Richard Rashke - Useful Enemies

“When you [said] you were a resident of Poland,” O’Connor asked, “had you been told by anyone—your comrades or someone helping you from IRO—that that would be enough to stop forced deportation?”

“The answer is yes.”

“Do you feel [now that] you would be assassinated if you were in any other country but the United States?”

“Yes,” Demjanjuk said.

OSI attorney Bruce Einhorn wasted no time challenging Demjanjuk in his cross-examination. He began by reading Demjanjuk’s written responses to a list of asylum questions posed earlier by the court.

Question: Is the United States protecting you from something?

Demjanjuk: From the Soviet Union.

Question: What will happen if you get to that country?

Demjanjuk: Either hanging or execution.

Question: If Judge Angelilli orders you deported to the Russians, do you feel you will be persecuted?

Demjanjuk: You should know that he would deport an innocent person directly to his execution.

Question: In your understanding of Russian law or Soviet law, are you a traitor to the motherland?

Demjanjuk: Yes.

Einhorn asked Demjanjuk if he wanted to change any of those answers. When Demjanjuk said he did not, Einhorn began to challenge them.

“Do you know,” he asked, “whether Ukrainians have been assassinated by Soviet agents in any other democracy other than the United States?”

“Stepan Bandera was killed by Soviet agents,” Demjanjuk said.

“Where?”

“In Germany.”

“Other than this alleged Stepan Bandera?”

“At the moment, I am not able to spell their names,” Demjanjuk said.

In questioning Demjanjuk about assassinations, Einhorn showed his historical ignorance and lack of trial preparation. Bandera was a famous Ukrainian hero who fought for independence both before and during World War II as a leader of a Ukrainian guerilla army. After the war he was an international leader in the Ukraine independence movement. His assassination by cyanide in Munich on October 15, 1959, by Soviet agent Bohdan Stashynsky made headlines around the world. If Einhorn had done his homework, he could have argued that to compare Demjanjuk to Bandera would be like comparing a Virginia tobacco farmer to George Washington. Bandera posed a threat to Moscow. Demjanjuk did not. Einhorn moved on to another topic.

“Can you tell us what provision of Soviet law… required all Soviet prisoners of war… to commit suicide?”

“There was a regulation—and we were told about it—that we have no right to be taken prisoner of war. That we have to commit suicide.”

“How was the law described to you? Was it cited to you?”

“It was given through an officer,” Demjanjuk said.

“Do you remember the name of the law?”

“All I know is that there was a regulation.”

(Historian Matityahu Meisel, a specialist in World War II Russian military history, would later testify in another Demjanjuk trial: “There was no such order… to commit suicide rather than being taken captive.”)

“Do you know for certain that every Soviet prisoner of war who returned to the Soviet Union… was executed by Soviet authorities?” Einhorn asked Demjanjuk.

“Yes.”

“Since you know it for a fact, can you tell us how many executions there were?”

“I cannot give you an exact number,” Demjanjuk said. “One was spared, ten were executed.”

“How do you know this?”

“It was in the press.”

“Are you aware of the general Soviet amnesty after World War II with regard to Soviet prisoners of war?”

“I’ve never heard of such an amnesty,” Demjanjuk said.

“Would it refresh your recollection to know that the proclamation was issued by Nikita Khrushchev… in the 1960s?”

Again, Einhorn didn’t bother to check his historical facts. The Khrushchev pardon was granted in 1955. It freed only those POWs who had not been charged with war crimes, not Trawniki men like Danilchenko, Fedorenko, and Ivan the Terrible, who, in effect, had been charged.

“I was never aware of it, and I never tried to find out about it,” Demjanjuk said. “I was already living in a free country which I love, and that’s all I have to say in this matter.”

On his application for a suspension of deportation, Demjanjuk had written: “I have been sentenced to death in Russian occupied Ukraine for assisting the American forces in Germany after WW II, for deserting the Red Army, for refusing forced repatriation, and for service in the Vlasov Army.”

Einhorn pressed Demjanjuk on the claims.

“Do you continue to swear that the answer you gave… to be the truth and the whole truth?”

“Yes.”

“Could you refer me to the specific provision in the Soviet law which provides a criminal sentence for assisting American forces by driving a truck after the conclusion of the Second World War?”

“There is no question about it,” Demjanjuk said.

“Could you tell me the name of the law… that makes ‘there is no question about it’?”

“How can you expect me to know a paragraph of the law,” Demjanjuk complained. “There is just a general law that you cannot serve in another army.”

“Were you in the United States Army, or were you simply working for the United States Army?”

“We had black uniforms, but we were considered as working for the American army.”

“So you were never in the United States Army as an enlisted man with a rank, grade, and green army uniform, were you?”

“No.”

“Do you deny the fact that forcible repatriation to the Soviet Union ended in 1947, four years before you applied for a visa?”

“I cannot tell you whether it was ’47 or ’48 or ’46. I don’t think that’s relevant,” Demjanjuk said. “I was under constant fear that I may be forcibly returned.”

“I’m not interested in your fear. I’m interested in the fact. Do you think that your witness, Mr. Jerome Brentar, lied under oath when he told us… that forcible repatriation to the Soviet Union ended in 1947?”

Einhorn was referring to Brentar’s testimony at the denaturalization trial.

“I don’t think Mr. Brentar would be lying,” Demjanjuk said.

“You wouldn’t contradict him, would you?”

“No, I would not.”

“Do you believe that the dangers you would face in being returned is [sic] a shared danger of your fellow Ukrainians living in this country or the west?”

“Yes. We are all considered collaborators by the communists.”

“Do you believe that the United States court system is a fair and free one?”

“I do believe in American justice,” Demjanjuk said, “but I want to tell you that I personally did not get justice.”

“Do you believe that the United States court system is fair to everybody but you?”

“I don’t know about other cases.”

Einhorn asked Demjanjuk if he believed that fellow Ukrainians had ever collaborated with the Nazis as death camp guards during the war.

“Now that I am involved in this case,” Demjanjuk said, “I have read many books in which they state that there were Ukrainians employed in this capacity. If the books are making such a statement, who am I to deny it?”

“Do you think that such persons… should remain citizens and residents of the United States of America?”

“It all depends under what conditions these people were in that job. If they were forced to do it, is one thing,” Demjanjuk said. “If they voluntarily went to it, it’s another thing.”

Demjanjuk had a book giving statistics about KGB assassinations in the West. He asked Angelilli’s permission to have the clerk read the statistics into the record. Angelilli compromised.