Sign of the Times
German trial of U.S. man for war crimes reveals European resistance to U.S. hegemony
An odd case of a man accused of war crimes has lately been in the media spotlight in Europe and the U.S.
John Demjanjuk, an 89 year-old former auto worker, is a U.S. citizen born in Ukraine. On May 12, he was deported from his home in Ohio in the U.S. to Germany, where he will be tried in Munich for his alleged involvement in the killing of at least 29,000 Jews during World War II as a Nazi soldier.
A frail Demjanjuk, strapped into a stretcher with oxygen tubes inserted in his nose, was transferred from a plane to a prison in Germany by ambulance.
Over half a century after the end of World War II has passed, and the prosecution of those suspected of having participated in Holocaust war crimes continues to take place. This, too, could be just another such case. But the situation seems to be more complicated than that. For one thing, this is the second time Demjanjuk is being tried as a war criminal.
In 1986, Demjanjuk was handed over to Israel, where he was tried and sentenced to death as "Ivan the Terrible," for taking part in the massacre of 870,000 Jews at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. Demjanjuk denied the charge, simply because he'd never been at Treblinka. Why, then, hadn't the accusations made against him been lifted immediately?
The only available means of proving the charges against Demjanjuk had been the testimony of Treblinka survivors. Over 10 survivors testified with confidence in a Jerusalem courtroom that Demjanjuk was indeed Ivan the Terrible. The problem was, by the time the victims provided their testimony to the court, Demjanjuk's photo had already been widely available to the public.
It was the end of the Cold War that saved Demjanjuk's life. With various official documents stored in Soviet archives now available for examination, it was revealed that the notorious Ivan the Terrible was in fact a different man, by the name of Ivan Marchenko. Israel overturned the death sentence, and in 1993 released Demjanjuk, who returned to Ohio.
There is something very odd about this story. Why did so many survivors from the Treblinka death camp mistakenly identify Demjanjuk as the notorious Ivan the Terrible? Comparing photographs of the two men that have been made public, one finds few similarities aside from their thinning hair. Still, it is unlikely that it was a conspiracy to frame an ordinary former soldier. There is only one explanation, then: the testimonies of survivors are unreliable.
In his book, "Why Life Speeds Up with Age," Douwe Draaisma, a Dutch expert on the history of psychology, covers this topic in great depth. Citing the writings of Bruno Bettelheim, a psychologist and survivor of Nazi concentration camps, Draaisma suggests that the memory of people in extreme situations suffers drastically as a result of the sense of futility they experience. What use is memory to people, if they are not going to make it out of a situation alive?
Extreme conditions distort and destroy a human being's cognitive ability and memory. Draaisma points to the example of one Treblinka survivor, whose testimony in the Demjanjuk trial became fraught with inconsistencies as time went on. Yet, there exists no standard by which to determine which testimony is correct.
Surely, the wrongful conviction of John Demjanjuk is perfect material for Holocaust deniers to strengthen their argument. But what we should actually be able to see from this evidence of the fallibility of human memory is the destructive psychological effect of the Holocaust.
At any rate, how should we feel towards an aging Ukrainian man who, a quarter of a century after his conviction for war crimes he did not commit, is now again accused of another similar crime?
Instead of chasing around a Slavic former prisoner of war, is it not more important to prosecute more influential surviving Nazi members who have not yet paid for their crimes? This is true. But the argument that "there were others who did worse things" is not a very effective line of defense.
American political commentator Pat Buchanan closes an essay in which he criticizes the prosecution of Demjanjuk with the following words: "The spirit behind this un-American persecution has never been that of justice tempered by mercy. It is the same satanic brew of hate and revenge that drove another innocent Man up Calvary that first Good Friday 2,000 years ago."
What becomes clear from the Demjanjuk case are the memories and emotions surrounding the Holocaust today. Whether he is guilty or not, heaven only knows. But what I cannot help but see in Demjanjuk's most recent extradition is Europe's deep-seated resistance towards "the Empire," or the U.S. It is the resistance of memory against emotion, and of history against the present day. Let us pay close attention to the final judgment. (By Tamaki Saito, psychiatrist)
(Mainichi Japan) June 7, 2009