Richard Rashke - Useful Enemies

“Categorically.”

“That’s a matter of personal belief, is that correct?”

“No!” Pap said. “It’s a matter of the right of nations to self-determination—a concept which was born in the United States.”

Next, Moscowitz began to question Pap’s credibility on the subject of Soviet-forged documents.

“Have you yourself examined any documents which you allege the Soviets produced?”

“I read an article.”

“You yourself have not examined any documents in this case—documents that you made claim had been falsified by the Soviet Union—is that correct?” Moscowitz pressed.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Have you ever examined documents obtained from the Soviet Union that you believe were falsified?”

“Yes.”

“You yourself had seen falsified documents?”

“I saw them in printed books,” Pap conceded.

“In other words, you read accounts of other peopl e who claimed that there were falsified documents?”

“Yes.”

“You are not a documents examiner, are you?”

“No, I am not.”

“Are you aware, sir, that there are captured German documents in the possession of the Soviet government?” Moscowitz asked.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it possible that if they had such documents—which implicated a former Soviet citizen in collaboration with the Germans—that they would make such documents available?”

“I think they would, yes.”

“How would you satisfy yourself that the document was authentic?”

“I would want to have the examination of those documents by specialists,” Pap said.

“And would you be satisfied as to its genuineness if the Soviet government made available the original document itself for inspection?”

“Experts again.”

Pap knew he was in trouble as a defense witness and he attempted to change the topic. “Your Honor,” he said, “I know for sure the Soviet Union has a division in the KGB which is producing forged documents on the order of the government.”

Pap was probably referring to Service A of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, which John McMahon, CIA deputy director for operations, had described during a hearing by the House Select Committee on Intelligence the previous year.

“Have you been over to see this division at the KGB?” Moscowitz asked.

“No.”

Moscowitz returned to the issue of the validity of documents supplied by the Soviets in denaturalization cases. He called Pap’s attention to the case of Wladymir Osidach, who was then on trial in Philadelphia for collaborating with the Nazis as a policeman and lying about it on his visa application. As part of its case, the government accused him of rounding up and exterminating Jews in Rawa-Ruska, Ukraine. The federal district court in Philadelphia would eventually strip Osidach of his U.S. citizenship, but he would die before he could be deported to the Soviet Union, where most likely he would have been tried and executed.

“Mr. Osidach admitted that the Soviet documents implicating him as a Ukrainian policeman were valid and true ,” Moscowitz said. “Wouldn’t that have a bearing on your opinion as to whether such documents could be given credence?”

“If the accused admits that the document is real, well, then there is no problem…. It is interesting, Your Honor,” Pap said. “The timing is interesting.”

Pap’s observation gave Martin an opening for his re-direct examination. He jumped on it.

“Would you care to explain about the timing?” Martin asked.

“To me, it is very interesting that these various cases of collaboration are brought after thirty-five years,” Pap said. “It is happening because the Soviet Union is… very much afraid of the collaboration between Jewish and Ukrainian communities….They want to initiate a kind of situation where the Jews and the Ukrainians will fight each other and, therefore, divert attention from what they are doing in the Soviet Union.”

Jerome A. Brentar, the son of Croatian immigrants, was the owner of the Europa Travel Service in Cleveland and the major organizer of the Demjanjuk legal defense fund. Like the prosecution’s expert witness Daniel Segat, he had worked as an eligibility officer for the IRO after the war. Brentar was especially useful to the IRO because he spoke fluent German, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech.

Apparently, the prosecution did not know at the time of the trial that Brentar was a Holocaust denier, and as such, a totally compromised defense witness.

Defense co-counsel Spiros Gonakis conducted the direct examination of Brentar because Martin was in Florida taking the deposition of Feodor Fedorenko with permission of the court. Gonakis needed Brentar to support the testimony of Professor Pap—that Demjanjuk had lied on his various applications because he was afraid of being forcibly taken back to the Soviet Union. Both Segat and Leo Curry had testified that there was no reason to fear forced repatriation in 1950, the year Demjanjuk applied to the IRO for refugee status, because forced repatriation ended sometime between 1945 and 1948.

“Are you familiar with the term ‘forced repatriation’?” Gonakis asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Would you tell us what that means to you?”

“This is one of the blunders that we Americans had made,” Brentar said. He went on to explain that the Allied Military Command in postwar Germany assigned American and British soldiers to round up Soviet POWs and civilians who refused to leave West Germany, and then to hand them over to Soviet authorities.

“[American soldiers] behaved just like the SS,” Brentar said. “They would bayonet them, shoving these people mercilessly into the trains, which [would take them to Soviet] death camps…. And there were people who had to be carried because they were already beside themselves. Some were even committing suicide…. About two and a half million good, solid citizens were deported to the Soviet Union from Germany as well as Austria.”

“When you were affiliated with the IRO [in 1947] was there any forced repatriation?”

“Thank God that after three years,” Brentar was forced to admit, “America came to its senses and they stopped it.”

“What kind of involvement did you have with the refugees, above and beyond your routine of interviewing the applicants?”

“I went to every camp I knew where refugees were and from whom I could get some information,” Brentar said.

“What fears, if any, did these Soviet people tell you about in the camp?”

“Objection, Your Honor… Hearsay.”

“Overruled.”

It was hearsay, but Battisti was interested in the issue so he cut the defense some slack.

“The KGB was all over,” Brentar continued. “There was open season on these Soviets. They would disappear overnight. There were bombs sent through the mail to these refugees. There was poison put in their food… so the people were living in an atmosphere of fear and tension.”

“Would you run into any difficulties with people that you thought were Soviet citizens on their application?”

“Many of them did not want to divulge their true names, or their nationality or place of birth. Had them changed,” Brentar said. “Or they just didn’t give me the truth. After the letdown of the Americans and the British, they didn’t trust any one of us.”

“If you had a Soviet POW who was involuntarily conscripted into a Ukrainian unit which saw no action against the Allies, what would his eligibility status be?” Gonakis asked.

“They would be considered for eligibility under the mandate of the IRO constitution.”

Prosecution witnesses Segat, Curry, and former vice consul Henrikson had each testified that they would have considered such persons ineligible.