Original subtitles

In the nightmare world that was the Holocaust,

with millions put to death with relentless bureaucratic efficiency,

it must have taken someone of surpassing,

almost unimaginable cruelty,

to have earned the nickname "Ivan the Terrible."

And indeed, that individual, a guard at the Treblinka camp in Poland,

richly deserved that nickname, demonstrating a bloodlust

that survivors recall with chilling clarity.

Treblinka was a death camp.

850,000 Jewish were killed there.

It's maybe the biggest Jewish graveyard in history.

People arrived to Treblinka.

They were took off, uh, the train.

Their hair was cut, they were stripped of their clothes

and, uh, materials if they had some.

They were taken to the gas chambers, and within two hours, uh, they were dead.

The German used to tell the Jewish prisoner

no one will believe them after the war.

That even if they will survive and tell the story,

no one will ever believe that something like that happened.

It's now almost two months since the start

of Israel's biggest war crimes trial for a quarter of a century.

In the dock is John Demjanjuk.

He was extradited from America

to face charges that he was the notorious Ivan the Terrible

who murdered thousands of Jews

at the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland.

This is the first and the only trial,

and since then as well,

ever being televised live...

from courtroom,

from the first to the last moment.

There he is, as he stands here! Here he stands!

The trial here has mesmerized everyone.

Every day, large crowds pack the auditorium where the trial is held.

Once the survivors began to testify,

it became a national event and a national obsession.

While the testimony was going on,

the taxi drivers pulled over and listened on the radio,

people were sitting at home,

people were listening at work...

in a way that no one expected in Israel.

The show trial has become a national obsession,

and "show trial" it surely is.

It runs live on national television and two radio channels.

There is no escaping it.

I remember getting on the bus

during the time in which the survivor testimony was being told.

The bus was completely full,

and it was so quiet,

you could hear a pin drop.

The whole nation talk about the Holocaust,

about Treblinka,

about the fate of the Jews.

Uh, the show trial succeeds.

To teach history,

even the history of the Holocaust,

through a typical criminal case...

which all the main facts are disputed,

you get the Demjanjuk case,

the Demjanjuk affair, the Demjanjuk disgrace.

The Demjanjuk case began in 1975

when this man returned to the United States

from a trip to Moscow.

He brought with him a list of men who the Soviets claimed were war criminals

who'd taken refuge in America.

A list was turned over to the US Immigration Service,

and they began to investigate people on the list,

one of whom was Fyodor Federenko,

who had admitted that he was a Treblinka death camp guard.

During the US Justice Department investigation,

the American authorities sent a photo spread to the Israeli authorities,

including a photograph of Demjanjuk

as filler, so to speak.

The Americans, when they first get information,

they think, "Oh, well, we have two collaborators"

in the United States who we would like to denaturalize.

One is this Demjanjuk, who we believe was at Sobibor,

and the other is this Federenko, who we believe was at Treblinka.

How can we get more information about these guys?

Well, we'll go to the Israelis,

because most of the survivors of Treblinka

"and Sobibor have settled in Israel."

There was a unit of the Israeli police

that interviewed Holocaust survivors

in Tel Aviv, in Jerusalem, and elsewhere in Israel,

and took testimonies from them.

The police say investigators

invited the survivors of Treblinka

to identify... anyone who was on this photo parade.

So, the first witness came in, she showed you the photo parade,

and you went through the photos

and jumped on Demjanjuk's photo and said,

"This is the operator of the gas chambers."

She was stunned,

and she immediately argued with him and said, "You are mistaken."

This man was at Sobibor."

And he said,

"You can't tell me. I know him.

This is the operator of the gas chambers."

Eleven survivors,

one after the other,

identified Demjanjuk's photo...

as Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka.

The survivors were in shock

to see the man who stood at the gas chambers.

They all said,

"He is photograph number 16."

And that's where the drama begins.

All rise.

Please be seated.

Mr. Shaked, please.

Your Honors, I would like to call Gustav Borax.

Please rise.

I must warn you

that you must tell the truth,

and if you fail to do so, you are liable to punishment.

Mr. Borax, what was your assignment

during your time in Treblinka?

- A barber. - A barber.

Please face the bench when you talk.

A barber, I was a barber.

When the women entered the building, what did they do?

They were afraid to enter.

They would cry and tear out their hair

because they saw they were about to be put to death.

Ivan would push them in with a bayonet spear.

And what happened to these women after Ivan pushed them in?

They were wounded

and pieces of flesh were hanging from them.

The blood was dripping.

