What happened in the Nazi death camp at Sobibor was a repulsive crime. All involved have deserved their punishment. The Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk may indeed be one of the former guards of this camp in which quarter of a million Jews were butchered. Nevertheless there is something unsavory about the trial of this 89-year-old that opened in Munich on Sunday.
Demjanjuk was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair, apparently barely conscious. His family claims he is terminally ill. This is in sharp contrast to the man filmed last year in the United States by an FBI undercover unit, climbing in and out of a car with no more frailty than would be expected of a man of his age. Maybe his condition has since deteriorated as his German lawyers are claiming. Or it could equally be that Demjanjuk is putting on an act for the cameras and the court.
It should be remembered that Demjanjuk has already been tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Israel for being “Ivan the Terrible” — a sadistic Sobibor SS guard. After eight years in jail the conviction was overturned when it was established in 1993 that Demjanjuk was not, in fact, the right man. He returned to the United States. Last year, however, this former autoworker was stripped of his US citizenship and extradited to Germany, where he is now being prosecuted for being a camp guard anyway and an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews.
There is one argument that says that however messy the judicial process in three countries to which he has been exposed in the last 20 years, the enormity of the crimes of which Demjanjuk stands accused means that what is happening to him is acceptable. This by common agreement is likely to be the last trial of a Nazi suspect. It remains important that to the very end of their lives, no one guilty of crimes against humanity can expect that justice will ever give up pursuing them. This applies as much to modern butchers like Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, African warlords particularly in East and Central Africa and the Khymer Rouge in Cambodia.
For prosecutors to stop suspects who have challenged the basic tenets of humanity and behaved with ruthless brutality would be to condone such barbarism. Yet the sight of this pathetic old man, either feigning or genuinely ill in Munich must give pause for thought. Apart from his family and lawyers, Demjanjuk has no one sticking up for him. The wheels of the legal process are grinding on regardless.
The contrast with the case of Roman Polanski, who admitted forcing himself on a minor and then fled the United States 32 years ago could hardly be greater. A significant part of the European artistic establishment is protesting his extradition to face punishment. Demjanjuk at least denies his crimes. But almost entirely lacking from the way in which the courts and the media are behaving is the one human virtue that Demjanjuk allegedly didn’t show his Jewish victims — pity.
