Germany - Holocaust

Demjanjuk trial over WWII crimes begins

Article published on the 2009-11-30 Latest update 2009-11-30 13:26 TU

John Demjanjuk will stand trial for World War II war crimes.
(Photo:Jack Dabaghian/Reuters )

What is likely to be one of the last major Holocaust trials will open in Germany on Monday where Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, 89, will stand accused of being a Nazi death camp guard. He is charged with assisting in the killing of 27,900 Jews and others. If convicted, he is likely to spend the rest of his days behind bars.

Last May, he lost a decade long battle against deportation from the United States where he had been living since after World War II. His family says he is suffering from serious health problems and he is expected to arrive in the Munich courtroom in a wheelchair.

Medical experts have judged him fit to stand trial with proceedings limited to two 90-minutes sessions per day.

Demjanjuk denies accusations that he was a guard from March to September 1943 at Sobibor, one of the network of camps erected by the Third Reich in eastern Europe with the sole purpose of mass extermination.

More than 30 co-plaintiffs are expected to attend the trial for which there are no living eyewitnesses who saw Demjanjuk there. Prosecutors will therefore have to rely on the testimony of people who are now dead.

Demjanjuk claims to be a Red Army soldier captured by the Germans and moved around prisoner-of –war camps. However Israeli and US courts have already established he was one of the many non-German guards at Sobibor.

Demjanjuk was sentenced to death in 1988 by Israel for being a particularly sadistic Nazi guard dubbed “Ivan the Terrible”.  His conviction was overturned after five years on death row when it emerged that Israel had the wrong man.

His lawyer, Ulrich Busch, claims that even if it is proved that Demjanjuk had been at the camp, he would have been there under duress and therefore could not be held responsible for the atrocities committed.