chambers in each with hermetically sealed doors. Each chamber was about eighteen feet long and about fifteen feet high. The walls were cement with white tile up to a point to make the chamber look like a shower room. There was a fake electric light dangling from the ceiling and “shower pipes” through which the gas was delivered. Each chamber held as many as five hundred men, women, and children. A diesel engine supplied the carbon monoxide. On a good killing day, Treblinka could gas five thousand Jews.
At the entrance to the gas chamber buildings, which was stuccoed and whitewashed to look like a bathhouse, was a sign with a quotation from the Old Testament: “This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it.” Along the walls were flower boxes watered and tended by several of the Jews who worked in camp two.
“Who operated the gas chamber?” Horrigan asked.
“Two Ukrainians,” Rosenberg said.
“Do you know their names?”
“Iwan and Nikolai.”
“Did you see them… at the gas chambers?”
“Every day, whenever there were transports.”
“Would you describe this Iwan?”
“He was a tall man about 23, 22, 24 [years old]. He was broad shouldered, round face. He had gray eyes. His ears stuck out a little. Short hair, not especially light.”
The description closely matched the picture on the Trawniki card.
“What do you recall Iwan and Nikolai doing at the time the transports came?”
“They beat people…. Iwan had a… pipe, sword, a whip, and he tortured the victims with them before they entered the gas chambers, especially the women,” Rosenberg said. “He cut pieces between their legs. I saw this with my very eyes.”
Rosenberg testified that he not only saw Iwan drive victims into the gas chamber buildings, but he also saw him enter it, presumably to force them into the chambers.
“Now after they entered the gas chamber, what, if anything did Iwan and Nikolai do?”
“They returned to the room where the motor was, and they activated the motor.”
“Mr. Rosenberg, were you ever present at the gas chambers while they were in operation?” Horrigan asked.
“Yes.”
“Would you describe what you would see at such a time?”
“The outside doors of the gas chambers were closed,” Rosenberg said. “I stood on the ramp, and we waited until the victims had been choked. I heard and saw how they entered the gas chambers. I heard the screams, the crying of the children, ‘Mama, Daddy… Hear, Oh Israel.’ After a short period, about a half an hour, everything was quiet.”
“And then what happened?”
“A German went up, he put his ear to the door, and he said in German, ‘They are all asleep. Open the door,’” Rosenberg said. “We opened the door and… started to remove the corpses…. Practically everyone still groaned.”
Even though Horrigan knew Miriam Radiwker’s photo spread was flawed, he showed it to Rosenberg anyway. Once again Rosenberg picked out Demjanjuk’s photo (no. 16) as Iwan of Treblinka. And from the OSI spread, he picked out the photo on the Trawniki card as that of Iwan.
The next witness was Georg Rajgrodzki, a retired architect who was born in Poland and currently lived in West Germany. Like Rajchman and Rosenberg, Rajgrodzki had carried corpses to the burial pit under the supervision of Otto Horn. Unlike the other witnesses, Rajgrodzki got a personal taste of Ivan the Terrible. Iwan had given him twenty lashes that nearly killed him. Although he recovered, Rajgrodzki knew his days were numbered. A violin saved his life.
One of the Germans found a violin that had belonged to a dead Jew and asked if anyone could play it.
“I can,” Rajgrodzki volunteered.
“Okay, play.”
That day the supervisor of the camp kitchen, an Austrian, happened to be in the small group of Treblinka personnel who had gathered to hear the Jew play. He asked Rajgrodzki to play some Viennese music. The waltz Rajgrodzki selected landed him a cushy job in the kitchen, where he stayed… and played… until the uprising.
Rajgrodzki recalled playing for Iwan and Nikolai one day in the summer of 1943. By that time, the transports to Treblinka were reduced to a trickle and the guards were bored. Himmler had already liquidated Belzec, and it was just a matter of time before he would close Treblinka as well. Rajgrodzki had put together a trio—violin, harmonica, and clarinet. By the time the group finished its first piece, Ivan the Terrible was in tears.
Like the witnesses before him, Rajgrodzki testified that he frequently saw Iwan and Nikolai drive Jews into the larger gas chamber building, enter it, and then, after everyone was locked in one of the ten gas chambers, enter the building that housed the motor.
The next witness was Pinchas Epstein, who was born in Poland and currently lived in Israel. He had positively identified Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible from the photo spread Miriam Radiwker showed him. The government was fortunate to have Epstein. He was one of the six witnesses who had testified at Fedorenko’s trial three years earlier. Judge Roettger had verbally abused and “attacked” those witnesses so “roughly” that they felt like they, not Fedorenko, were on trial. No one was eager to testify in America again. Epstein lost his whole family at Treblinka—his father and mother, two brothers, and two sisters. That may have been the reason he agreed to sit in the witness chair one more time. For them.
Like the three witnesses before him, Epstein had carried corpses to the pit under the supervision of Otto Horn. He recalled how the Germans had accused a group of Jews of planning an escape. Iwan ordered the men to lie facedown on the ground.
“He split one skull after another… with an iron pipe,” Epstein said.
Epstein also testified about three Jews who
The SS hanged them during the evening roll call.
“Have you ever had occasion to be present when the motors to the gas chamber were turned on?” Horrigan asked Epstein.
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you able to see this area closely, the area where the chambers were?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And do you know who operated the motors?”
“Two Ukrainians. One was Iwan and the second was Nikolai.”
Epstein described how he sat down to rest one day near the gas chamber building while he waited for Fritz Schmidt, the German officer in charge of camp two and the gassing, to say, “They are all asleep… open the doors.” From his vantage point, Epstein could actually see inside the engine building. He watched Iwan and Nikolai turn on the motor and direct the gas into the chambers.
The final witness was Sonia Lewkowicz from Israel. She had worked in the Treblinka laundry in camp two until the uprising. For the most part, she said the same things the previous four witnesses had testified to. Iwan was cruel. He herded victims into gas chambers and worked in the building with the motor. Demjanjuk was Iwan.
George Parker had been right in his doubt memo. He predicted that the witnesses would strike the court as sincere and unshakable in their conviction that John Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible. Through accumulation and repetition, the government scored huge points during its witness examinations. Each one had identified Demjanjuk as Iwan from photo spreads offered to them in the courtroom. Each gave a description of the Iwan they knew that was close to Demjanjuk’s description on the Trawniki card. Each saw Iwan herding Jews into the gas chamber
