Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

question with a time lag of many years' duration. The Supreme Court did observe in Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S. Ct. 375 (1972) that a lapse of seven months between the event and the confrontation ". . . would be a seriously negative factor in most cases." Id. at 201; Id. at 383. In the instant case where there is a gap of almost 35 years between the event and the witnesses' ability to observe the suggestive photo spreads, the photo spread should have been as clinically impartial as humanly possible to construct.

Prior to giving testimony in this trial, each survivor-witness was interviewed in Israel by the Israeli police concerning events at Treblinka. Each was shown a group of photographs and asked if they recognized anyone.

The photo spread (Government's Exhibit 17) was prepared by Maria Radwiker, an Israeli attorney who worked as an inspector investigating Nazi crimes from January 1965 until her recent retirement in January of this year. She showed only the first three pages of the photo spread to witnesses Turowski and Czarny and all six pages to Kohn. Mr. Boraks was shown only page 3 of the exhibit, Ms. Radwiker's successor, Martin Kolar, showed witness Lewkowicz pages 2 and 3 of the exhibit and only page 3 after a three hour interview to witness Epstein.

Only two of the photographs of the photo spread are claimed by Ms. Radwiker to be guards who were at Treblinka-No. 16 and No. 17. Page 3, which was shown by itself to several of the witnesses, contains 8 photographs, numbers 10 through 17. Not only is each of the first six smaller than either No. 16 or No. 17 but each is also blurred, shadowed or otherwise indistinct. By contrast, photographs No. 16 and No. 17 are both much larger than the other photographs and are the only clear ones. Not only is defendant's photograph larger than the others but it is also unnecessarily so: along each side is a superfluous black border approximately one-half inch in width. At the very minimum, it should have been trimmed to reduce the size of the picture.

A review of the first two pages reveals more blurred or otherwise indistinct photographs. The only one with any clarity is No. 9, and it is smaller and less clear than either No. 16 or No. 17.

All six of these witnesses escaped from Treblinka during the uprising on August 2, 1943. Several of the witnesses had trouble identifying defendant's photograph in the sense that it took one to five minutes to do so. For example, Boraks took one to two minutes to identify photograph No. 17 although he had looked at the same photo spread in an interview earlier that same day where the investigators were investigating No. 16; witness Epstein looked at the picture four to five minutes after a three-hour interview and identified the person as a zugwachmann but couldn't remember his name. Turowski testified that he immediately recognized the person in picture No. 16 (not Fedorenko). Ms. Radwiker indicated to him that No. 17 was Fedorenko and asked if he recognized Fedorenko; Turowski testified that after awhile he came to the conclusion he recognized him.

The Government only asked the first three of the witnesses to identify defendant in the courtroom, a subject which will be discussed in detail subsequently.

Kolar testified that in Israel the showing of three photographs is sufficient and Ms. Radwiker defended her manner of presentation of the photo spread as "my method."

Considering all circumstances surrounding the photo identifications, it seems clear that the makeup of the photo spread in this case is impermissibly suggestive. There was no reason at all for the Israeli investigators to set up the photo spread in the suggestive manner in which it was done. Perhaps the explanation given by Mr. Kolar that only three photographs are required in Israel provides the answer to why it was done in this fashion. However, the photo spread simply does not pass muster under American law.

The court must conclude not only was the photo spread impermissibly suggestive but it also led to a substantial act of misidentification for the three witnesses who attempted courtroom identification. It also tainted testimonial identification of defendant, critical because of the serious question whether the survivor-witnesses were describing defendant or another Russian at Treblinka.

COURTROOM IDENTIFICATION OF DEFENDANT

Turowski, the first-survivor witness, was asked to identify defendant in the courtroom on direct examination. He stood up in the witness stand and looked around the courtroom for forty seconds. The Government counsel asked if the witness could come down from the witness stand to make an identification, if possible. The witness stepped down from the stand and took only one minute to make an identifi

cation of a middle-aged spectator sitting in the last row of the courtroom.16 Apparently sensing from the crowd reaction he had blundered, the witness backed away from the gentleman he had identified, then moved around the courtroom and in exactly another minute identified defendant.

