The Fifth Estate

Judgement in Jerusalem (13x1)

: 19, 1988

Hana Gartner examines circumstances surrounding the trial in Jerusalem of John Demjanjuk, accused of being 'Ivan the Terrible,' the notorious and brutal Nazi prison guard at the Treblinka concentration camp in 1942-43, when up to 6,000 Jews a day were gassed to death. The trial started in November of 1986, and lasted almost a year and a half. The program focuses on the efforts of defense lawyer Paul Chumak to establish that there is reasonable doubt as to whether after 45 years Demjanjuk can be definitively identified as Ivan the Terrible. Also dealt with in the program are the deep emotions raised by the case, allegations that the Israeli judges are under intense pressure to convict him, and the concerns of North American Ukrainians that the Soviets have fabricated a crucial SS identity card in order to discredit the Ukrainian émigré community. Demjanjuk was convicted of committing crimes against humanity in 1988 but the verdict was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, citing new evidence that he was not 'Ivan the Terrible'. In 2009 Demjanjuk was deported to Germany, to stand trial for allegations that he had been a guard Nazi concentration camps in Poland and Germany. In 2011, Demajanuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jewish people during World War II and was released pending an appeal of the ruling. Demajanuk died in German in March of 2012, before his appeal could be heard.