whether such documents could be given credence?”
“If the accused
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
“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
“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
“Upon whom was the burden of proof?”
“On him. But in most cases,” Brentar said, “I gave them the benefit of the doubt.”
“Why?”
“A person is not guilty… until he’s
“Is there anything in the IRO manual that said you should give the applicant the benefit of the doubt?” Gonakis asked.
“Absolutely.”
Brentar asked for a copy of the IRO manual, the same book Daniel Segat had quoted from earlier. Brentar read: “If an applicant has no documents, then he should make an attempt to get them. If he has done so, or if it is impossible to do so, and if his story is otherwise credible, he should be given the
Horrigan began his cross-examination of Brentar where Gonakis had left off.
“Would you turn to page eight of the IRO manual, please?” Horrigan said. “Do you see number thirteen?”
“Should I read it out loud?”
“Yes.”
Brentar read: “Most stories that are inconsistent seem to refer to wartime activities. But this often arouses a presumption of
Having made his point, Horrigan tried to impugn Brentar’s credibility as an expert witness.
“During the time you were in the IRO you saw [Soviet] repatriation teams, did you not?”
“Yes… escorted by MPs.”
Soviet repatriation agents were neither welcome nor safe in DP camps.
“And these individuals were allowed to visit DP camps only with the
“Yes.”
“No one could be
“Not in 1948.”
“Isn’t it true that on some occasions American government officials refused to allow Russian teams to come in and even speak to these individuals?”
“They were afraid there would be an uprising,” Brentar said. “And they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the Soviet repatriation team.”
“So it was
“Yes.”
“And you
“No I didn’t.”
Edward M. O’Connor, who held advanced degrees in political science and sociology and who had been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg, had served as a refugee relief leader immediately after the war. The U.S. Army considered O’Connor’s work so important that it gave him the temporary rank of major
