The opening of the trial of the 89-year-old John Demjanjuk in Germany on Monday has evoked mixed responses. As the son of a Holocaust survivor and author of "The Nazi Hunter," a novel about bring former Nazis to justice, I instinctively feel that there should be no statute of limitations for perpetrators of genocide. On the other hand, seeing this old man brought into the courtroom lying on a gurney writhing and complaining of pain makes one wonder whether the whole exercise will make people pity him rather than the victims of his alleged crimes.
Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine and emigrated to the United States in 1952. Prosecutors say he was trained by the SS to become a Nazi guard in 1942 and then worked at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland where some 200,000 people were murdered. Prosecutors allege that Demjanjuk led thousands of Jews to the gas chambers and charged him with 29,700 counts of being an accessory to murder.
This case has been going on for 32 years. The U.S. Justice Department first moved to revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship in 1977 and he was extradited to Israel nine years later. At that time, he stood accused of being "Ivan the Terrible" - a particularly sadistic guard at Treblinka where some 850,000 people were murdered. In 1987, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 1993 when new information emerged casting doubt on his identification as Ivan. He returned home but German authorities soon re-opened the case. A long legal battle ensued, culminating this week's trial.
The zeal of the German authorities in pursuing this case is a terrible contrast to their attitude in the 1950s and 1960s when there were far more perpetrators to pursue and witnesses to testify against them. After the initial Nuremburg trials in 1945 and 1946, there were a further 12 trials of high-ranking German officials by an American military tribunal in which 97 defendants were convicted. Other countries also vigorously pursued Nazi war criminals. But by 1949, with the Cold War in full spate, the West lost interest and abdicated responsibility to West Germany where opposition to war crimes trials was overwhelming within the legal and political elite -- understandably so since many of their number were implicated.
Germany's performance through the 1950s and 1960s was lackluster at best. It was only in 1959 that authorities began investigating crimes committed at the extermination camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka where almost 1.6 million Jews and others were murdered. The trial of nine SS men who served at Belzec (where my own grandparents were among the half million victims) lasted only three days in August 1963 and ended in the acquittal of all but one. The defendants argued that they were only following orders and would have risked death if they had disobeyed. Moreover, they suggested that the genocide could not have been carried out without the aid of some of the Jews themselves who were forced to act as "kapos." Josef Oberhauser, who played a central role in operating the camp, was the only one convicted. He received a sentence of four-and-a-half years and released after serving only half his sentence
A trial of 12 SS men who served at Sobibor took place two years later with only slightly better results. One of the accused committed suicide, another got life imprisonment, four received sentences of three to eight years and six were acquitted. One defendant, Erich Fuchs, had helped in the construction of the gas chamber. He testified about setting up the engine that pumped poison gas into the gas chambers.
"Following this, a gassing experiment was carried out. If my memory serves me right, about 30to 40 women were gassed in one gas chamber. The Jewish women were forced to undress in an open place close to the gas chamber, and were driven into the gas chamber by the above mentioned SS members and the Ukrainian auxiliaries. When the women were shut up in the gas chamber I and Bolender set the motor in motion."
For this, he received a four-year sentence.
The most dramatic West German effort at justice was the so-called Frankfurt-Auschwitz Trial of December 1963 to August 1965 of 22 mid to lower-officials -- out of an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 SS members thought to have been involved in the administration and operation of the camp. None of the defendants expressed any remorse or regret. Six received life imprisonment, 11 got sentences of 14 years or less and the rest were acquitted or released due to ill health.
While we may justly criticize Germany, the U.S. record with regard to Nazi perpetrators is nothing to be proud of either. This country allowed many suspected war criminals to immigrate during the 1950s and 1960s without checking their war records. As long as they were anti-Communist, they were deemed "kosher" by the authorities. It was only in 1979 that the Office of Special Investigations began operating within the Justice Department to detect, investigate and prosecute U.S. citizens who assisted or participated in Nazi crimes. By 2008, the office had successfully prosecuted 107 individuals. While this is praiseworthy, it was too little too late.
The Demjanjuk trial takes place against this shameful backdrop. Had the United States and its allies and the West Germans vigorously pursued justice in the years following World War Two, the present legal drama would have had little historical significance. Whatever the outcome of this case, it is indisputable that thousands upon thousands of Nazi war criminals successfully evaded justice.