DISPLAY 1. Bazilevskaya patches the first б in Собибор, the original vertical stem of her б identified by pointer [3], and her patch identified by pointer [4].
DISPLAY 1. Bazilevskaya patches the first б in Собибор, the original vertical stem of her б identified by pointer [3], and her patch identified by pointer [4]. | |
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(2) Karl Streibel Patches the first of two "e"s in "Streibel"
Display 2 introduces a second patch that is to be found on the Demjanjuk 1393 Trawniki Card, in the first "e" in the signature of SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl "Streibel", which generates several hypotheses concerning what that patch aimed to accomplish.
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Hypothesis 1: Karl Streibel is a nitpicking perfectionist
The hypothesis that Karl Streibel is a nitpicking perfectionist can be tested by examining the 33 Streibel signatures that can be found in the position reserved for the "SS-Hauptsturmführer" on the available copies of 48 Trawniki Cards, which signatures are reproduced below under the heading Thirty-Three Streibel Signatures Found Among The Forty-Eight Trawniki ID Cards, and where it will be discovered that Streibel never patched any other signature. The Streibel signature on the Demjanjuk 1393 card contains the only known Streibel patch in existence, and it is a striking coincidence that it appears on a card that is already notorious for its extraordinary collection of unique features.
A more plausible view of Karl Streibel than that he is a nitpicking perfectionist, then, is that he is a senior official among whose lowliest and most tedious of duties is that of signing thousands of cards of Untermenschen occupying the bottommost rank in the entire German military machine, for which reason Streibel signs Trawniki cards expeditiously and perfunctorily, and finds better uses for his time than lingering over these signatures for the purpose of improving them.
Hypothesis 2: Karl Streibel was prompted to correct feathering
One might suppose that it was the unusual feathering of the "e" in question, as Streibel first wrote it, which prompted him to take the unusual step of patching.
As used here, "feathering" describes the creation of a line segment that is lighter than others, and which even for a time almost disappears, or even completely disappears, because of reduced ink flow produced within certain strokes perhaps by a reduced pressure from the hand of the writer, or by the changed angle of the nib, or by a changed direction of motion. The right-hand portion of the original, unpatched "e" loop, this argument goes, was so feathered, which is to say was so faint, that it did over a stretch completely disappear, and this high degree of feathering is what might have prompted Karl Streibel to that uncharacteristic-of-him patching.
However, if we look back at Display 2, we notice that in the very same signature that patches a feathered "e" can also be found an "S" at the beginning and an "l" at the end, both of which are also strongly feathered, and yet neither of which triggered a patch. But if Streibel was governed by a compulsion to patch feathering, then he might be expected to patch all three instances of feathering that were evident in his signature, and not just one of the three.
Furthermore, as can be seen in Display 3, Streibel's other signatures often exhibit feathering in various locations which is reliably left unpatched, thereby strengthening the conclusion that feathering was not a stimulus that triggered Streibel to patch, but rather was a commonplace occurrence beneath his notice, or perhaps even a calligraphic embellishment of which he was vain.
Of particular interest in Display 3 is the Rjasanow 2077 "Streibel" because its first "e" is feathered in the same way as the first "e" in Card 1393, which is to say by a loss of the right-hand portion of its loop, and yet which Streibel neglects to patch.
| Display 3. Prominent instances of feathering in the Streibel signature which have been left unpatched. | |||
 Bondarenko 1926 |
 Rjasanow 2077 |
 Ribak 2246 |
 Kobylezkyj 3349 |
 Popeliuk 3427 |
 Nahorniak 3440 |
 Kuryliw 3596 |
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Hypothesis 3: Karl Streibel worried that his first "e", lacking the right-hand wall of its loop, might be narrow enough to be mistaken for an "i"
However, the second "e" in Display 2 is narrow, and encloses little or no white space within its loop, and so could conceivably be mistaken for an "i", and yet Streibel neglects to patch it. And Display 4 shows in Ostafijtschuk 3695 the first "e" in "Streibel" also narrow, and in Agejews 1653 the second "e" even narrower, either of which might conceivably be mistaken for an "i", were it dotted, and yet Streibel leves these two "e"s similarly unpatched.
