The Nazis Next Door (45 page)

[>]
  “
participated in chemical experiments
”
:
Justice Department memo to Ryan, November 4, 1980.

[>]
 
it would be more difficult:
Sher interview.

[>]
 
wrongly thrown out:
Ordway interview. Ordway was one of the White House visitors who met with Buchanan.

[>]
 
He would help them:
Ibid.

[>]
 
“an individual of great courage”:
Buchanan quotations from newspaper and wire service reports in the 1980s, and Anti-Defamation League,
Anger on the Right: Pat Buchanan’s Venomous Crusade
, special report (New York: ADL, 1991).

[>]
 
“betrays an all-too-familiar hostility”:
Editorial,
New York Post
, September 19, 1980.

[>]
 
was attending an engagement party:
Sher interview.

[>]
 
Tannenbaum was notorious:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 107.

[>]
 
They were the last group:
Rockler interview for ibid.

[>]
“Give me his address”: Feigin, The Office of Special Investigations, 109
.Feigin, The Office of Special Investigations, 109.

[>]
 
He was a sadist:
Sher interview.

[>]
 
defend Tannenbaum pro bono:
Rockler withdrew the offer after the Justice Department concluded his defense of Tannenbaum would be a conflict of interest, given his previous post atop the Nazi unit. Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 110.

[>]
 
“improper, if not outrageous”:
Ibid., 110.

[>]
 
he wanted it made clear:
Sher interview.

[>]
 
the Justice Department allowed Tannenbaum to stay:
Tannenbaum died the next year.

[>]
 
“I dreaded the day”:
U.S. District Court Judge I. Leo Glasser, February, 4, 1988. Cited in Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 112.

[>]
 
“hanged him with my own hands”:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 112.

13. Ivan the Terrible

[>]
 
An Israeli war crimes investigator:
This account of the start of the Ivan the Terrible investigation and of Eliyahu Rosenberg’s identification of John Demjanjuk is drawn from author interviews and from a number of published sources, including: Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors;
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations;
and Tom Teicholz,
The Trial of Ivan the Terrible: State of Israel vs. John Demjanjuk
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1990).

[>]
  “
became an obsession
”
:
Gitta Sereny, “The Man Who Was Not Ivan the Terrible,”
Independent
(London), December 7, 1991, quoting former Justice Department prosecutor John Horrigan.

[>]
 
Demjanjuk returned to his home:
“Seven Hills Man Is Called Nazi Guard,”
Cleveland Press
, August 26, 1977, and author interview with Walt Bogdanich, former reporter for
Cleveland Press
.

[>]
 
“Is not true!”:
Teicholz,
The Trial of Ivan the Terrible
, 51.

[>]
 
headline in the
New York Times: “Ohioan Is Called Nazi War Criminal,”
New York Times
, August 27, 1977.

[>]
 
“We cannot afford the risk”:
Letter from Congressman Eilberg to Attorney General Griffin Bell, as cited in judicial decision, United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, (Cincinnati),
Demjanjuk v. Petrovsky
, issued February 24, 1994.

[>]
  You son of a bitch: Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors
, 107.

[>]
 
“Demjanjuk could not have been Ivan the Terrible”:
Memo from Justice Department prosecutor George Parker, dated February 28, 1980, as cited in Sixth Circuit in Demjanjuk decision; and Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
.

[>]
 
he wrote to his bosses:
Ryan said he never saw the Parker memo.

[>]
 
“He had a pipe, a sword, a whip”:
Ryan,
Quiet Neighbors
, 124.

[>]
 
He broke into sobs:
Ibid.

[>]
 
Demjanjuk’s Nazi identification card:
Ibid., 125.

[>]
 
“Who would want to take back”:
Ryan interview.

[>]
 
Some Israeli law enforcement officials:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 154.

[>]
 
“this fellow Demjanjuk”:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
“We know that eyewitness testimony”:
Author interview with Judge Gilbert Merritt, former chief judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

[>]
 
“how dare you”:
“Survivor Identifies the Accused in Israeli Trial,”
New York Times
, February 26, 1987, and other news reports.

[>]
 
“A thousand deaths cannot compensate”:
John Kifner, “Demjanjuk Given Death Sentence for Nazi Killings,”
New York Times
, April 26, 1988.

[>]
 
Buchanan took aim:
Nightline
segment, ABC Television, July 29, 1993.

[>]
 
unable to pick out Demjanjuk:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
.

[>]
 
“were blinded”:
Opinion of Judge Thomas A. Wiseman Jr., Report of the Special Master to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Demjanjuk case, 1993, p. 198.

[>]
 
“fraud on the court”:
Sixth Circuit, Demjanjuk decision.

