As many of you know, Ivan (John) Demjanjuk has been deported to Germany and has been charged with being a guard at various concentration camps, including Sobibor. To familiarize yourself with the case, I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry about Demjanjuk:
John Demjanjuk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Before being deported to Israel for his first trial in 1986, Demjanjuk's lawyers contacted a well-known document dealer wanting to know if she had ever observed an ID like or similar to the "Demjanjuk ID" (I was also asked if I had ever seen such an ID). This, of course, was before the Berlin Wall came down and during the very early days of the Internet. At that time, neither the dealer or I knew of any such ID.
I do not intend to put Demjanjuk on trial here, but want to have an intelligent discussion about the Demjanjuk ID. I might mention that a book was published many years ago about the ID and that it was exposed as a forgery created by the KGB (I have this book somewhere but can't find it at the moment). I am certainly not an expert on SS IDs, especially ones that may have been issued locally, but I feel that this document is extremely crude.
Does anyone own an ID like that supposedly issued to Demjanjuk? Or has anyone seen such an ID? I have posted two crude photos of the ID here and am hoping that someone else has better photos to post (if I find the book I have, I will post the photos contained in it). I would like to begin a serious discussion of this document and as document collectors, decide whether it is original or a forgery.
I might add that the German government apparently has other documents that place Demjanjuk at other camps. Thus, even if the Demjanjuk ID card is indeed a fake, there may be evidence to show that he was a camp guard. It would indeed be interesting to see these documents as well to determine their originality.
Looking forward to everyone's comments and as previously stated, the goal of this thread is to determine if we, as document collectors, would have such an ID in our collection.
Barry
John Demjanjuk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Before being deported to Israel for his first trial in 1986, Demjanjuk's lawyers contacted a well-known document dealer wanting to know if she had ever observed an ID like or similar to the "Demjanjuk ID" (I was also asked if I had ever seen such an ID). This, of course, was before the Berlin Wall came down and during the very early days of the Internet. At that time, neither the dealer or I knew of any such ID.
I do not intend to put Demjanjuk on trial here, but want to have an intelligent discussion about the Demjanjuk ID. I might mention that a book was published many years ago about the ID and that it was exposed as a forgery created by the KGB (I have this book somewhere but can't find it at the moment). I am certainly not an expert on SS IDs, especially ones that may have been issued locally, but I feel that this document is extremely crude.
Does anyone own an ID like that supposedly issued to Demjanjuk? Or has anyone seen such an ID? I have posted two crude photos of the ID here and am hoping that someone else has better photos to post (if I find the book I have, I will post the photos contained in it). I would like to begin a serious discussion of this document and as document collectors, decide whether it is original or a forgery.
I might add that the German government apparently has other documents that place Demjanjuk at other camps. Thus, even if the Demjanjuk ID card is indeed a fake, there may be evidence to show that he was a camp guard. It would indeed be interesting to see these documents as well to determine their originality.
Looking forward to everyone's comments and as previously stated, the goal of this thread is to determine if we, as document collectors, would have such an ID in our collection.
Barry
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