Several months ago, I had a brief conversation with Judge Ralph Alt. “Doesn’t it get to you that the defendant has never looked at you?” I asked him. He just smiled and said the day would come Demjanjuk would have no choice but to look at him. On that day, he would not be allowed to hide behind his dark glasses and his baseball cap.

“Will this be the day he finally looks you in the eye?” I asked Judge Alt on the morning of 12 May. “Don’t you worry”, he replied. “Whatever happens, today I pass judgment.”

That was quite a relief. Demjanjuk’s lawyer Ulrich Busch had already spoken for 18 hours; five interminable days. Howver, it was over now; the defence rested its case. In a last attempt to delay the inevitable, Demjanjuk’s lawyer handed the Judge a thick sheaf of requests. They were all rejected at record speed.

Would the public prosecutor or the co-plaintiffs like to comment on this decision? Nobody. “The defence, maybe?” The whole court held its breath. Mr Busch had the right to speak for as long as he wanted, but he had had enough as well. The court could pass judgment.

Five years
I will never forget the moment the court handed down its verdict. Everbody stood: the judges, all the officers, the audience and we, the co-plaintiffs, side by side with our lawyers. Only Demjanjuk sat. Without his cap, without his sunglasses, without even the olive-green jacket he had also when in bed.

He looked at his judges for the first time. Judge Alt read out the verdict: "John Iwan Demjanjuk, this court finds you guilty on 16 counts of complicity in the murder of at least 28,060 people and therefore sentences you to a term of imprisonment of five years.”

We were allowed to sit down. Demjanjuk was allowed to return to his bed. The nurses gently helped him get in. In his motivation, Justice Alt emphasised the major role the co-plaintiffs had played by listing date by date the trains from the Westerbork transit to Sobibor; and the relatives we had lost there. And so it was that for the third time in 18 months I heard the following words:

“9 April 1943. There were 1,992 people on the train; 1,900 were no longer alive two hours after it arrived. The victims included the parents of co-plaintiff Robert Fransman.”

Damn! I thought that all that I’d heard during the more than 70 days of court proceedings had toughened me up, made me even a little cynical, but I cried just like my fellow co-plaintiffs.

Further detention unnecessary
Each and every argument ever presented by the defence was negated. Demjanjuk’s crimes deserved the maximum punishment of 15 years in jail, but the court took into account the years Demjanjuk had already spent in Israeli prisons. And after all, he is already 91 years old.

Eventually, Judge Alt concluded, two years on remand had been enough. Demjanjuk is a stateless citizen. He will be unable to leave Germany, the country he proclaims to hate. So there was no further reason to continue his imprisonment. Demjanjuk was free. Five minitus later, Ulrich Busch was triumphantly wheeling his client through the corridors of the court building. Demjanjuk was looking at the journalists. Gone were his dark glasses, gone his cap.

Call for justice
The decision to release him was a masterstroke. Demjajuk was found guilty, he was convicted. That is the main thing. It must be a major blow to the revisionist circles which have supported this criminal through thick and thin. How his punishment is put into effect is none of our concern. By convicting Demjanjuk, the court met our call for justice; by releasing him it showed the humaneness this society fortunately still posesses from time to time.

(gsh)