John Demjanjuk to take stand as Nazi war crimes trial starts in Munich 
John Demjanjuk is taken from his US home to be extradited to Germany in April An infirm 89-year-old who tends to fall asleep in mid-conversation will be wheeled into the dock of a Munich court today charged as an accessory to 27,900 murders in what is being billed as the last major Nazi war crimes trial.
Yet John Demjanjuk, who is accused of being a guard at the Sobibor death camp between March and July 1943, was not a Nazi, or even a German. Born in Ukraine, his alleged crimes were committed on land that is now Poland, and after the war he spent most of his life as a car worker and pensioner in the US. He is now stateless and regards himself as a victim of the 20th century.
By the tangled logic of international legal jurisdiction, Mr Demjanjuk — already once tried, sentenced and acquitted in Israel — is facing his last earthly judgment in the country that planned the Holocaust. Germany is nervous. If he is not convicted, it is expected to mark the end of the era of Nazi hunting.
There will be nine co-plaintiffs at the trial, which is expected to last until May, and some were inmates in Sobibor. None, however, can positively identify Mr Demjanjuk. That underlines the complexity of trying the last alleged war criminals of the Second World War. The testimony is understandably vague, the paper trail is obscure and the defendants are at the very end of their lives.
Ulrich Busch, Mr Demjanjuk’s defence lawyer, said that his client had perhaps a year to live; he suffers a bone marrow disease and kidney problems. If he is found not guilty, he will end his days in a German nursing home. He will not be allowed to return to the US, where his family live.
If he is found guilty, the seven years that he served in an Israeli jail — he was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible”, a guard at the Treblinka death camp, but it was a case of mistaken identity — may be deducted from the maximum 15 years’ imprisonment he would receive from a German court. One way or another, Mr Demjanjuk seems likely to die in Germany.
The state prosecutor has said that Mr Demjanjuk was a Red Army soldier who was taken prisoner by the Germans in May 1942 after a battle on the Crimean peninsula. The charge sheet alleges that soon after his capture, the Germans trained Mr Demjanjuk as a prison guard at an SS centre in Trawniki, Ukraine. Needing to free up troops, the Germans trained captured Ukrainians to carry out some of the dirty work in the camps.
After service in one camp, Mr Demjanjuk was allegedly sent to Sobibor, one of about 150 former Soviet prisoners under the command of 30 German SS troopers and officers.
"When the transport train carrying Jews drew in, all routine work was dropped immediately and the whole of the camp personnel became involved in the extermination process,” says the charge sheet.
"The wagons were opened by German and non-German personnel and the people inside were ordered to get out. They were surrounded by a cordon of [Ukrainian camp guards].”
The Jews were then told to take off their clothes and head for the "showers” to be "disinfected” after their journey, in preparation for work.
They were instead gassed. "Around 80 people were forced into a room measuring four metres by four metres.” It took between 20 and 30 minutes for them to die. The Ukrainians waited outside and could hear the screams.
As far as the state prosecutor is concerned, it is sufficient to prove that Mr Demjanjuk was in Sobibor at the time to establish that he was an accomplice to murder.
In the four months that Mr Demjanjuk was allegedly at Sobibor, 15 trainloads of mainly Dutch Jews arrived at the camp. All 29,579 were killed.
"We made it a little bit less,” said the state prosecutor Hans Joachim Lutz, explaining the discrepancy between the transport arrival figures and the murders on the charge sheet, "because we don’t know if some died on the transport, or stayed alive and died after Demjanjuk left Sobibor.”
The defence case is multi-layered. First, says Mr Demjanjuk’s lawyer, the trial should not proceed for medical reasons. Two doctors and a psychiatrist are due to testify today; so far, the court has been assured that Mr Demjanjuk is fit enough to take three hours in court a day.
Second, the defence will question the legitimacy of Germany trying Mr Demjanjuk. The Poles and Ukrainians refused to take him after the US stripped him of his citizenship, and he cannot be tried under US law. A researcher for the Ludwigsburg Centre for Investigating War Crimes, however, managed to establish that some of the Jews killed in Sobibor were German citizens. Since Mr Demjanjuk was allegedly serving under SS command he was, in effect, working for the German State.
Mr Busch will argue that his client was still regarded by the SS as a Soviet prisoner of war — up a notch from the Jews who were to be gassed, but liable to be shot on the spot if he disobeyed orders.
"The Holocaust was a German thing,” said Mr Busch in an interview. "It was thought out only by Germans, theoretically and practically carried out on the instructions of Germans. You cannot split the guilt with other nations, but that is somehow the grounds for holding this trial — Demjanjuk, the monster man.”
One of the co-plaintiffs, Jules Schelvis, a printer from Amsterdam, remembered at the weekend how his transport train rolled into Sobibor. There were a couple of houses built in Alpine style and geraniums planted in flower boxes. "It doesn’t look so bad,” he thought, "I thought it must be a work camp.” Within hours his wife, Rachel, had been gassed along with almost 3,000 others from the train.
The hunt goes on
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre publishes an annual list of its most-wanted surviving Nazis
Alois Brunner Deported thousands of Jews from Western Europe to death camps. Last seen in Syria, believed dead
Aribert Heim Murdered hundreds while doctor in Mauthausen concentration camp. May have died in Cairo in 1992
Sandor Kepiro Murdered more than 1,200 in Serbia. Convicted but not punished in Hungary; new investigation open
Milivoj Ašner Blamed for deaths of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Indicted by Croatia in 2005, which sought extradition from Austria
Soeren Kam Blamed for stealing population registry of Danish Jews, allowing deportation. Never extradited
Klaas Carl Faber Jailed in 1948 for murders of prisoners in the Netherlands. Escaped from prison in 1952
Heinrich Boere Waffen SS member, murdered Dutch civilians. Sentenced to death in absentia in Netherlands in 1949
Karoly (Charles) Zentai Accused of murdering Jews in Budapest in 1944. Found in Australia in 2004; extradition approved this month
Mikhail Gorshkow Accused of participating in murder of Jews in Belarus. Under investigation in Estonia
Algimantas Dailide Arrested Jews who were later murdered by Nazi collaborators in Lithuania
Harry Mannil Arrested Jews and communists who were murdered by Nazis in Estonia
Source: Simon Wiesenthal Centre
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