One of the world's most wanted Nazi war criminals, John Demjanjuk, is awaiting trial in Stadeleheim prison near Munich after being extradited from the United States. He faces charges as an accessory to the murders of 29,000 Jewish prisoners during the Second World War.

The 89-year-old could be one of the last Nazi war criminals prosecuted in Germany. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, who gained US citizenship in 1952, was first identified as a Nazi war criminal in the 1970s. He was subsequently stripped of his US citizenship and convicted by an Israeli court for crimes against humanity committed at the Treblinka death camp.

His death sentence was later overturned after new evidence surfaced with the release of KGB files at the end of the Cold War. The files linked him not to Treblinka but to the Sobibor death camp.

Accomplice
Johannes Houwink ten Cate, professor at the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) in Amsterdam, helped prepare evidence for the new German case against Demjanjuk. Houwink ten Cate said the evidence demonstrates Demjanjuk was one of the 162 volunteer guards and SS commanders who perpetrated the mass murder at Sobibor.

"This group of 162 men in total were responsible for the entire killing process in Sobibor. As Demjanjuk is one of these 162, German authorities see him as an accomplice in the industrial killing of Jews, in particular because the volunteers working for the SS herded the Jews from the trains into the gas chambers."

Demjanjuk denies the charges, claiming he had been a German prisoner throughout the war and did not participate in the killing of prisoners. However, according to Houwink ten Cate, Demjanjuk's status as a POW is irrelevant to his defence. The trial is meant to determine only whether Demjanjuk worked at Sobibor and how many prisoners were killed during that time.

Houwink ten Cate feels a conviction is likely, based on Nazi-era documentation, including a personnel file with a photo ID.

"[Demjanjuk] had to sign a solemn declaration that he understood what he was doing and that he would obey the regulations of the SS. He became a paid person working for the German state...In my mind, there is not a shadow of a doubt that he was an accomplice to mass murder."

Seeking justice
Demjanjuk had fought his extradition from the US, claiming he is too ill to stand trial, but a US judge deemed him fit to stand trial after US agents secretly videotaped him walking without the wheelchair he used in court. While some German critics have argued against forcing an 89-year-old man to stand trial, Houwink ten Cate believes it is still important to bring Demjanjuk to justice.

"He is not a simple camp guard but a potential accomplice to mass murder. What is important is that there are relatives of those who were murdered in Sobibor and they want the trial. The reason we still have court cases like these is for respect for the victims and their relatives."