Demjanjuk 2 Inches Taller Than ‘Ivan,’ Attorney Says

John Demjanjuk is two inches taller than the Nazi death camp guard “Ivan the Terrible,” defense attorneys maintained today. Demjanjuk is accused of having committed war crimes as “Ivan.”

Yaakov Siegelbaum, an Israeli doctor who examined Demjanjuk after he was extradited from the United States to Israel in February, 1986, testified that the defendant is 5-foot-11.

An SS document which the prosecution claims shows Demjanjuk was the Nazi guard “Ivan the Terrible” gives the guard’s height as 5-foot-9.

“Is there any reason why a person aged 66 should be growing?” defense attorney John Gill asked Siegelbaum.

“No,” the witness said.

Siegelbaum said the retired U.S. auto worker may actually have shrunk an inch because of a spinal disc problem discovered during the examination last year.

“A person can lose up to two centimeters (one inch) as a result of a disease or injury to the spine” similar to the one diagnosed in Demjanjuk, Siegelbaum said.

He also described a scar on Demjanjuk’s lower back the defendant claims was from a 1941 war injury. The SS document also mentions a lower back scar.

Demjanjuk is accused of being the guard Ivan who operated the gas chambers at the Nazi death camp Treblinka in German-occupied Poland. About 850,000 Jews were killed in the camp in 1942 and 1943.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk denies he is Ivan and contends he is a victim of mistaken identity. He says he was in the Soviet army and spent 1942 and 1943 in a German prisoner-of-war camp.