It seems that Streibel does not seem worried enough about his narrow "e"s being mistaken for "i"s to patch them.
| Display 4. "E"s narrow enough to be "i"s are left unpatched. | |||
 Ostafijtschuk 3695 |
 Agejews 1653 |
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Furthermore, the idea of Karl Streibel taking precautions to keep his "e"s distinguishable from his "i"s is preposterous for at least the following four reasons.
Streibel's "i"s were always dotted, which served to distinguish the two.
Streibel's first "e" was always wider than the following "i", serving also to distinguish the two.
Any Nazi official inspecting the card would know that there existed an SS-Hauptsturmführer Streibel, and that there did not exist any SS-Hauptsturmführer Striibel.
Even a German unacquainted with any names of any Nazi official would nevertheless recognize "Streibel" as a plausible German surname, and "Striibel" as implausible.
As Karl Streibel would have had at least these four reasons to expect that no reader of his signature could mistake his first "e" for an "i", distinguishing that first "e" with a patch could not have been a motive for him to patch it.
Hypothesis 4: Karl Streibel noticed that his first "e" looked remarkably different from his second "e", and was prompted to attenuate the difference between the two
Had Streibel's patch merely retraced his original path, the resulting patched "e" might have ended up resembling his second "e" more. However, Streibel did not merely darken the path of his original "e" by retracing it, but rather added a patch which digressed beyond his existing-but-faint loop so as to expand the area enclosed, a patch which palpably deviated from colinearity with the original "e", making it more different from the second "e" than it had been before, and in fact making this Demjanjuk 1393 first "e" the most deviant "e" among the 66 that he wrote in his 33 signatures, and thereby making this Streibel signature the most deviant among these 33 signatures.
Conclusions Concerning Patching
The Demjanjuk 1393 card contains two patches, one in the Bazilevskaya translation and one in the Streibel signature. No other instance of Bazilevskaya patching has been discovered on any other card. And of the 33 Streibel signatures on Trawniki ID Cards, none but Demjanjuk 1393 contains a patch. And, miraculously, both of these rare events occur on the same card, a card already notorious for its irregularities.
It had been noted above that the Bazilevskaya patch was both gratuitous and ostentatious, and the same description applies to the Streibel patch. The Streibel patch was gratuitous because that first "e" was perfectly legible and could not have been mistaken for any other letter, and it was ostentatious because it made that first "e" not just different from the second "e" in the signature, it made it different from any of the other 65 "e"s that Streibel wrote in his 33 signatures. Instead of the patch improving that first "e", it worsened it. The patch made no attempt to darken the feathering by retracing it, but rather set out on a palpably too-clockwise path, and then rejoined the original on a palpably too-clockwise path as well. The patch was created not to make the signature more like other Streibel signatures, but to call attention to the fact that it has been altered so as to make it less like other Streibel signatures. The patch cries out to be noticed. But why would Streibel have taken the trouble to perform an action that was not only needless but flamboyant, not only uncalled for in helping authenticate the signature, but actually working to discredit it? It seems that he wouldn't.
Two hypotheses discussed in Bazilevskaya's Revenge offer themselves to explain the appearance of these two patches on the Demjanjuk card. The Red Herring Hypothesis supposes that Kremlin forgers cluttered the Demjanjuk 1393 card with fake irregularities indicative of nothing so as to distract attention from genuine irregularities indicative of forgery. And the Bazilevskaya's Revenge Hypothesis supposes that MGB translator Z. Bazilevskaya deliberately implanted coded messages in order to abort the Demjanjuk persecution at whose birth she had been commanded to assist.
The Bazilevskaya's Revenge Hypothesis, more specifically, is imagined here to consist of Bazilevskaya introducing a gratuitous and ostentatious patch into the first of the two "e"s in "Streibel" to discredit that signature, and then introduced a similarly gratuitous and ostentatious patch into the first of the two бs in Собибор to identify herself as the originator of gratuitous and ostentatious patches. In each case, Bazilevskaya chose to patch the first of a pair of letters within a word to facilitate comparison of the patched letter with its unpatched counterpart. Patching the first instance of a letter that occurred twice in the same word was her invitation to have some future examiner wonder that if the first instance was patched, why not also the second?
