THE ELDERLY man accused of helping to murder 29,000 Jews in wartime Poland arrived in Munich yesterday wearing a black leather jacket and a baseball cap.
After years of legal battles that culminated in the US Supreme Court, an exhausted John Demjanjuk lay on his back on a stretcher, his lined hands resting on his stomach, after arriving from Cleveland shortly after 9am yesterday morning.
An hour later, the 89-year-old sat upright in a wheelchair and listened for 90 minutes as the charges were read out against him: a harrowing 21-page document linking him to the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies and other prisoners of the Sobibor Nazi death camp in occupied Poland.
The Ukrainian-born man denies the charges and says he was first drafted into the Red Army, then taken prisoner by the Nazis and forced to work for the feared SS.
After arrival in Munich yesterday he was put under medical observation in the city’s Stadelheim prison ahead of a final ruling on whether he can stand trial.
“This could last many days or even one or two weeks,” said Anton Winkler, spokesman for the Munich state prosecutor.
Jewish leaders in Germany welcomed yesterday’s extradition of Demjanjuk – who is number three on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of suspected Nazi war criminals worldwide.
“I’m not so naive to think he will spend a single day in prison, but at least we will have a discussion about post-war German justice,” said Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “In that sense it’s good and right that he was deported to Germany and will face court here.” Demjanjuk’s children say their 89-year-old father is the victim of mistaken identity, and too ill to stand trial.
“This is not justice,” wrote John Demjanjuk jnr. “This is a vendetta in the name of false justice, with the hope that Germany will somehow atone for its past.”
The key to the trial will be a small grey SS identity card that shows a young man with an oval face, tight haircut and black tunic.
Prosecutors say the card, along with eyewitness testimony, proves Demjanjuk’s involvement in the camp massacres. Demjanjuk’s relatives say the card is a forgery.
One of the last survivors told Munich prosecutors yesterday how an estimated 250,000 people died at the camp, mostly suffocated with diesel fumes in gas chambers disguised as showers.
“Sobibor was a factory – only a few hours passed between arrival and the burning of bodies,” the 82-year-old survivor, Thomas Blatt, told Der Spiegel magazine. “They shot new arrivals, the old and sick who could not go on. Some pushed naked people into the gas chambers with bayonets.”
The Demjanjuk case: key dates
1920Born in Ukraine.
1942Captured by German forces while serving in the Soviet Red Army.
1952Demjanjuk emigrates to United States, claims to have spent much of the second World War in a German prisoner of war camp. Gains US citizenship in 1958.
1977Justice department seeks to revoke US citizenship, alleging Demjanjuk hid past as Nazi death camp guard "Ivan the Terrible". 1981 Citizenship revoked.
1986Extradited to Israel for trial over his alleged role at Treblinka.
1988Demjanjuk sentenced to death after being found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
1993Israel's supreme court rules 5-0 that Demjanjuk was not "Ivan the Terrible".
1998Regains US citizenship.
1999US justice department files civil complaint claiming Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Sobibor and Majdanek camps in occupied Poland and was a member of an SS unit.
2002Demjanjuk's US citizenship stripped for second time.
2005US immigration judge says Demjanjuk can be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.
March 11th, 2009German prosecutors charge Demjanjuk with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder and say they will seek extradition from US.
German officials request Demjanjuk’s extradition. However, his lawyers request that the US supreme court halt the deportation on the grounds that he is too sick and frail. Demjanjuk claims he suffers severe spinal, hip and leg pain and has a bone marrow disorder, kidney disease, anaemia, kidney stones, arthritis, gout and spinal deterioration.
May 11thDemjanjuk, now 89, is extradited to Germany.
May 12thDemjanjuk arrives in Germany. – (PA)