It’s rare that I read a book that utterly floors me
with what it reveals, but Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals by
Richard Rashke is one such book. I remember the furor that erupted around John
Demjanjuk, a Ukranian immigrant living in Cleveland, when in 1986 he was
deported to Israel and tried as an accessory to the murder of thousands of
Jews, as he was believed to be “Ivan the Terrible,” a sadistic guard at the
Treblinka concentration camp. Eventually acquitted and his U.S. citizenship
restored, Demjanjuk was later deported to Germany in 2009 to stand trial again
as an accessory to murder while serving as a guard at the Sobibor concentration
camp; he died in 2012 while awaiting appeal.
While the bulk of Useful Enemies deals with Demjanjuk, what really disturbed me was the shameful fact that hundreds of Nazi war criminals were allowed into the U.S., many of whom were actively recruited by the government in its efforts against communism during the Cold War. Take for instance Nazi collaborator Viorel “Valerian” Trifa, whose rabble-rousing resulted in a three-day pogrom in Bucharest in which up to one thousand Jews were tortured and killed. After the war, he lied his way into the U.S. and in less than five years became a nationally recognized bishop in the Romanian Orthodox Church despite the fact that his past was known. Trifa even delivered the opening prayer of the 1955 session of the U.S. Senate! If your jaw just dropped when you read that, mine did too. When one recalls how unwilling theU.S. was to admit Jewish immigrants while Hitler
was thumping his chest in Germany
and threatening to rid all of Europe of its
“Jewish Problem,” this postwar open-door policy with Nazis is downright
disgusting. That these individuals seemed to be magically protected from deportation
makes the matter even more deplorable, and even when diligent federal investigators such as
Anthony DeVito caught wind of Nazis hiding in plain sight, they found their
investigations thwarted at every turn by the very organizations they worked
for. In fact, the only time the government seemed compelled to act was when it
was publicly shamed into doing so, thanks in large part to the efforts of Brooklyn
Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, whose determinedness in ensuring that Nazi
war criminals residing in the U.S. were found and deported would eventually
lead investigators to John Demjanjuk.
Useful Enemies is one heck of an eye-opener and should be required reading for everyone, especially those wishing to know more about this shameful chapter in American history.
While the bulk of Useful Enemies deals with Demjanjuk, what really disturbed me was the shameful fact that hundreds of Nazi war criminals were allowed into the U.S., many of whom were actively recruited by the government in its efforts against communism during the Cold War. Take for instance Nazi collaborator Viorel “Valerian” Trifa, whose rabble-rousing resulted in a three-day pogrom in Bucharest in which up to one thousand Jews were tortured and killed. After the war, he lied his way into the U.S. and in less than five years became a nationally recognized bishop in the Romanian Orthodox Church despite the fact that his past was known. Trifa even delivered the opening prayer of the 1955 session of the U.S. Senate! If your jaw just dropped when you read that, mine did too. When one recalls how unwilling the
Useful Enemies is one heck of an eye-opener and should be required reading for everyone, especially those wishing to know more about this shameful chapter in American history.
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