The critical issue in Demjanjuk's first trial (1987) was the genuineness of his "SS" identification card, sometimes called the Trawniki Certificate because it was issued at Camp Trawniki, a sort of recruit depot for Ukrainian "volunteers".The defense has always maintained that the certificate was a forgery concocted by the Soviets early after the war in a drag-net vendetta to frame Ukrainian nationalists on charges of going over to the enemy.
One of the marvels of press release journalism is how much freedom they leave to the individual reader's imagination. When Kurt Schrimm says that seven new documents have been found and that Munich forensic specialists now have verified Demjanjuk's identification card, does he mean to say that prosecutor's have newly discovered a different and more incriminating card than the one used at Demjanjuk's first trial?
If so, how can two identification cards exist for the same man, without raising a strong possibility of forgery? If not, how come Demjanjuk was prosecuted for being at Treblinka when his deinstausweiss legibly places him at Sobibor? Do not expect any answers from reading the Grand Tabloids
Perhaps Schrimm has decided to have Munich investigators repeat the multiple forensics, but there is only one identification card for Demjanjuk. This much is made clear by the IMF summary which was at least written by someone with a logical sense of exposition.
Most of the press pictures crop the ragged edges of the card, the inside of which looks like this:
.
No comments:
Post a Comment