My sister-in-law... my sister-in-law was there,

and she fell on me and started to cry.

The witness is crying...

Your Honors, with all due respect,

why do we need to hear these undisputed stories?

Why do you say such words?

This is the prosecution's case.

If the prosecution wants to create a clear picture to the court,

they need to only submit the testimonies,

and we totally agree to submit them.

But if they insist on bringing these witnesses,

we say the purpose is not to bring it to you, honors,

but to the 16 cameras up there.

I ask that Mr. Sheftel withdraw his last words.

There will be a time when we will have to take measures against you.

We will have to put you in contempt.

It is not the first time you say these things,

and we call you to order.

- First, I would like to... - We call you to order.

You should take our words seriously and with all the respect.

What is this talk?

The background is important.

The background helps me understand the value of the identification.

Under what circumstances did you know this man?

You can't value the identification

if you don't consider... Treblinka.

The background, the deportation, the murdered families.

We had to hear it.

It's part of our terrible story.

The stories were incredibly difficult.

There are cameras on you. You know you're being filmed,

and you're a judge. You can't let your emotions show.

But I went to visit a friend

who was hospitalized at the time.

And sitting by her bed, I suddenly burst into tears.

I remember their laugh. They were looking for amusement.

Bread, they had.

Sadism and murder, they had.

They only lacked amusement...

And we, that were fighting to survive...

I, Yoss'le from Warsaw,

that was fighting to survive, was also...

I was their child toy of sadism.

Yes, their child toy.

Cherney was heartbreaking.

His testimony was heartbreaking.

Especially from the eyes of this naive child

that was running around there in this camp,

reflected the evil of this place

and the ruthlessness.

I felt a lot of sorrow...

for what they were forced to pass.

Many admire Shaked's handling of the witnesses,

haunted people.

He listens to them attentively, patiently, and does not interrupt,

but neither does he allow them to veer off course,

even when the testimonies describe harrowing details

such as the noises which could be heard from within the gas chamber.

This is part of the heavy responsibility.

I am there to make sure

that they convey what they want to convey to the court,

and yet, come safe back home.

Why did you kill them?

Why?

Did they do anything to you?

Tell me why! Why did you kill them all?

Demjanjuk never ever showed...

anything.

His eyes didn't blink.

There were no muscles of facial expression used.

He was just blank.

Everybody said the same thing.

He's a psychopath holding all of this inside of him.

Sheftel would always say that, you know, "He's a peasant. He's dumb.

He's... He's ignorant. He's..." Uh, that's nonsense.

I don't know whether his children or his wife

or anybody can tell exactly who he was.

In a way, he seemed like a simple man,

but in a way, he seemed, like, smart as a fox.

So, I think he was just... a survivor.

And he did whatever it took to survive.

Have you ever come to your father and ask him,

"Father, tell me the truth.

- "Are you or are you not?" - We've always known my father's innocent.

We never had a shadow of a doubt in our mind.

Our father's a very kind person, a very gentle person.

We've learned a great deal about the Holocaust

and we know exactly the kind of person Ivan the Terrible is.

He's a sociopath.

He's somebody that has absolutely no feeling for human life.

And that... that person is definitely not my father.

Ivan the Terrible was a brutal man.

My father's not a brutal man. He never was.

He would've hit me.

I met Irene Demjanjuk at work.

She was a receptionist, secretary.

Just seeing her every day, she always looked so melancholy.

Then one day, I saw her notebook

that had that name on it.

Uh, "Demjanjuk."

And I says, "Are you related to that guy?"

And, uh, she says, "That's my dad."

I remember seeing Demjanjuk for the first time.

I asked him, "Is any of this true?"

Just, I need to know. Is any of it true?"

And he said, "If I was guilty",

I would just take a bottle of pills,

swallow 'em, and go to sleep and not go through this,

but I'm not him,

- "and I'll fight these charges." - Never. Never. Never.

I thought this whole case was just gonna get thrown out.

So, we got married,

and I told her I'd do whatever I could do to help.

It was, like, from the honeymoon

into the courtroom.

In the emergency center of Ayalon prison,

15 cameras are pointed at highly sensitive cells.

One of them films nonstop the cell of Demjanjuk.

You have a home, a shower, a garden, a yard,

but what do you miss?

You give me those crazy...

Did you... Did you give me those silly question? What I miss?

You don't know what I miss?

I miss my beautiful country, America.

I miss my beautiful family, children, and everybody.

My friend, you know?

When you give me question... uh-huh, uh, yeah, yeah, that's bushh.

His wife was really worried about him.

