Witness Denies Saying ‘Ivan’ Died in Revolt

A Holocaust victim today heatedly denied reports that he once said “Ivan the Terrible,” the man Israel contends is war criminal John Demjanjuk, was killed in a revolt at the Treblinka death camp in 1943.

Eliyahu Rosenberg, who testified Wednesday that he is sure that Demjanjuk was death camp guard “Ivan the Terrible,” told a crowded courtroom, “It is not true that I said Ivan is dead.”

In the eighth day of Demjanjuk’s war crimes trial, defense lawyer Mark O’Connor asked Rosenberg why Israeli Nazi hunter Tuvia Friedman reported that Rosenberg said in a 1947 deposition that Ivan was killed in an uprising by Treblinka death camp inmates in 1943.

Rosenberg, a Treblinka survivor, said he recently contacted Friedman, director of the Holocaust Documentation Center in Haifa and denied telling him that Ivan died in the revolt that enabled Rosenberg to flee Treblinka.

‘God Will Punish You’

“I said, ‘You’re a liar and God will punish you for this,’ ” Rosenberg, visibly angered, recalled telling Friedman.

Friedman could not immediately be reached for comment on Rosenberg’s testimony today.

O’Connor contends that the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, a retired Cleveland auto worker who immigrated to the United States after World War II, is a victim of mistaken identity.

Rosenberg told the court his 1947 testimony to Friedman, describing how Ivan was killed in his barracks, was based on what other inmates told him after they fled Treblinka. He said that he gave the testimony in Yiddish but that it was recorded in Polish.

“You said you broke in collectively and killed Ivan, did you not?” O’Connor asked.

“I think I told him in Yiddish that I met friends who said we, meaning Jewish inmates, broke into the barracks where the Ukrainian (guards) were and that Ivan used to sleep there,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said he did not read the 1947 testimony, which describes inmates leveling “murderous blows” at Ivan, before signing it. But he told the court that he recognized his signature on each of the document’s eight pages.