The documentary centers around an American citizen of Ukranian origin, John Demjanjuk, who, 40 years after the end of WWII, gets accused of being the notorious war criminal Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka. His American citizenship is revoked and he is sent to Israel to stand trial.
The real star of the documentary is J. Demjanjuk's Israeli defense attorney Yoram Sheftel. What a character he is. Maybe he is not a saint, how can he be, he is a lawyer but what an amazing personality. The trial is a national event in Israel, everyone seems already convinced that J. Demjanjuk is Ivan the Terrible even before the trial starts and emotions are running high. In that atmosphere, Yoram Sheftel decides he will expose what he calls "a show trial" for what it is and agrees to assist Demjanjuk's defense attorney Mark O'Connor in the case. One can claim he did it for fame or for money but you need to understand the risk this guy took, in order to appreciate his courage at least.
The documents that incriminate J. Demjanjuk are brought from the Soviets. This is of course the Cold War era and an ex-American citizen being tried in Israel with proof from the Soviet Union is very interesting by itself. Just as he is accused with Soviet documents initially, Demjanjuk is eventually acquitted because of other Soviet documents obtained after the dissolution of the USSR. But there are also the Holocaust survivors who positively identify Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible. This is where it gets really sensitive for Israelis. Acquitting Demjanjuk was equal to telling these people that their word was not good enough. Were they liars, was their memory failing them after so many years or were they just being led by the high emotions inside and around them? It is revealed in the documentary that one of the survivors already lied in his testimony just after the war when he said that they had killed Ivan the Terrible during an uprising. This is defended by the notion that "he wanted it to be true" or that "he wanted to be the hero". Why is it so preposterous or inconsiderate to think he would do it a second time for those same reasons then? Israel has some of the brightest, most educated minds in the world; people who won't just give in to populism. In the end, Supreme Court of Israel, based on the evidence presented to them, finds J. Demjanjuk innocent and acquits him.
American OSI isn't done with him though. Since they can't prove that he is Ivan the Terrible, they decide to get him to stand trial for being a prison guard in one of the death camps. So they fly him to Germany this time. I am just going to say this about that. If American officials wanted to make an example out of war criminals, then maybe they shouldn't have started from the bottom of the pile. You make a big spectacle out of an allegedly ordinary prison guard while high ranking Nazi party members like Wernher Von Braun are hailed as national heroes in your country. It is just absurd and believe me it is not sending out the right message or maybe any message at all.
John Demjanjuk technically died innocent because the legal procedure in Germany was not yet finalized. By the end of the documentary, I was mostly convinced that he had served as a guard in one of the death camps but not sure if he was the person they said he was. I think the courtroom sketch artist summarized Demjanjuk best when she said he was a survivor. He probably did what he had to do in order to survive, to go on living; nothing more, nothing less. You can still blame him for being a collaborator but wasn't almost everyone? Didn't Jews have to collaborate too? Almost everyone played the role Nazis gave them, some with more enthusiasm than others of course. Nazis created a horrifying machinery that stripped humans of all their humanity and reduced them to primal beasts doing unspeakable things in order to survive. They truly took from their victims everything.
The real star of the documentary is J. Demjanjuk's Israeli defense attorney Yoram Sheftel. What a character he is. Maybe he is not a saint, how can he be, he is a lawyer but what an amazing personality. The trial is a national event in Israel, everyone seems already convinced that J. Demjanjuk is Ivan the Terrible even before the trial starts and emotions are running high. In that atmosphere, Yoram Sheftel decides he will expose what he calls "a show trial" for what it is and agrees to assist Demjanjuk's defense attorney Mark O'Connor in the case. One can claim he did it for fame or for money but you need to understand the risk this guy took, in order to appreciate his courage at least.
The documents that incriminate J. Demjanjuk are brought from the Soviets. This is of course the Cold War era and an ex-American citizen being tried in Israel with proof from the Soviet Union is very interesting by itself. Just as he is accused with Soviet documents initially, Demjanjuk is eventually acquitted because of other Soviet documents obtained after the dissolution of the USSR. But there are also the Holocaust survivors who positively identify Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible. This is where it gets really sensitive for Israelis. Acquitting Demjanjuk was equal to telling these people that their word was not good enough. Were they liars, was their memory failing them after so many years or were they just being led by the high emotions inside and around them? It is revealed in the documentary that one of the survivors already lied in his testimony just after the war when he said that they had killed Ivan the Terrible during an uprising. This is defended by the notion that "he wanted it to be true" or that "he wanted to be the hero". Why is it so preposterous or inconsiderate to think he would do it a second time for those same reasons then? Israel has some of the brightest, most educated minds in the world; people who won't just give in to populism. In the end, Supreme Court of Israel, based on the evidence presented to them, finds J. Demjanjuk innocent and acquits him.
American OSI isn't done with him though. Since they can't prove that he is Ivan the Terrible, they decide to get him to stand trial for being a prison guard in one of the death camps. So they fly him to Germany this time. I am just going to say this about that. If American officials wanted to make an example out of war criminals, then maybe they shouldn't have started from the bottom of the pile. You make a big spectacle out of an allegedly ordinary prison guard while high ranking Nazi party members like Wernher Von Braun are hailed as national heroes in your country. It is just absurd and believe me it is not sending out the right message or maybe any message at all.
John Demjanjuk technically died innocent because the legal procedure in Germany was not yet finalized. By the end of the documentary, I was mostly convinced that he had served as a guard in one of the death camps but not sure if he was the person they said he was. I think the courtroom sketch artist summarized Demjanjuk best when she said he was a survivor. He probably did what he had to do in order to survive, to go on living; nothing more, nothing less. You can still blame him for being a collaborator but wasn't almost everyone? Didn't Jews have to collaborate too? Almost everyone played the role Nazis gave them, some with more enthusiasm than others of course. Nazis created a horrifying machinery that stripped humans of all their humanity and reduced them to primal beasts doing unspeakable things in order to survive. They truly took from their victims everything.