War: Crimes Echoes of Eichmann

Mass murderer or victim of mistaken identity? That question swirled about John Demjanjuk last week as the retired Cleveland auto mechanic was indicted in Jerusalem. Demjanjuk, 66, accused of being “Ivan the Terrible,” murderer of more than 800,000 people at the World War II Treblinka death camp in Poland, denies having been there. He is being held in the prison where Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged in 1962.

Demjanjuk’s supporters include Reagan Aide Patrick Buchanan. In a Washington Post article carefully labeled as his personal view, Buchanan last week called Demjanjuk an “American Dreyfus,” referring to the unfairly convicted French army officer cleared of treason charges in 1906.