1 December 2009 / REUTERS, MUNICH
The trial of John Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old former Nazi camp guard, started on Monday on charges of helping to force 27,900 Jews into gas chambers in 1943.
Demjanjuk, a retired US carworker, appeared in a wheelchair before a court in the southern city of Munich at what is likely to be Germany’s last major trial from the Nazi era. German state prosecutors believe Demjanjuk, who was top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted war criminals, assisted in killings at the Sobibor death camp, in what is now Poland, where at least 250,000 Jews were murdered. Jewish groups and victims’ families say it is never too late for justice to be done and that the case is symbolic. “We should not make the mistake of thinking that a case against one war criminal is a case against just one man,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean of the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “When the bell tolls for John Demjanjuk, it is also tolling for every other war criminal. Even if it just gives them sleepless nights,” he told Reuters. Demjanjuk, who was born in Ukraine and fought in the Red Army before being captured by the Nazis and recruited as a camp guard, was extradited in May from the United States.
