John (Ivan) Demjanjuk
There are many accounts of John Demjanjuk’s trial in Israel and acquittal for his part in World War 2. The Russians had created a forged document making him a Nazi guard. So having had his US citizenship revoked it was restored. He continued to live back in the US but then they found pictures from a Sobibor death camp. Once again his US citizenship was revoked and he was extradited to Germany for trial. While awaiting the judgement he died.
But you can read all that from a simple Google search.
My interest was in his Arolsen Archive entry:
https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/66866153?s=demjanjuk&t=222908&p=1
Why hadn’t this archive entry been shown in any account of John Demjanjuk before?
The details in it agreed with his account.
I used this image to compare against himself and then Ivan from Sobibor for which he was on trial using facial ID software.
Then compared with the Sobibor guard. According to facial ID software, he does not match. But scores somewhat like a close relative with facial ID.
I then created an average image of the Sobibor guard by combining two images of him. This makes the detail of his eyes a little more clear.
I then colorised it:
There are many similarities between the two men. Jowl lines and indents on the bottom lip. But the shape of the nose seems different. John’s nose seems to point upwards.
It is impossible to know whether facial ID software is correct saying that John Demjanjuk was not the guard at Sobibor. But the lack of exposure of his Arolsen Archive account suggests facts were being withheld from the media during his two trials. For example, the Sobibor guard may have been younger than John.
Update 2024: Details of his 1948 Arolsen Archive account seem to have been removed.
After a lot of effort, the best I can arrive at is to say they are about 73% alike.
