46

Friday, October 10, 1980

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Ukrainian Trial in Philadelphia Adjourned for Medical Treatment

PHILADELPHIA (JTA)
— The denaturalization
trial of Wolodymir Osidach
has been adjourned until
Wednesday due to his hos-
pitalization with chest
pains. The 76-year-old
Osidach, who is accused of
concealing his collaboration
with Nazi forces occupying
the Ukraine in order to
enter this country and ob-
tain citizenship, has had a
history of heart problems.
Before the trial adjourned
last week in Federal Dis :

W.C.
Trojan

trict Court, the prosecution
had completed its case
which included eyewitnes-
ses testimony on Osidach's
role as police chief in the
Ukrainian village of Rawa
Ruska. Witnesses had been
brought from Israel,
Canada, and the United
States, and on videotape
from the Soviet Union.
The defense, which
opened its case Sept. 25,
maintains that Ukrainian
police were only responsible
for keeping order in the
non-Jewish part of Rawa
Ruska. According to defense
attorney Louis Konowol,
they never entered the
ghetto, never rounded up
Jews, never herded them to
cattle cars for transport to
the death camp at Belzec or
guarded the slave laborers
who turned the Jewish
cemetery into paving mate-
rial.
As its first witness, the
defense called Petro Mir-
chuk, a retired Ukrainian

political science profes-
sor who himself survived
three years in Auschwitz
and has been honored by
the Philadelphia Asso-
ciation of Jewish New
Americans and the local
Jewish Identity Center
for his book, "In the
German Mills of Death."
Jewish collaborators, not
Ukrainian policemen like
Osidach, assisted the

Nazis in "beating, tortur-
ing and murdering the
Jewish population," he
testified.

Mirchuk contended that
evidence to the contrary
was the result of "Jewish
brainwashing." "At one
point, I thought Ukrainian
police might have helped
transport Jews," he said,
"but I was brainwashed by

German Student Promoting
Holocaust Awareness Here

Jewish literature, and since
that time I have changed
my thinking."
Under cross-examination
by Justice Department at-
torney Rodney Smith, how-
ever, Mirchuk admitted to
have done no research about
the treatment of Jews by the
Ukrainian police and that
he knew nothing specifi-
cally about Rawa Ruska. He
also conceded that he had
leapt to the defense of his
friend Osidach without
knowing the charges
against him. Both Mirchuk
and Osidach were members
of the Organization of Uk-
rainian Nationalists.
The defense tried to show
that one of the presecution's
witnesses, whose deposition
taken in Sarasota, Fla., was
admitted into evidence, was
himself a "worker" for the
Nazi secret police. Two gov-
ernment witnesses, vid-
eotaped in the Soviet Union,
identified Miroslav Stasiu,
who deposed under the
name of Jaroslaw
Tesarowycz, said that
Osidach commanded the
Ukrainian police in Rawa
Ruska, as a "worker of the
Gestapo criminal police."
The defense showed
reporters a May 23, 1980
deposition in which
Stasiu admitted entering
the U.S. in the 1950s using
an assumed name. He
also admitted failing to
provide immigration of-
ficials with complete in-

formation about his war-
time activities and failing
to admit being arrested in
the 1930s for Ukrainian
nationalist activities.
Neal Sher, deputy direc-
tor of the Justice Depart-
ment's Office of Special In- c
vestigations and chief pros-
ecution attorney, refused to
discuss any of the allega-
tions made against Stasiu.
He also declined to indicate
whether Stasiu was ul
investigation for possi,i
immigration violations.
During the two weeks
that the Osidach trial has
been going on, considerable
hostility has built between
the local Jewish and Ukrai-
nian communities. While
Judge Bechtle has strictly
enforced courtroom de-
corum, threatening to have
spectators removed after
the one outburst that oc-
curred in court, several con-
frontations have taken
place in the crowded hall-
ways.

youth the opportunity to
By HEIDI PRESS
"It's not only the Jews participate in acts of re-
who say 'Never again!' but conciliation with those
who suffered under
others too."
Susanne Willems, a Nazism.
The agency promotes in-
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Christian, West German
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Ms. Willems was in De-
Asked how she was re-
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Miss Willems said that
she has seen a lot of
documentaries about the
Holocaust. The American
mini-series "Holocaust"
helped break the taboo
about not coming to
terms with the Nazi era,
she said.
On the upsurge of neo-
Nazi activities, Miss
Willems said that part of
her duties as an Action Re-
conciliation intern is to
point out the danger of these
groups. She said she rejects
those "who want to renew
the Hitler ideology."
Hopefully, by promoting
Holocaust awareness she
will insprie other young
adults to do the same.

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