Demjanjuk: I am also a victim of the Nazis

MUNICH - At 11:10 A.M. local time yesterday, John (Ivan) Demjanjuk, accused of involvement in the murder of 27,900 Jews at the death camp Sobibor, was rolled in his wheelchair into Munich District Court. The first trial in Germany of an East European Nazi collaborator had begun.

The courtroom had been filled for an hour before the session started, with reporters from around the world, attorneys and more than 20 relatives of the Dutch Jews who were killed at Sobibor during the time the indictment says Demjanjuk served there.

Thomas Blatt sat comfortably watching the proceedings. As a boy of 15 at Sobibor, Blatt invited about a dozen SS officers, one after the other, to come with him to the Jewish prisoners' hut, with the promise that they would receive fine coats. Once inside, the other prisoners killed them with axes and hammers. That was the famed Sobibor Uprising, and Blatt was one of the few survivors. At 83, he is one of the last living survivors of the death camp.

"I don't remember Demjanjuk's face," he said a few minutes before Demjanjuk was brought into the courtroom. "But so much time has passed that I don't remember the faces of my parents or brother, either. But I remember that they were murdered in the gas chambers." In January, Blatt is to testify for the prosecution.

Silence descended on the courtroom as the defendant was wheeled in, broken only by the clicking of cameras and the prisoner's sighs. Demjanjuk and his lawyers presented a well-prepared picture to the world. He was covered with a blue hospital blanket, his eyes closed, wearing glasses and a blue cap. The blanket covered a black leather jacket.

"I don't pity him because he did not pity the elderly or the children who were murdered at Sobibor," Blatt had said earlier.

The moment Demjanjuk was brought in, Blatt stood, took out a digital camera and pushed through the photographers to take a picture of the prisoner in his wheelchair.

Judge Ralph Alt called the court to order, more than an hour behind schedule. The scene had been disorderly because of the many journalists on hand. A Ukrainian interpreter relayed the judge's words, starting with the reading of the charge of accomplice to murder.

After presentations by the defense and prosecution, it was the turn of the co-prosecutors, a special status in the German legal system. Here they were mainly the offspring of Dutch Jews murdered at Sobibor. One after the other, the judge read their names: "Phillip Jacobs" (who managed to escape to Britain but lost his parents and fiance at Sobibor) - "present"; "Rivka Bitterman" (who lost most of her family at the death camp and came to Munich from Jerusalem) - "here"; "Paul Helman" (whose father came to Sobibor on nearly the same date Demjanjuk did, but survived only a few hours in the camp) - "here". The list went on.

The defense immediately asked that the judges and prosecution be disqualified due to "prejudice against the suspect." Demjanjuk's attorney, Ulrich Busch, said Germany had no authority to judge alleged guards like Demjanjuk after having acquitted the commandant of the camp. He said the accused was being tried only because he was Ukrainian. "If the commanders go free, how is it possible to try their slaves?" he asked.

Busch even compared Demjanjuk to Blatt. "As Blatt was forced to help the Nazis in the camp, like others who served in the Sonderkommandos, Demjanjuk was forced to serve as a guard in the camp," Busch said. An attorney for one of the co-prosecutors, Prof. Cornelius Nestler, quickly responded by saying that Busch had not bothered to mention the weapons the guards carried and the food and time off they received, and above all, their actions. The guards murdered, he told the court, the Jews did not.

The judge ruled that the defense's petition would be discussed later, and that the court would reconvene after a recess of an hour and a half. The next time Demjanjuk entered the courtroom, he was on a stretcher, lying on his side, his face hidden.

"The show goes on," said Max Dagan, a co-prosecutor. Demjanjuk groaned, turned over, and removed his blanket. The judge called another recess so the accused could be attended to.

A neurologist who examined Demjanjuk three times testified that he was fit to stand trial. Another doctor concurred with the finding.

The judge closed the proceedings, which will resume today at 10 A.M.

"I think of Sobibor every day, all the time," Blatt said outside the courtroom. "I see you and I think, 'what would you have done in Sobibor. Would you have survived? How would you have survived? True, Demjanjuk is an old man. But there is no suitable punishment for what he did in this world. I have no doubt he must stand trial."