A West German prosecutor vouched Monday for the authenticity of a key document in the trial of alleged war criminal John Demjanjuk, obtained from Soviet sources.
Helge Grabitz, head of the Nazi war crimes section of the Hamburg District Attorney’s Office, said that “not even once” had she received a forged document from the USSR or any other Communist bloc country.
Grabitz testified about 15 documents pertaining to the Trawniki SS training camp where prisoners of war were trained for guard duty at Treblinka and other death camps. The Ukrainianborn Demjanjuk claims that an identity card issued at Trawniki, bearing his name, photograph and physical description is a Soviet forgery.
The card bears the signature of the Trawniki commandant, Karl Streibl. Grabitz, who was chief prosecutor at Streibl’s trial in West Germany, said she could easily identify the signature, having seen hundreds of documents bearing it in the course of doing research for that trial. She said Streibl himself authenticated his signature.
The Jerusalem district court hearing the Demjanjuk case granted a defense motion for recess to study translations of the documents identified by Grabitz. The afternoon session was cancelled for that purpose. The defense is expected to cross-examine Grabitz Tuesday.
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