Posted on 10/30/2003 5:46:36 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
CLEVELAND (AP) - It was 1980 when Ed Nishnic met Irene, a receptionist at the company where he worked. ``One day I was walking by her desk and I saw her name on a piece of paper. I said, 'Are you related to that guy?' She said, 'That's my dad,''' Nishnic recalled. ``That guy'' was John Demjanjuk, the Ohio mechanic accused of being a Nazi death camp guard so sadistic that he was nicknamed Ivan the Terrible. The encounter led to marriage - and launched Nishnic on a 20 year odyssey to clear his father-in-law's name. Through that time, he has learned to write legal briefs, donned a bullet proof vest on an airplane because of death threats, and comforted Demjanjuk in an Israeli prison cell as gallows were being built outside. Nishnic's mission is far from over. Israel's Supreme Court cleared Demjanjuk of the Ivan the Terrible accusation in 1993, but the U.S. government has accused him of serving as a guard at other Nazi camps and stripped him of his U.S. citizenship last year. Nishnic, 48, sees the two decades he has devoted to defending his 83-year-old father-in-law as something he had to do. ``I don't believe God will ever give you more than you can handle,'' he said. Nishnic has traveled to Russia, Ukraine, Australia, western Europe and elsewhere in his quest to clear Demjanjuk's name. He has helped raise money for legal fees, investigated leads and been Demjanjuk's public voice. Nishnic - who refers to his father-in-law as Mr. Demjanjuk, or sometimes Mr. D - knew him only as a hard worker, a backyard gardener, an active church member and father of three. ``The only thing I can go on is what Mr. Demjanjuk has said, which is 'I'm not the person, and I was never there.' There's no logic to madness, and that whole period was a time when there was nothing but madness,'' Nishnic said. For Nishnic, it was sympathy for the daughter's predicament that eventually got him entangled in that of the father. ``I told her I was sorry she had to go through that, and that's what started our friendship,'' Nishnic said of the conversation by the reception desk. In 1977, the Justice Department accused Demjanjuk of hiding his past as a guard who tortured and killed Jews even as they were forced into a gas chamber at the Treblinka camp in Poland. Demjanjuk lost his U.S. citizenship, was extradited to Israel and convicted. On appeal, new evidence was presented that Ivan the Terrible was a Ukrainian known as Ivan Marchenko. Demjanjuk was acquitted, although evidence linking him to other Nazi camps remained. ``I can still remember sitting in Mr. Demjanjuk's cell when we didn't know which way the Supreme Court was going to go, and a crew was brought in to build a gallows,'' Nishnic said. ``They were installing cameras to make sure he wouldn't kill himself, and we're sitting there telling him it was going to be OK.'' Demjanjuk was ushered onto an El Al flight to New York on Sept. 22, 1993. Nishnic sat with him, and both wore bulletproof vests underneath their shirts due to death threats Nishnic said they received in Israel. ``I thought that in 1993 we wou1d begin the happily ever after,'' Nishnic said. But demonstrators outraged by Demjanjuk's return soon began flocking to his suburban Cleveland street. ``There were yellow ribbons in the neighborhood, and he was extolled in Cleveland as a hero,'' said activist Rabbi Avi Weiss, of New York, who lost relatives in the Holocaust. ``We were sending a message that (Demjanjuk's presence) would not be tolerated.'' Weiss said he believes Nishnic may be misguided. ``When you are in a family, it's often the case you become blind to the horrors of a person close to you,'' Weiss said. Evidence of Demjanjuk's alleged Nazi past includes an identification card showing Ivan Demjanjuk - his name at birth - at guard training camp Trawniki and records linking him to Nazi death or forced labor camps. ``The government has proven by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence that defendant assisted in the persecution of civilian populations,'' wrote U.S. District Judge Paul R. Matia, in stripping Demjanjuk of citizenship. Nishnic said a key to the appeal is a copy of a letter that Demjanjuk, while a Ukranian in the Red Army, wrote to his mother in 1941. He said the signature doesn't match the 1942 signature on the Trawniki card. ``As far as I'm concerned this new case is nothing more than a grudge match,'' Nishnic said. ``He's been demoted from being Ivan the Terrible to being Ivan the Very Annoying.'' Justice Department lawyer Jonathan Drimmer would not comment on the case. Nishnic's three children have gotten to know their grandfather, which he considers no small triumph. ``I can't imagine them going to some history class and hearing that their grandfather was some monster, someone who was subhuman,'' he said. The case consumes his time as he runs a business recruiting engineers for corporate clients. Demjanjuk suffers from arthritis and memory loss. The case has ``irreparably scarred'' Irene, Nishnic said. ``One thing about coming into it from the outside is that you can emotionally separate yourself. But if it's your own father, I can't imagine what it would do to your psyche,'' he said.
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