Gustav Borax, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family at Treblinka, testified in Jerusalem district court Wednesday that accused war criminal John Demjanjuk was the brutal death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.”
Borax, the oldest witness to appear so far, was the fourth to identify Demjanjuk since the trial opened two-and-a-half weeks ago. Speaking in Yiddish, he said he was in his 30’s when he was deported to Treblinka and given the job of shaving the heads of women about to go to the gas chambers.
Borax testified that he saw Ivan thrust terrified women at bayonet point into the room where Borax worked. Ivan often stabbed them, ripping off “whole pieces of flesh,” the witness said.
On Tuesday, Treblinka survivor Yosef Tcherny identified Demjanjuk as Ivan. He was identified last week by Eliahu Rosenberg and Pinhas Epstein.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.