[>]
 
tainted by outside politics:
Author interview with Judge Merritt. After leaving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Sher moved to a second Jewish-related organization, the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, as chief of staff, but was forced to resign in 2002 over evidence that he misappropriated travel funds from the group. He was disbarred in the District of Columbia as a result of the episode.

[>]
 
“offered fodder”:
ADL National Chairman Melvin Salberg and National Director Abraham H. Foxman, letter to the court, November 19, 1993.

[>]
 
“hate mongerers and neo-Nazis”:
Neal M. Sher, “Judge Gilbert Merritt’s Obsession with Jews,”
Jewish World Review
, April 5, 1998.

[>]
 
Ryan yelled:
Ryan interview.

[>]
 
a look of discomfort:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
“in the toilet”: Rosenbaum interview
.Rosenbaum interview.

14. The Road to Ponary

[>]
 
MacQueen wasn’t finding it:
Interview with Michael MacQueen, former historian for the Office of Special Investigations at the Justice Department.

[>]
 
“Show me something that I signed”:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
he discovered a canvas-bound book:
Sharon Cohen, “In Hidden Records of Horror, Guilt of a Nazi Collaborator,” Associated Press, December 15, 1996.

[>]
 
he found a red file:
Levingston, “The Executioner’s Trail.”

[>]
 
“Remember we needed a document”:
MacQueen interview.

[>]
 
Rosenbaum was so excited:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
the signatures were a smoking gun:
MacQueen interview.

[>]
 
MacQueen studied the names:
Levingston, “The Executioner’s Trail.”

[>]
 
Two names stood out:
MacQueen interview.

[>]
 
a wooded hamlet called Ponary:
“Ponary” is the Polish derivation of the site of the massacres. Most Jews called it by its Yiddish rendering—Ponar—and in Lithuanian, it is known as Paneriai.

[>]
  All roads lead to Ponary: Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
The CIA had a file:
Lileikis file, Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group, Declassified Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (Record Group 263), National Archives and Records Administration.

[>]
 
“the shooting of Jews in Vilna”:
Ibid.

[>]
 
“under the control of the Gestapo”:
Ibid.

[>]
 
plus twenty-one pounds of coffee:
Ibid.

[>]
 
He had always hoped:
Breitman et al.,
U.S
.
Intelligence and the Nazis
, 264.

[>]
 
The agency told the INS:
CIA Lileikis file; memos between CIA and INS about Lileikis.

[>]
 
twice in the same week:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
he did know of one:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
Rosenbaum knocked:
Rosenbaum interview and Justice Department records on meeting.

[>]
 
his last name and title:
Arrest order for more than fifty Vilnius Jews, with Lileikis’s name at bottom, dated August 22, 1941; Lileikis CIA file.

[>]
 
Lileikis spoke the words:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
“These criminals must now be”:
Feigin,
The Office of Special Investigations
, 544.

[>]
  
he laid out the evidence:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
his geezer list:
In later years, Rosenbaum would put Bernard Madoff, imprisoned in 2009 at the age of seventy-one for a notorious, multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, at the top of his “geezer” list. He liked to point out that few questioned the severe sentence for Madoff, despite his age.

[>]
 
Rosenbaum
got a call:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
If we have to produce his records:
Lileikis’s lawyers were later granted security clearances allowing them to examine classified CIA records on their client in private. But the records—and the CIA’s involvement with Lileikis—did not become part of the public case.

[>]
“She was taken”: “Boston Retiree Accused as Holocaust Perpetrator,” Associated Press, September 21, 1994
.“Boston Retiree Accused as Holocaust Perpetrator,” Associated Press, September 21, 1994.

[>]
 
His lawyer and his priest:
Levingston, “The Executioner’s Trail.”

[>]
 
He was scared:
Author interview with Thomas J. Butters, lawyer for Lileikis.

[>]
 
“Did anyone order you”:
Levingston, “The Executioner’s Trail,” and United States District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns, written decision in motion for summary judgment in Lileikis case, May 24, 1996.

[>]
 
“Lileikis is attempting”:
United States District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns, decision in motion for summary judgment in Lileikis case, May 24, 1996.

[>]
 
CIA officials wrote:
Letter from CIA to congressional intelligence committee, May 25, 1995; CIA Lileikis file.

[>]
 
another Nazi collaborator
: Rosenbaum was trying unsuccessfully to persuade the Lithuanians to take back Vladas Zajanckauskas, who had already been stripped of his citizenship. The Lithuanians refused, and Zajanckauskas died in Massachusetts in 2013.

[>]
 
he arranged for a side trip:
Rosenbaum interview.

[>]
 
the place was eerily quiet:
Author interview with Carole A. Jackson, U.S. State Department official, who accompanied Rosenbaum on the Lithuanian trip.

[>]
 
Hundreds, certainly:
Rosenbaum interview.