Prosecution Pressure Upsets Demjanjuk

JERUSALEM — The prosecution in the war crimes trial of retired Cleveland auto worker John Demjanjuk intensified its cross-examination Wednesday, visibly flustering the defendant as it pinpointed discrepancies in what he has said.

“Of course I’d like to forget all I’ve been through, but you are pressuring me,” Demjanjuk complained to the court. “You think it’s easy for me to recall everything that happened.”

The defendant’s son, John Demjanjuk Jr., and his Israeli co-counsel, Yoram Sheftel, said they were pleased with Demjanjuk’s testimony, which began Monday. He has been under cross-examination since midday Tuesday, and the questioning by prosecutor Yona Blattman is expected to continue today.

‘Never Formally Prepared’

“The slight inconsistencies that there have been with previous statements he has made are basically due to the fact that until just a few weeks ago, he was never formally prepared to testify,” the younger Demjanjuk told reporters Wednesday.

Lawyer Sheftel told Israel radio: “I’m very much encouraged. The man doesn’t remember. And it’s very natural after 40-some years. . . . We have many, many examples with the prosecution’s witnesses.”

Demjanjuk could face the death penalty if it is established that he is the sadistic guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” who worked with the gas chambers at Treblinka, the World War II Nazi death camp in Poland where 850,000 men, women and children were killed.

The defendant, a Ukrainian, maintains that he is a victim of mistaken identity. He testified Monday that he was recruited into the Soviet army in 1941, that he was captured the next year and held in German prisoner-of-war camps until being assigned to an anti-Communist brigade that fought on the German side against the Russians near the end of the war.

After the war, Demjanjuk emigrated to the United States and settled in a Cleveland suburb.

Prosecutor Blattman bored in for most of Wednesday on a critical 18-month period in 1942 and 1943 in which Demjanjuk says he was captured and held at a POW camp in the Polish town of Chelm. It was during this same time that the Treblinka death camp was in use.

The prosecutor referred repeatedly to testimony that the defendant had given in the United States in court proceedings that led to his being stripped of U.S. citizenship and cleared the way for his extradition early last year to Israel.

Blattman noted that in those earlier appearances, Demjanjuk had said he was captured by the Germans in late 1942 or early 1943, not in early 1942 as he has maintained here. The prosecutor asked the 67-year-old defendant if he had previously given the later date in order to hide the fact he had been at Treblinka.

“No,” Demjanjuk said. “I have nothing to hide. I was not at Treblinka and have no reason to seek refuge behind some figment of the imagination.”

Name of Camp Forgotten

There were also discrepancies in Demjanjuk’s testimony about his activities at Chelm. And Blattman cited earlier U.S. testimony in which the defendant forgot the name of the camp completely.

Blattman said: “The Americans charged that you were at Treblinka, and your only defense is that you were at Chelm. And this you forgot?”

Demjanjuk appeared to have trouble remembering details about his activities at Chelm as well as characteristics of the camp.

“Is the reason you don’t remember because you simply weren’t there?” the prosecutor said.

Demjanjuk denied that he had lied.

At various times Wednesday, the defendant blamed faulty interpretation, his lack of education and simple lapse of memory for the inconsistencies in his testimony in nearly 10 years of court proceedings here and in the United States.