Heinrich Schaefer Affidavit Undated I never saw a card like that one

Heinrich Schaefer Affidavit Undated I never saw a card like that one

"The list of equipment for guards always contained the carbine which was issued to the guard and its number. The ammunition for this weapon was handed out where the guard was appointed. It is completely unimaginable that there was no carbine given to a guard, as that was, to a certain extent, his right arm, without which he could not perform his duty." — Heinrich Schaefer

The following is an affidavit sworn by Heinrich Schaefer — a volkdeutsche who worked at the Trawniki training camp — concerning the Trawniki identification card said by the Soviets and by the OSI and by the Israeli prosecution to place John Demjanjuk at Trawniki, but claimed by the Demjanjuk defense to be a forgery.

It might be hard to avoid wondering whether in a country aspiring to Western standards of justice, Schaefer's testimony alone might have been sufficient to get the Trawniki ID discredited in the eyes of the court, instead of trusted and relied upon in convicting John Demjanjuk.

We might notice too that Heinrich Schaefer offers reasons why having gone through training at Trawniki did not necessarily mean that the trainee intended to commit war crimes, or that he would necessarily be drawn into committing war crimes.

For what appears to be a total misrepresentation by Neal Sher of Heinrich Schaefer's negative view of the Trawniki ID card, please consult my Letter 4 to Neal Sher of 27May98.

A comprehensive discussion of the Trawniki Identification Card can be found in the Lubomyr Prytulak letter to Alan Dershowitz of 14-May-2001.

AFFIDAVIT

I,
HEINRICH SCHAEFER,
residing at
hereby declare under oath:

1. I had already issued an affidavit before the U.S. Consul about my service in the training camp Trawniki/Poland during World War II.

2. The training camp Trawniki served for training of guards for agricultural estates in Poland, which were operated by the German ethnics. It was the task of these agricultural estates to supply provisions under conditions of war. It was also the duty of the guards to guard railroad bridges and warehouses in which provisions were stored. Some of them were also assigned to duty in the concentration camps in the area of Lublin (Poland).

3. I was in that part of the administration in Trawniki, whose duty it was to identify and check the Ukrainians that were allocated to the training battalion. Moreover, finance and general camp administration belonged to this area.

4. In the years of my continuous duty in the Trawniki camp, between 1941 and 1944, there never was issued an identification paper to a guard, which at the same time contained a list of objects which were received by him. The list of equipment was a special document, which was kept at the camp administration where I worked.

5. The list of equipment for guards always contained the carbine which was issued to the guard and its number. The ammunition for this weapon was handed out where the guard was appointed. It is completely unimaginable that there was no carbine given to a guard, as that was, to a certain extent, his right arm, without which he could not perform his duty.

6. The copy of the identification card, which was shown to me by the representative of the U.S. Government contains, in addition to the list of equipment, also a reference to an official transfer to an agricultural estate in Okzow, as also to Sobibor. This document cannot have been issued in Trawniki.

7. Official transfers were never recorded on identification documents. Such information was kept in the records of the respective competent place of command. Also, the date of issuance had to be on every identification card, otherwise such a paper was automatically invalid.

8. Every guard in Trawniki, including myself, had an identification paper on which his name appeared only once. A card such as the one which was shown to me and which shows the name Iwan Demjanjuk twice, was never issued by me. I know of no such cards.

9. During my previous questioning before the U.S. Consul I was never asked my opinion about the authenticity of the "Demjanjuk card". I did declare, that I never saw a card like that one during my service in Trawniki and assumed that the affidavit was sufficient.

Signature

(Heinrich Schaefer)

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