The courtroom is square, approximately 40 feet to a side. Defendant sat approximately 22 feet from the witness stand, with his lawyer and associate, ages 30 and 26 respectively and translator, under 30. At the Government's counsel table sat four lawyers, whose ages ranged from 31 to 36.

The second witness Kohn never once looked at the spectators' section when asked to identify defendant in the courtroom. At this point the court became quite suspicious that Federal Evidence Rule 615 excluding witnesses, invoked by defendant at the beginning of the trial, was being violated. The court had given the instruction that witnesses were not to discuss the case among themselves. Kohn scanned only the counsel tables and easily identified defendant-not exactly a difficult task in view of defendant's age being twice that of any of the other seven persons at the counsel tables.

Czarny's performance at the witness stand was almost a carbon copy of witness Kohn in the identification of defendant, with the exception that Czarny was more theatrical.

Mr. Boraks was not asked to identify defendant and responded to questions by talking directly to his translator. His translator was located on the side opposite from defendant's location. Exactly eighteen minutes after he took the witness stand Boraks quickly turned more than 90 degrees to look directly at the position where defendant was sitting and without ever scanning the courtroom he quickly looked back to the interpreter.

The court was convinced the witnesses were discussing the trial among themselves, at least; and at worst someone was coaching them. Defense counsel had made the motion to sequester witnesses at the beginning of the trial but had not objected to Ms. Radwiker remaining in the courtroom and sitting directly behind Government's counsel table after she had finished her testimony. Defense counsel now insisted the rule be enforced and that she be excluded from the courtroom; the court enforced the motion and excluded Ms. Radwiker from the courtroom for the remainder of the trial.

The in-court identification of defendant by the three witnesses would have been rather weak under any circumstances because of the obvious location of defendant (obvious except to Mr. Turowski) and the great difference between his age and that of the other seven persons at counsel tables plus defendant was the only one with a translator. However, because of the obvious discussion of the case by the witnesses in violation of the rule, the court rejects the in-court identification in toto.

IDENTIFICATION OF DEFENDANT

In addition to the grave identification deficiencies of the Government's case, there are many other grave flaws in the identification testimony of the Government's witnesses as well as the credibility problems. Perhaps it is understandable that, there are flaws in identification evidence after 35 years. That is part of the difficulty the Government faced in trying to meet its burden of proof. Among the more obvious identification flaws: Turowski described defendant as "slightly Chineselooking". However, defendant Fedorenko simply does not look Oriental. He doesn't now and he didn't in the picture attached to his visa application.

Kohn described defendant as "mean-looking", and when he walked around the courtroom there was the same “mean-looking" face. That was his explanation for being able to identify defendant in the courtroom.

Czarny testified that he could identify Fedorenko when he walked around the courtroom because there was the "same mean-looking face". After the two days of testimony in Connecticut before beginning the Fort Lauderdale portion of the trial, and also at the close of all the testimony, the court concluded that defendant had a kind-looking, not hard-looking face, somewhat courtly in appearance. In no way can this court conclude he has a mean-looking face at this time.

Czarny also emphatically identified defendant's exhibit No. 3 as Fedorenko and announced he could never make a mistake. Of course the photograph was not

16 Turowski and each of the six survivors at Treblinka also testified at a trial in Dusseldorf in 1965 against 11 SS personnel. Most also testified in Dusseldorf in 1970 against Stangl, the Commandant at Treblinka. The court noticed that, according to the news article carried in the Miami Herald, May 31, 1978, describing Turowski's error, at the Dusseldorf proceedings the German court would locate defendants among the spectators in order to test the identification ability of the witnesses.

Fedorenko." Boraks identified Fedorenko as being the only Soviet guard who wore black, completely contrary to the testimony of all the other witnesses about the uniforms worn by the Soviet guards. Witness Lewkowicz quickly looked away after the only incident when she described the atrocity allegedly committed by Fedorenko.

