Survivor Remembers Demjanjuk

Nazi hunters have located the first survivor of the Sobibor death camp to claim she remembers seeing John Demjanjuk there, a lawyer for Holocaust survivors said Monday.

The woman, who was identified by a Nazi hunter as Esther Raab, 71, of Vineland, N.J., said Monday that she is willing to testify against Demjanjuk.

Such testimony could be critical to attempts in Israel to force a retrial of Demjanjuk, who was acquitted by Israel’s Supreme Court on July 29 of being “Ivan the Terrible,” a notorious guard at the Treblinka death camp.

Despite the acquittal, the court delayed Demjanjuk’s deportation in response to appeals to have him tried for other war crimes, including some at Sobibor. The court is to consider further appeals by Sept. 2.

“We are hopeful that this will help convince Israel’s attorney general that there is a convincing case to be made,” said Efraim Zuroff, head of the Israel office of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tracks Nazi war criminals.

Raab said Monday that she based her identification on old photographs of Demjanjuk. It was not immediately clear what photographs she had seen. She said the man she identified as Demjanjuk “didn’t look like he looks now.”

Raab said she spent 9 1/2 months at Sobibor before her escape in October, 1943. Demjanjuk was in Sobibor in the summer of 1943, she said.

Demjanjuk has denied being at either Sobibor or Treblinka.