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A10 WORLD NEWS
Wednesday 29 January 2020

Historians: Sobibor death camp photos may feature Demjanjuk

By KERSTIN SOPKE and GEIR he trained at the SS Trawni-
MOULSON ki camp and was posted
Associated Press to Sobibor. Though court
BERLIN (AP) — Historians experts said the card ap-
have presented a collec- pears genuine, Demjanjuk's
tion of photos kept by the defense attorneys argued
deputy commander of the it was a fake produced by
Nazis' Sobibor death camp the Soviet KGB.
that they say appears to The prosecution also pro-
include images of John duced evidence includ-
Demjanjuk, the retired Ohio ing transfer lists indicating
auto worker who was tried a guard named Demjan-
in Germany for his alleged juk with the same Trawniki
time as a Sobibor guard. number was sent to serve
The collection unveiled in Sobibor and elsewhere,
Tuesday at Berlin's Topogra- but there was never any
phy of Terror museum com- photographic proof he was
prises 361 photos as well there.
as written documents illus- Between March 1942
trating Johann Niemann's and October 1943, about
career. Niemann was the 167,000 people were killed
deputy commander of So- at Sobibor, almost all Jews,
bibor from September 1942 according to the U.S. Holo-
until he was killed on Oct. Historian Martin Cueppers points at a man, presumably former security guard John Demjanjuk, caust Memorial Museum.
14, 1943, in an uprising by at the Nazi death camp Sobibor during a news conference of newly discovered photos from the Following the 1943 uprising,
Sobibor camp in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020.
Jewish inmates. Associated Press the Nazi guards shot the
Unlike in many other cases, remaining prisoners and
the photos were not de- ing seen the site. The col- Martin Cueppers, a Holo- and may even exculpate razed the camp in occu-
stroyed after World War II in lection may also shed more caust historian at the Uni- him once forensically ex- pied Poland.
fear of legal proceedings, light on Demjanjuk, who versity of Stuttgart, said re- amined." Demjanjuk always main-
and they remained in the was convicted in 2011 as searchers concluded that The Ukrainian-born Dem- tained he was a victim of
possession of Niemann's an accessory to murder on Demjanjuk is "probably" janjuk was a Soviet Red the Nazis; first wounded as
family. The collection is be- allegations he served as a depicted at least in one Army soldier captured by a Soviet soldier and then
ing handed over to the U.S. Sobibor guard. Demjanjuk case in conjunction with the Germans in Crimea captured and held as a
Holocaust Memorial Mu- always denied the accusa- the criminal police office in in 1942. He was accused prisoner of war under brutal
seum. tions and died in 2012 be- Germany's Baden-Wuert- of agreeing to serve as a conditions before joining
Experts say the collec- fore his appeal against the temberg state, whose bio- "Wachmann," or guard, the Vlasov Army, a force
tion enhances historians' ruling by a Munich court metric department agreed the lowest rank of the "Hilf- of anti-communist Soviet
knowledge of what Sobi- could be heard, making to examine the historical swillige," former POWs who POWs and others formed
bor looked like. So far, they the verdict not legally bind- photos. were subordinate to Ger- to fight with the Germans
knew of only two photos ing. But Demjanjuk's son, John man SS men, and training in against the Soviets in the
taken of the camp while it Two photos in the collec- Demjanjuk Jr., said of the a camp known as Trawniki. war's final months.
existed. The Niemann col- tion may depict a young newly unveiled photos that The Munich court said the If the newly surfaced pho-
lection adds another 49. Iwan Demjanjuk, as he was "it's a baseless theory to evidence showed he was tographs turn out not to pic-
Anne Lepper, whose grand- known before anglicizing claim they prove anything a part of the Nazis' "ma- ture Demjanjuk, it wouldn't
parents were murdered on his name to John, among at all regarding my father." chinery of destruction" be the first time his identity
arrival at Sobibor from the other former prisoners of The collection as a whole and served in Sobibor from has been mistaken.
Netherlands in 1943, said war who were trained at is "of significant historical March 27, 1943 until mid- In the 1980s, Demjanjuk
it was "very courageous" an SS camp and were de- value" regarding the Holo- September that year. stood trial in Israel after he
of Niemann's descendants ployed at Sobibor, accord- caust and Sobibor, he said Integral to the prosecu- was accused of being the
to release the photos. She ing to historians. If they do, in a statement emailed to tion's case was an SS iden- notoriously brutal guard
said it was "a breathtaking they would be the first to The Associaed Press. But tity card that allegedly "Ivan the Terrible" at the
experience" to see the im- prove that he was at the "the photos are not proof of shows a picture of a young Treblinka extermination
ages after frequently hav- camp. my father being in Sobibor Demjanjuk and indicates camp.q