Epstein talked for over three hours in the interview with Israeli investigator Kolar but never mentioned anything about Fedorenko. He had trouble in identifying Fedorenko even from the suggestive photo spread. In addition to the inability to remember the alleged shooting of his hometown friend, whom he claimed was his stretcher-bearer partner, he was squirming when he realized he had blundered into an indefensible inconsistent description of the event. His testimony against Fedorenko simply lacks credibility.

Fedorenko's cross-examination perhaps supplied the missing piece in the puzzle when the Government's counsel persisted in asking defendant to describe his zugwachmann Rohoza. Fedorenko testified that Rohoza was "just like me" in height and his hair color was "just like mine.” The persistent questioning about Rohoza's appearance elicited this response: ". . . like my face, almost like my brother." And to a further question, that the resemblance between the two was such they looked like brothers. The court watched Fedorenko even more closely than usual when that line of questioning_began and the court is firmly convinced that the answers were given guilelessly. From observation of his testimony and demeanor the court concludes defendant is unsophisticated—and perhaps feeling some affects of being in his eighth decade (e.g., see p. 1419 of transcript). The court doubts defendant is aware at this time of the exculpatory nature of the answers.

At the close of cross-examination the courts asked questions of defendant for 50 minutes. Although defendant denied committing the atrocities during direct-examination, the court wanted the key answer from defendant face-to-face without the necessity of any translation. Confident that its location in the questioning would not favor or disfavor defendant and confident that defendant understood the question completely, the court instructed the translator to ask the question whether defendant had done any of the shootings and beatings of prisoners as testified to in the courtroom and instructed defendant to "Please look at me, tell me either nyet or da, did you?"

From about 10 feet away with unobstructed eye contact defendant's answer was sincere and strong: Nyet.

The court considered the answer credible.

Even without defendant's testimony, the Government's evidence on the claimed commission of atrocites by Fedorenko fell short of meeting the "clear, convincing and unequivocal" burden of proof. In fact, the court should have granted a motion for involuntary dismissal on those particular counts at the close of the Government's case. With defendant's testimony the Government's evidence fell woefully short of meeting the burden. The evidence left the court with suspicions about whether defendant participated in atrocities at Treblinka but they were only suspicions.

EXONERATION TESTIMONY BY RUSSIAN WITNESSES

At the beginning of the Fort Lauderdale proceedings, defendant filed a motion for continuance claiming that there were six witnesses in Russia who could give exculpatory testimony. Defense counsel asserted that defendant had just brought these matters to counsel's attention because of his difficulty in communicating with defendant about the nature of the charges.

Defendant has been back to the Soviet Union three times in the 1970's: once in 1972 "as a tourist"; again in 1973 for approximately three months and in 1975 for a period of 50 weeks. In late September or early October of 1973, several weeks before his departure from the Soviet Union in November, defendant asserts the Soviet Union investigated him to some length concerning his status in World War II and activities at Treblinka. A Russian Colonel asked questions of him on three different days, for a period of six hours on one occasion. The only other witness he saw was a

17 Czarny exhibited a number of other credibility flaws. He would become more theatrical when he was aware the court was watching him closely. His facial expressions would become more dramatic expecially during his courtroom identification of defendant and his testimony after lunch on re-direct about his previous mis-identification of exhibit No. 3 as being Fedorenko. Further, the witness clearly understood a number of questions in English but specifically denied any knowledge of understanding the English language, even to the court. This despite answering questions on more than one occassion without the benefit of a translator. One of those questions contained more than ten words. Witness Epstein also obviously understood English but denied it (also to the court) although this knowledge may not have been as extensive as Czarny's.

