Report Claims That Treblinka Guard Known As ‘ivan the Terrible’ Was Killed During a 1943 Revolt

The Justice Ministry declined to comment Wednesday on a 20-year-old report in the Bar Ilan University archives that the Treblinka death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” was killed by inmates during a prison revolt in 1943. Sources at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial archives dismissed the report out of hand.

John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born former U.S. citizen, was extradited to Israel two weeks ago on the basis of eye-witness identification that he was the guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.” Demjanjuk is being held at Ayalon prison near Ramla while police examine the evidence that will be used to prepare the charges on which Demjanjuk will be placed on trial.

The accused man insists he is a victim of mistaken identity. The information pointing to that possibility was obtained by a student at Bar Ilan University’s Holocaust Research Center, which conducted an oral history research project in the 1960s to document events related to the Holocaust from the testimony of survivors who witnessed the events.

The student heard an account from a Treblinka survivor, Abraham Goldfarb, that a group of inmates stormed the gas chambers in 1943, killed “Ivan the Terrible” and another guard and threw their bodies into the crematorium furnace. Goldfarb died last year. His nine pages of testimony came to light during a check of the Bar Ilan archives, and a copy has been passed on to the police.

Justice Ministry sources said they could not comment because the case is sub Judice. Sources at the Yad Vashem archives said expert testimony can be taken only by trained experts, not by a “mere student.”

Last Sunday, a Jerusalem district court judge remanded Demjanjuk in custoy dor another 13 days on the basis of identification from photographs by 12 Treblinka survivors.