My wife was really worried about him.

And they couldn't believe what was going on.

I learned everything about the witnesses,

about the Holocaust.

It still plays on my mind, 24-7.

It doesn't go away.

The crimes that he was accused of were horrid...

but they were real.

I'd heard survivor testimony. I've reviewed survivor testimony.

Each one was different.

Each one was... had their own personality.

Each one projected that personality.

Which one touched me the most?

It's obvious who that was.

Gustav Borax.

Mr. Borax, we're back to you, sir.

Do you recall...

whether or not you gave your testimony

at a trial in the United States

in Florida...

against an individual that you remembered from Treblinka?

And then, I was just doing mind and memory,

very gentle examination.

And gently, I'm asking him...

Don't ask me why I asked that question.

I can't tell you.

"How did you get from Israel to Florida?"

Mr. Borax, do you remember

how you traveled from Israel to Florida,

so that you could speak to the court in that trial?

Witness: Yes, we went by train.

And it was, like, a big gasp...

in the courtroom.

Don't ask me why I asked that question.

And he said, with... Looking right straight at me,

in a wonderful, gentle way, "By train."

By train.

How did he get to Florida?

And his answer, it was,

"I took a train"

from Czestochowa, in Poland, a train...

straight to Florida.

"Straight to Florida."

Now, of course,

uh, this is a hundred percent senility.

And, uh, only a vicious...

merciless prosecutor

would bring such a witness to the witness stand.

He was not senile.

He testified that he saw his wife and his children

and other relatives of his being driven to the gas chamber,

and he was left behind.

He simply moved back to where he was,

and he lost contact with what happens on the stage.

He probably heard,

"How did you reach Treblinka?"

And he said, "By train from Czestochowa."

I mean, the answer is the best... testimony of his state of mind.

But I realized that I will not be able

to rely too much on his testimony.

Mickey Shaked was extremely worried,

and I could see, for the first time,

a crack in his confidence...

to the point where...

we could lose this.

You know, we could lose this.

Mr. Borax. How old are you?

I was born in 1901.

And you were married before Treblinka?

- Yes. - And you had two kids?

Yes.

What were their names?

Their names?

Pinhas and...

Pinhas...

uh... um...

When Borax got on stage,

some of the details were problematic for him.

For example, he forgot the name of one of his kids

that got murdered during the Holocaust.

It was a very embarrassing part in the trial,

maybe the hardest one.

Do you believe, Mr. Borax,

that you could have forgotten

the name of the younger son

who died in Treblinka?

There were moments when he was sharp...

and moments when he wasn't, and that was, of course,

terribly distressing because you saw

that these trials can't go on forever,

and that we're getting very close to the end

of being able to have Holocaust survivors as witnesses.

There were some tough days

in which we knew that we were facing some problems.

The issue of the identification became more... problematic.

It was clear that not all of the procedures that were done

were done in the best of manners.

Ivan the Terrible.

I am telling you that the first time

you were shown these photos

in the police station

and you did point to a picture,

but it wasn't Ivan.

It was Federenko. Picture number 17.

Each attorney brought his own world

into this trial.

And the most dangerous of them was, of course, Sheftel,

because he went to the point

of identification immediately

and began to attack

the survivors.

You never pointed at "Ivan" in any form or way!

You never mentioned his name, never pointed at his photo.

You never said, "Here's Ivan of Treblinka."

You didn't say anything about him.

You pointed at photo number 17 of Federenko. Period.

Some of the witnesses were liars.

Some of the witnesses were seniles,

and some of the witnesses were seniles and liars.

What was the reaction in Israel to your taking this case?

Devastating. Um...

The country looked to me as enemy of public number one.

Posters were raised with photographs of the Holocaust

with shameful, hurtful things

directed especially towards Counsel Sheftel.

You!

You are part of that!

Your hands are covered in blood!

I feel I am doing my job well,

and because I'm doing it well, I'm spoiling the show...

I fully realize that most Israelis hated me more than my client.

I was called the most annoying person

in the state of Israel.

I was called a person with no conscience whatsoever.

Nazi collaborator, killer, and Nazi sympathizer.

Like, a... a person that should be killed, eliminated.

I couldn't go to synagogue,

because of the animosity

of the congregation.

Even my mother couldn't stand it.

She refused to talk to me.

He defended someone who would've thrown his mother

into the gas chambers.

Who threw her sister.

Pfft.

That definitely...

raised some questions.

Truly.

I took care of myself psychologically

against it.

In a way, it even assisted me.

It make me more hardened,

more fighter.