witness named Kuzmienko who was only interrogated for five or ten minutes. He said the Russians came for him in a car and took him to the city of Siemferopol in the Crimea. He claimed that the Russian investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing and that they had taken statements of the six persons, Nikolai Korotkey, Wasyl Wasylenko, Michael Dudnik, Petro Schelno, Ivan Schevchenko and Nikolai Rohoza, whose testimony he wanted to obtain for this trial. Defendant sought a continuance in order to obtain the testimony or evidence of these six persons, five of them guards at Treblinka as well as Rohoza, defendant's zugwachmann. The court urged both sides to begin immediately to obtain more information about the potential witnesses and the procedures available and necessary to obtain the evidence from them.18

At a post-recess hearing one evening after two weeks of trial and the Government not having rested its case, the court commented during colloquy on scheduling and the motion for continuance that it felt it was necessary in the interests of fair trial to give defendant an opportunity to present the testimony of these witnesses to corroborate his denial or claim of involuntariness. The court emphasized that it might be able to decide the case without the continuance but also recognized that, because of the uncertainty about obtaining testimony from the Russian witnesses, it might take years to obtain the testimony and decide the case.19

If the Soviet Government conducted an inquiry in 1973 and cleared defendant of any complicity in war crimes at Treblinka or of collaborating with the Nazis, such a proceeding would be interesting to muse about but it would not be admissible per se in an American court. The fact such an inquiry was held is indeed curious, particularly because defendant testified that amnesty was given by the Soviet Union in 1955. Edict on Amnesty for the Soviet Citizens Who Collaborated With the Occupying Powers During the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945, Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR [official law gazette of the USSR] No. 17, at 345 (1955). Defendant volunteered this information. The court has concluded that it is not necessary to obtain the testimony of the Russian witnesses in order to decide the case.

18 The court suggested that the most preferable means would be by an evidentiary hearing with the court sitting as a special master although that apparently is precluded at this point by the resolution of the Judicial Conference. Of course, this cannot be done without the approval of the Soviet Government; however, the Soviet Government has given permission for a West German court to conduct hearings in the Soviet Union of Soviet witnesses in connection with West German trial of various defendants for alleged atrocities at Majdanek, Poland. See Miami Herald, May 28, 1978.

In view of the courts's prior order virtually demanding the use of live witnesses from Israel rather than deposition testimony, the court felt it would be unfair to defendant if the obtaining of such testimony for defendant were to be limited to depositions or written interrogatories in presenting his corroborating testimony.

Next to an evidentiary hearing, the next most helpful means of presenting the evidence would be by video deposition but that possibility seems remote at best. Under the circumstances depositions by oral examination would have been the best feasible method and the least helpful would be depositions upon written interrogatories under letters rogatory. However, written interrogatories apparently are the only liekly method of obtaining testimony from witnesses of the Soviet Union, per advice of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts which was communicated to counsel.

Of course, no fellow Russian or Ukrainian who was at Treblinka and now in the United States is about to come forward to testify. This is particularly true because the instant case reputedly is the first of many against East European prisoner-guards now in the United States. Sec., e.g., Miami Herald article, p. 1, dated July 20, 1978.

19 The court felt an announcement had to be made to counsel in order to obtain maximum haste on their part in getting the testimony or whatever evidence could be obtained from the Russian witnesses.

The spectators had left the courtroom by the time of the hearing, and that seemed an appropriate time for the court to make its comment. The court was aware that the Jewish Defense League members were in attendance in the courtroom as spectators; the court was also aware that, when an Administrative Law Judge announced a continuance to permit the government to obtain more evidence in a deportation hearing in Baltimore of an alleged ghetto guard in Latvia, the Jewish Defense League had staged what can be described as a riot in the courtroom. See news article, p. 6E, Fort Lauderdale News dated Dec. 4, 1977.

The court was well aware of the emotional nature of the issues in this case and wished to assure the citizens in South Florida that any such continuances would not be one of indefinite duration even though it might take many months and perhaps well over a year. The court attempted to communicate that matter but the attempt was either misconstrued or too little, too late. The misinterpretation of the length of a possible continuance apparently stimulated the Jewish Defense League into printing and handing out leaflets by the following afternoon demanding the disqualification and impeachment of the trial judge.

