“Mr. Curry, would you describe how an application arrived at your desk at the Commission?”
“The file or case history was prepared for the most part by the IRO and handed to the Commission,” Curry explained.
“Once the file reached the Commission, were there any other checks or inquiries made?”
“A great number of checks… to determine [the applicant’s] character, his history,” Curry said.
“What would you consider to be the
“Affidavits, sworn statements.”
“Was the applicant interviewed?”
“In an instance where there may be an apparent conflict in time and place,” Curry said.
“Once the determination to immigrate under the Displaced Persons Act was made, would a report or recommendation of some sort be issued by the Commission?” Moscowitz asked.
“A final report of approval.”
“Who would make that report?”
“I, for one, as a case analyst.”
“What would be the next step?”
“The entire dossier would be forwarded to the U.S. Consular Service for their consideration of a visa.”
“What were the consequences to an applicant if he were found ineligible by the Commission?”
“He would be refused admission to the United States.”
As he did with Segat, Moscowitz went on to establish that being trained at Trawniki, serving in Vlasov’s army, and working as a death camp guard would each render an applicant ineligible according to the Displaced Persons Act, while merely being a Soviet POW would not.
Moscowitz asked: “Take the case of a Red Army [POW] who, at some point, served in a
“The Commission would want to know whether, in fact, this service was forced or whether it was voluntary.”
“Who would bear the burden of proving… this service was forced or voluntary?”
“The applicant.”
“How difficult… would it be for such an applicant to demonstrate involuntary service?”
“In my experience, highly unlikely,” Curry said.
“Why is that?”
“I have yet to recall
“Everyone claimed he had served involuntarily?”
“Everyone did.”
Martin began his cross-examination of Curry with the same line of questioning he had used on Daniel Segat.
“During your tenure with the Displaced Persons Commission, were you ever aware of any forced repatriations—prior to your arrival there or subsequent to your arrival there—of Soviet citizens by Russian officials?” Martin asked.
Curry had joined the commission in 1948.
“Prior to my arrival, yes.”
“Did you, or would you have had, access to a Presidential order… from President Truman regarding forceful repatriation?”
“If any such proclamation was made… during the time I was there, I would have been aware of it,” Curry said. Of course he wasn’t aware of it, because President Truman never issued such a proclamation.
“If in a concentration camp, there were Jewish inmates who were forced… by the Germans to guard prisoners… would they be eligible for immigration to the United States?”
Martin was referring to the SS practice of appointing Jewish Kapos to help supervise Jewish workers. Sometimes, they were ordered to lash fellow prisoners with a whip. It was a delicate line of questioning. The Jewish community greeted any attempt to compare Jewish Kapos to Trawniki men with outrage.
“My interpretation would be no,” Curry said.
The 1948 Displaced Persons Act did not distinguish between voluntary and involuntary persecution of civilians, as the Supreme Court had pointed out in its Fedorenko decision. The Displaced Persons Commission had come to that same conclusion in 1945.
Demjanjuk said on his visa application that he was born in Poland, not in Ukraine. Martin knew that the prosecution would try to turn that misrepresentation into another argument for why Demjanjuk should be stripped of his citizenship. Martin hoped to weaken that argument.
“If an applicant… concealed his place of birth solely out of fear of repatriation back to Russia, would that exclude him?” Martin asked.
The question was a tactical error.
“I would not have considered it reason for the misrepresentation of place of birth,” Curry said.
Moscowitz had the option to make a re-direct examination of Curry. He took it.
“Mr. Curry, you indicated that a lot of the information which the Commission relied upon came from the applicant,” Moscowitz said. “Could
“No.”
Moscowitz was making a vital prosecution point here. The defense had argued, and would continue to argue, that the IRO and the Displaced Persons Commission had thoroughly checked Demjanjuk’s background and failed to find his name on any list of Nazi collaborators, weakly suggesting that he could not have been a collaborator if he was not on a list of suspects. Moscowitz destroyed the argument.
“You indicated… that you were aware that at some point prior to your service with the Commission, there was forcible repatriation of Soviet citizens. Do you know when that was?” Moscowitz asked.
“It would be the summer of 1945.”
“To your knowledge did it continue beyond that?”
“No.”
Demjanjuk began his U.S. visa application process in 1950, when, according to Curry, there were no more forced repatriations.
The prosecution presented two more witnesses to hammer home its ineligibility argument.
Harold Henrikson was the vice consul who had granted Demjanjuk a visa to the United States in 1952. Like Segat and Curry, he testified that if he had known Demjanjuk was a Trawniki man, or served as a death camp guard, or was a soldier in Vlasov’s army, he would have found him ineligible for a U.S. visa. And if he had known that an applicant was a Soviet citizen, a soldier in the Soviet army, or a Soviet POW, those facts would
Donald Pritchard was the naturalization examiner in Cleveland who had interviewed John Demjanjuk when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1956. Pritchard testified that if he knew an applicant for citizenship assisted the Nazis in the persecution of civilians, he would have recommended denial of U.S. citizenship.
Pritchard closed the prosecution’s circle of interlocking testimony. Each of the four former immigration and naturalization officials—three of whom had personally reviewed Demjanjuk’s applications and had interviewed him —testified that if he had known that Demjanjuk had graduated from Trawniki, or served at a death camp, or had been a member of Vlasov’s army, or misrepresented his country of origin for whatever reason, he would have either denied Demjanjuk a visa or recommended against naturalization. Each testified that fear of repatriation was not a valid extenuating circumstance. Taken as a whole, the testimony was about as unassailable as testimony can get.
Before resting its case as planned, the prosecution requested the court’s permission to recall Gideon Epstein, the prosecution’s forgery expert. Epstein had just returned from Washington, D.C., where he had examined
