SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 383
characters for ‘Schutzstaffel’ – SS – have different shapes and
sizes. 5) The spelling of the word ‘Grösse’ has ‘ss’ instead of the
correct ‘ß.’”
2) According to the ID card, Demjanjuk was assigned to the L.G.
(farm) at Okzow on 22 nd Sept. 1942 and on 27 th March 1943 to Sobibór.
Lehner stresses that these indications do not show the termination
of any of these assignments. A third assignment, either between
or after the other two, cannot be found either.
Lehner concludes: 1122
“Thus, it is left to the discretion of the observer, whether the
holder of this ID card went directly from Okzow to Sobibór or
whether he returned to Trawniki in between. If that was the case,
we must ask when the guard came back from Okzow, who included
the mention of ‘Sobibór,’ and why there is no mention of
an assignment to ‘Treblinka.’ If eye witnesses allege to have seen
him there, a corresponding entry should show up in the ‘assignments’
section of the ID card.”
In other words, the ID card was, first of all, an obvious falsification
and it would, secondly, not have provided any indication for a stay of
the holder at Treblinka.
We do not know why the KGB – which certainly had at its disposal
a host of experienced forgers – produced such an amateurish falsification,
and there is no other suspect than the KGB in this case. We can of
course exclude any involvement of the Israelis in this connection, because
they would have been sure to produce a document in line with the
statements of the witnesses to the effect that Demjanjuk had indeed
been stationed at Treblinka rather than at Sobibór.
Although the U.S. judicial authorities at the time had at their disposal
only a facsimile and although the ID card, as we have seen, did not
prove Demjanjuk’s presence at Treblinka, they decided to recognize its
validity.
After Demjanjuk had been stripped of his American citizenship in
1981, he was extradited to Israel in February of 1986 – a country which
did not even exist at the operational time of Treblinka camp.
The only two prominent U.S. citizens who mustered up enough courage
for Demjanjuk’s defense were Patrick Buchanan – who compared
the Demjanjuk case to the Dreyfus affair 1123 – and the House member
1122 Ibid., p. 83.
1123 The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, 1 October 1986.