In a scene of anguish and unrestrained emotion, a second prosecution witness positively identified accused war criminal John Demjanjuk in Jerusalem district court Wednesday as the brutal guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” who operated the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp.
Eliahu Rosenberg, 66, who was 21 when he was taken with his family to Treblinka from the Warsaw Ghetto, made the identification after clearly describing in detail how thousands of Jews were slaughtered in the gas chambers and later burned in mass graves. He related his own job as a member of a squad of inmates forced to clean the gas chambers and recalled Ivan’s duty as operator of the death machinery.
He said he saw Ivan daily at the gas chambers. Later, when his task was to burn bodies that accumulated in the pit, he said he had occasion to fetch kerosine from where Ivan stood. Obviously overcome by the horror of his recollections, Rosenberg momentarily lost control and cried out that he could identify Ivan by his “murderous eyes.”
But the climax of the session came when the prosecutor Michael Shaked asked the witness if he saw Ivan in the courtroom. “That is Ivan, I have not a shadow of a doubt,” Rosenberg replied, pointing to the 66-year-old Ukrainian-born prisoner. Nevertheless, he asked that the accused remove his glasses. Demjanjuk asked the witness to approach him to make a closer inspection. They stared at each other for a moment.
Then the prisoner extended his hand. Rosenberg recoiled. “Murderer. How dare you hold out your hand to me, a murderer like you,” he shouted. Bedlam broke out in the court. Rosenberg’s wife Adina collapsed and had to be carried out of the chamber.
On Tuesday, Demjanjuk was identified by another Treblinka survivor, Pinhas Epstein, who was 17 when he arrived at the death camp.
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.