I was functioning like nothing happens,

and they couldn't believe that it's possible.

So they started to say

I enjoy to be hated.

The defense lawyer Yoram Sheftel thrives on notoriety.

To take pride in a German car,

especially one as noticeable as a Porsche,

is still unusual in Israel.

He, as a matter of politics,

made himself into this...

character who stood against the system,

and, uh, he loved every minute of it.

Mr. Sheftel, will you agree to take...

This is no joke, this is a real machine, and the test will be real.

Will you take the test and answer whether you truly believe,

in your heart of hearts,

that Ivan Demjanjuk is not Ivan the Terrible?

He was always quick to sit in front of the camera.

Always agreeable to any question.

He didn't want nice questions. He... He wanted tough questions.

Listen to the entire question and respond.

Yes, first question.

- Is today Tuesday? - Yes.

- Would you cheat a client? - No.

Do you believe that Ivan John Demjanjuk is Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka?

No.

Based on the test, with some reservation,

since the test was held in a studio before a live audience,

my assessment is that Mr. Sheftel is not telling the truth.

He may believe that John Demjanjuk is Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.

It's obvious to me that Sheftel chose to close his eyes,

saying that Demjanjuk was not guilty of anything,

that he was a saint.

And that was not the case.

Mr. Shaked, do you have another witness today?

Yes. The witness is Mr. Eliahu Rosenberg.

Rosenberg is not a likable person.

He's a difficult person.

He's a little... bull,

and he's full of trauma and complexes

and everything submerged deep within him.

And, uh, um, you know,

that is why, like a volcano, he... erupted.

He screamed, "Wachmann!"

And the door opened...

We were hit on the head. I was hit on the head, too.

I entered and saw a terrifying image...

I saw a mountain, a mountain of corpses to my left.

We started running about,

but someone ordered, "Grab a corpse and run!"

I was forced to run like a horse. Gallop like a horse.

I kept working this way until noon.

I found out later, if it please the court, this transport was from yesterday,

the one on which my family had been.

Your Honor,

this name, "Ivan," I remember well

from when I was in a hell named Treblinka.

Sometimes he would cut off a piece of a nose, a piece of ear.

Stab!

Why? Why? You cannot comprehend why!

But in this complex of Treblinka, you just don't understand why?

My God!

Why torture? Why cut off flesh from humans?

Nobody ordered him to do it to them!

Nobody!

He did it on his own accord.

Every survivor will tell you, "I've survived"

so that I can tell the story."

And here, they were very much threatened.

They were much feeling threatened

by the fact that someone doubted their story.

Someone doubted what happened to them

at Treblinka.

That's... It was beyond their comprehension.

Mr. Rosenberg, was it ever in your heart,

the time you were watching this happen,

to try to do something to help those men that were running outside naked?

How could you have done so? Your Honors...

If I saw... I saw...

I saw...

people going into these gas chambers,

I had no contact with them.

I could see them five meters away from me.

They didn't even have a chance to look up at me.

And what could I have told them?

Mr. Rosenberg...

But in what manner could I help these people?

How? With what, with what?

Screaming, "Don't get into those gas chambers"?

They didn't want to get into the gas chambers.

And God forbid any of us would have screamed,

shouted towards them, would have tried to do anything.

That particular person who would shout...

I don't wish you, Mr. O'Connor,

to even look at what would have happened to such a person.

They would have shoved me straight alive into a pit full of blood!

So don't ask me questions of that manner, Mr. O'Connor.

I implore you. You weren't there. I was there.

Ask him! Ask him!

Let him tell you!

Let him tell you what he would have done to me.

Mr. Rosenberg, I should like you to look at the accused. And if you can...

Will you please, Your Honor, ask the accused to take off his glasses?

- What? - His glasses.

His glasses?

Why?

I would like to see his eyes.

Please?

I want it that he come in close to me, right here.

Okay.

He said, "I want to look at his eyes."

And when I look to his eyes,

I will know hundred percent for sure

"whether he's Ivan the Terrible or not."

I was against it.

I said, uh, "This is part of the show trial."

But, O'Connor drag me, because he was there for exactly for this.

And he said, "No, no, no, no." Ah!

He's the boss at that time,

so I silenced.

Mr. Rosenberg, come over.

It was put to him to get up and walk across the hall,

in front of the court, in front of the tribunal,

to look into his eyes,

to make proof-positive sure that he recognized John Demjanjuk,

the autoworker from Cleveland, Ohio,

as the notorious Ivan the Terrible.

And John Demjanjuk's extending his hand.