POST-TREBLINKA

Following the uprising at Treblinka, Fedorenko and other Soviet prisoner-guards were transported by the SS back to Travnicki in different groups. One of the groups killed a German officer and fled after no other prisoner-guards would join them. After a few days in Travnicki defendant was transported to Danzig with about 80 or so other prisoners, including Russians, Ukrainians, Byelo-Russians and Poles. Defendant served there as a guard for approximately eight months; the camp at Danzig was not a death camp. Defendant was then transferred to Poelitz, a prisonerof-war camp where many prisoners died from starvation. At Poelitz he was used as a guard but never left the camp; defendant claimed the Germans didn't trust him and the others who were transferred to Poelitz, probably because the Russian army was getting closer. After five or six months at Poelitz defendant was transferred to Hamburg where he was assigned to guard produce and warehouses. After a short period of time the British occupied Hamburg; defendant worked for the British from 1945 to 1949.

In Hamburg defendant had a work uniform and an after-hours uniform. He described better conditions under the British: he received good food and 100 marks per month.

In 1945 the prisoners of the British were required to register and defendant listed his birthplace as Sarny, Poland because every Russian citizen had to return to the Soviet Union. He selected the town of Sarny because some friends suggested it. Defendant used his correct name and birth date on the registration, visa applications and relevant documents for naturalization.

The testimony of a fellow-inmate of the camp in Hamburg indicates there were about 1,000 persons there; all were Polish except 200 to 300 Russians, mostly Ukrainian, and the camp was supervised by Polish officers. When Russian investigators came seeking Russians for repatriation, Polish officers protected the Ukrainians and Soviet residents by advising the Russians that all residents of the camp were Polish.

Defendant feared repatriation as did the other Soviet citizens at the camp. One witness testified that thousands committed suicide rather than be repatriated to the Soviet Union.20

While residing at the displaced persons camp at Osdorf near Hamburg, defendant applied for an immigration visa giving his correct name and date of birth, listing his place of birth as Sarny, Poland. In his history, considered by the Displaced Persons Commission, the same information was given together with some additional information: that he was a member of the Greek Orthodox faith and received his education at Sarny consisting of elementary school from 1915 to 1918. In addition he contended he was a farmer at Sarny until March 1942 when he was deported to Germany and employed as a worker at Poelitz." A typist who evidently spoke English but not German mistakenly typed Pelez rather than Poelitz in both places it appears on the Displaced Persons Commission report. Clearly a German location could not be spelled Pelez and the court must presume that the case analyst and reviewing persons on the Displaced Persons Commission and, more importantly, the reviewing Vice-Consul knew Poelitz was a German location, particularly because it was identified as being "near Stettin." Jenkins testified vice-consuls received several months of German language training.

Defendant's application for a visa was executed before the Vice-Consul on October 12, 1949 at the Consular office at Wentorf near Hamburg. He was approved by the Vice-Consul for admission to the United States under the Displaced Persons Act and arrived in America on November 5th, 1949, and went to work on a farm in Litchfield, Connecticut. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, the Government did not find the Vice-Consul who approved defendant's application.

20 Defendant requested a continuance in the third week of trial in order to produce a witness who could testify that many Ukrainians committed suicide, including death by immolation, rather than suffer repatriation. The court rejected the motion for continuance on the basis the evidence would be merely cumulative.

21 Poelitz is spelled with an umlaut in German, viz., Pölitz. It is located slightly less than 10 miles (15 kilometers) north of Stettin, per National Geographic Society map of Germany (1944). Inasmuch as Poelitz and Stettin have been situated in Poland since World War II, it is difficult to locate Poelitz by the German spelling in most atlases. However, see p. 50 of Rand McNally's International Atlas (1969) which lists both German and Polish spellings. The name is spelled incorrectly in the transcript.

The court located a village named Pehlitz in East Germany. It is apparently too small to be listed even in detailed atlases. Its co-ordinates place it twenty miles closer to Berlin than to Stettin. From the evidence the court concludes Poelitz is the location referred to in the Displaced Persons Commission report.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »