow and Sobibor. Schaefer would later swear: “This document could not have been issued at Trawniki. Official transfers were never recorded on identification documents.”

• The Demjanjuk Trawniki card was not dated. Schaefer would later swear: “The date of issuance had to be on every identification card. Otherwise, such a paper was automatically invalid.”

During the war, Otto Horn was a male nurse in the German army’s Medical Services Company. After a serious battle injury, he landed a desk job at Trawniki for a few months, before being transferred to Treblinka in the fall of 1942. He was a reluctant but important witness because he was a German, not an emotional Jewish survivor whose memory might be clouded by a forty-year hunger for revenge.

Moscowitz took Horn’s sworn videotaped testimony at the U.S. consulate in West Berlin in 1980, the year before the trial opened. He began the direct examination by asking Horn if he could remember any of the guards at Treblinka. Horn said he recalled two Ukrainians. One was Iwan. He couldn’t remember the name of the other.

Next, Moscowitz questioned Horn about the two photo spreads he had viewed in the small living room of his Berlin apartment prior to his videotaped testimony. Both Moscowitz and his boss, Allan Ryan, were aware of the criticism leveled at the photo spreads and identification procedures used in the Walus and Fedorenko cases, and they were determined not to make the same mistakes. Ryan had insisted that the pictures for the Ivan the Terrible spreads conform to the stipulations of the U.S. Supreme Court. Under his instructions, OSI prepared two spreads with eight clear pictures in each. One spread contained Demjanjuk’s visa application photo, the other the Demjanjuk Trawniki card photo. Ryan had also insisted that two OSI team members be present at every showing of the photos, and that afterward, each write up a separate report stating who said what to whom, and who did what and how.

Moscowitz’s job was to establish that OSI followed the book when it showed Horn the two sets of photos. But before the videotape could show Horn answering the first photo spread question, Martin’s co-counsel, Spiros Gonakis, objected. The courtroom technician stopped the video. Gonakis complained that neither he nor Martin had been present when OSI showed Horn the photos, which, he argued, was a violation of his client’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. He asked the court to rule Horn’s photo identification inadmissible.

Battisti overruled the objection and the videotaped testimony continued.

Moscowitz began with the first photo spread.

“When you were looking at these photos, was anyone holding them?” he asked Horn.

“They were on my table in front of me.”

“Were you in control of them?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone suggest to you that you pick out a particular photo in any way?”

“No,” Horn said.

“Did you in fact identify or recognize someone in those photographs?”

“Iwan.”

“Were you shown another set of photographs?”

“Yes.”

“When you looked at those photographs… where was the first [set]?”

“They had been removed,” Horn said.

“How many photos were in that set?”

“Also about eight.”

“Did anyone suggest to you that you identify or pick a particular photograph?” Moscowitz asked.

“No.”

“In this group, did you recognize the photograph of any person?”

“Yes. The one I found out on the first set,” Horn said.

“And what was his name?”

“Iwan.”

“The Iwan whom you stated was at the gas chamber?”

“Yes.”

“Where was he at the gas chambers,” Moscowitz asked. “Outside or inside?”

“Inside.”

“What was he doing?”

“He directed, or he co-directed, the prisoners into the chambers,” Horn said.

“Did there come a time when you saw him at any other part of the gas chamber?”

“At the place where the engines were.”

“These are the engines of the gas chamber?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Iwan go into this room where the motors were?”

“Yes.”

“What if anything did you see him do there?”

“I didn’t go in there,” Horn said. “I only saw him going in. ”

Moscowitz then approached the issue in another way.

“What would happen in the gas chambers after… Iwan entered that motor room?” he asked.

“Objection.”

The answer called for speculation. How could Horn possibly know what happened inside the motor building if he wasn’t present?