But, ultimately, speculation as to cause of these two parallel manifestations of patching, while valuable and obligatory, creates only a hypothesis. What is not merely a hypothesis is that two instances of gratuitous and ostentatious patching within the Demjanjuk 1393 Trawniki Card render an already-exceptional card even more exceptional, augmenting the conclusion that the card is a Kremlin forgery.
ONE FREE-FLOATING-SQUIGGLE
Display 2 above shows a squiggle above the second "e" in "Streibel" that some observers have taken to be a printed lowercase "k", called here the "free-floating-k". As a step toward evaluating the allegation that the free-floating-squiggle is a free-floating-k, the 21 "k"s on the card, printed or typed or rubber-stamped, both uppercase and lowercase, have been numbered in Display 5.
Display 5. Twenty-one "k"s, typed or printed or rubber-stamped, on the Demjanjuk 1393 Trawniki ID Card.
Outside
Inside pdf
 
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| Display 6. The 21 typed or printed or rubber-stamped "k"s on the Demjanjuk 1393 Trawniki Card, with the free-floating-squiggle reproduced at the beginning of each line to facilitate comparison. | ||||||
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Dotting A Narrow "e" Hypothesis
But if the free-floating-squiggle is not a free-floating-k, then what is it?
It may be the erroneous dotting of the second "e" in Streibel, under the mistaken impression that it was an as-yet-undotted "i", a dotting quickly recognized as mistaken and just as quickly blotted, rendering it fainter than the "e" underneath. That second "e" is narrow enough, and devoid enough of enclosed white space, to be mistaken for an "i".
This interpretation is supported by the observation that the free-floating-squiggle contains a segment concave toward the right, almost resembling the letter "c", and that often so does the dot above the "i" in other Streibel signatures, as can be appreciated in Display 7.
Perhaps the same mistake was responsible also for the free-floating-squiggle visible in Swesdun 2112, which can be viewed in Display 7, a free-floating-squiggle which also hovers above the second Streibel "e", and where that second "e" is also closed as if it were an "i", and where that free-floating squiggle also contains a "c"-like segment which is concave toward the right. But if this is a mistakenly-placed dot, then who is more likely to have misplaced it there, Karl Streibel or a Kremlin forger? Did Karl Streibel, having placed his first dot over his "i", then proceed to notice that his second "e" enclosed no white space, and thus mistook it for a second "i" and dotted it? Or, rather, did a Kremlin forger, with weak familiarity with the German language or German spelling or the names of German officials, asked to imitate a given Streibel signature, pehaps one with a narrow second "e", make that mistake?
Display 7. Dots over the Streibel "i" often consist of, or merely include, a "c"-like segment concave toward the right.
 Kabirow 1337 |
 Bandarenko 1759 |
Bondarenko 1926 |
 Slowjagin 1999 |
 Schtscherbinin 2061 |
 Swesdun 2112 |
Ribak 2246 |
 Melnitschuk 3555 |
 Moros 3683 |
 Tschornopyskij 3684 |
As with any hypothesis based on meager data, alternatives to the DOTTING A NARROW "E" HYPOTHESIS can readily be imagined, alternatives that are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
IT JUST HAPPENED HYPOTHESIS: The free-floating-k resulted from the accidental contact of a pen with the card, which was immediately blotted. Were the free-floating-squiggle the only irregularity on the Demjanjuk 1393 Card, then of course this would be the explanation of choice. Given the large number of irregularities on that card, however, attributing them all to accident fails to explain why so many accidents accumulated on a single card.
PROFOUND INCOMPETENCE HYPOTHESIS: Kremlin forging labs are manned by incompetents quite capable of producing any imaginable stream of errors, among which can be found the mistaking of narrow "e"s for "i"s.
THE RED HERRING HYPOTHESIS: Kremlin forgers deliberately blanketed the card with fake flaws indicative of nothing in order to draw attention away from the real flaws indicative of forgery.
BAZILEVSKAYA'S REVENGE HYPOTHESIS: MGB Translator Z. Bazilevskaya introduced irregularities in order to sabotage the Kremlin persecution of John Demjanjuk.
The least plausible of all hypotheses, though, is that the free-floating-squiggle is a free-floating-k for which no motive, and no method of creation, can be imagined.
Thirty-Three Streibel Signatures Found Among The Forty-Eight Trawniki ID Cards
The signatures relied upon are as follows.