He didn't expect that.

Ivan the Terrible, how dare you!

It's like being caught up in a tsunami. You cannot help but be affected.

You're in a sea of people

who are reliving the worst period in history...

for their relatives...

for their tribe.

And you cannot help but be affected.

- How dare you! - Mr. Rosenberg...

Get him away!

Please sit down! The public is requested to keep their seats!

That is that devil!

Mr. Rosenberg, please return to your witness stand.

Mr. Rosenberg...

He jumped back as if he'd seen a snake.

And cried out. Screamed.

It was terrible.

You could see he knew him.

Mr. Rosenberg, now that you're back on the stand,

what is your answer to the prosecutor's question?

Mr. Shaked, repeat the question.

Who is the man on the defendant's bench?

Ivan!

I have no doubt whatsoever.

Ivan from the gas chambers at Treblinka.

That's the man I'm looking at now.

I saw his eyes,

his murderous eyes,

his face. How dare you hold out your hand!

You murderer!

He says, "This is the murderous eyes"

of Ivan the Terrible."

Now, this was a sheer lie, lie,

but he was forced to lie.

What do you expect the poor guy to do?

To admit, in front of the nation,

that, uh, he was talking bullshit till now,

and it's a mistaken identity?

Is such a thing possible?

In a normal court,

no, uh, no, uh, television screening and so on,

maybe he will admit the truth.

He would be... He would admit the truth.

But in the attitude of the court,

in the atmosphere of the court,

with the cameras on, he would say,

"I... I made a mistake."

Never! Never!

Good evening from Jerusalem.

I'm Ted Henry with news of the mounting case

against John Demjanjuk.

It almost seems that the people of Israel are breathing a collective sigh of relief.

For many, the emotional pitch of this courtroom drama

has just been too much to bear.

But this sort of thing, how is this possible?

- How could such a thing... - They were wounded,

and pieces of flesh, whole pieces of flesh were hanging behind them.

The blood was dripping.

He was brutal. He was cruel.

He was a sadist.

After all, all of them were cruel and sadists.

Can anybody under... understand?

This is the disaster's disaster. The disaster of the Holocaust.

That no language can convey

even a minute of Treblinka.

John Demjanjuk has only a few months

to show this court it has the wrong man.

His life is very much at stake

because conviction would almost certainly mean execution by hanging.

This is Dean Reynolds for Good Morning America in Jerusalem.

New evidence is casting doubt on Israel's case

against the man facing trial there

as the notorious Nazi death camp guard, Ivan the Terrible.

His lawyer claims to have Soviet government documents

that will clear him.

And one of the world's foremost Nazi hunters

has come up with something even more compelling.

The veteran Nazi hunter, Tuviah Friedman,

has now produced a signed statement,

taken from a Treblinka survivor 39 years ago,

in which the witness said Ivan the Terrible had been killed

during a 1943 uprising by camp inmates.

To my great mazel,

we discovered 64 pages

written by Rosenberg, in Yiddish,

his native language,

describing how Rosenberg and few others

personally killed Ivan the Terrible

on the 2nd of August 1943.

Holocaust survivor Eliahu Rosenberg

testified in court that John Demjanjuk was, in fact,

Treblinka death camp guard Ivan the Terrible.

However, last week, defense attorneys discovered this 1945 statement,

in which they say Rosenberg claims

he saw another prisoner kill the guard, Ivan the Terrible,

during a prison uprising.

Demjanjuk's son-in-law, Ed Nishnic, showed me a copy of the statement,

which he claims was written by Rosenberg two years after the prison uprising.

Rosenberg allegedly says he saw a fellow inmate, Gustav,

give Ivan a hit on the head with a spade,

so that he stayed lying there forever.

I think that it's a very good chance that Mr. Rosenberg will be on this stand

by the end of the week.

I think Mr. Rosenberg needs to be asked some very pointed questions.

Since it was sure it's not a second Jesus Christ

that came out of his grave

to the state of Israel to be tried...

um, this is, uh, something that, uh, cannot be explained.

I can't imagine why Eliahu Rosenberg said what he said,

knowing what he knew that he had said in 1947,

that the true Ivan the Terrible was killed.

I was sorry for him.

I was sorry for the other survivors

who really believed in their heart of hearts it was Ivan the Terrible,

and I was sorry for Jews.

Mr. Rosenberg...

did you not, in fact, tell Tuviah Friedman...

in the first person, plural...

not that you had heard by hearsay,

but that in fact, "we," as a collective term...

had burst in and killed the sleeping Ivan?

Is that true, sir?