The murder trial of John Demjanjuk in Munich has been postponed because of the ill health of the 89-year old accused. Judge Ralph Alt said that Demjanjuk was not well enough to be moved and adjourned the trial until December 21st.  

Rob Fransman is one of the co-prosecutors in the Demjanjuk trial. He has been keeping a weblog about the trial for Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

This entry is about the second day of trial.
 
The status of the Dutch lawyers participating in the Demjanjuk case changed somewhere in preparing for this trial. First we were co-prosecutors, but now we are also prosecution witnesses.

We were subpoenaed to be present at the trial as witnesses. Our lawyers assured us that questioning by the court was a technical formality. Finally, what else could we say other than who we are and that our parents were killed in Sobibor? "A trifle," we were told. "Just sit in the witness stand, give your name and confirm your date of birth" - that was our job. Strangely enough I had a hunch how things would go.

I was right, it was different. Very different indeed.
 
The session began with a long speech by Demjanjuk's  lawyer, Ulrich Busch. Apparently, that's his strategy, to maximize his speaking time and steal the session. I understand that Busch is doing everything to defend his client. What I do not understand is why Busch is doing everything possible to provoke us: yesterday, by confusing victims and perpetrators, and today by calling the Shoah the second Holocaust.

In his view, the Nazi murder of the Russian prisoners of war was the first Holocaust. Of course, they were killed in large numbers. But comparing those killings - which were also awful - to the Holocaust is yet another provocation.
 
I asked my lawyer whether the goal might be to shock us and the judges. "It is a tactic," he explained, and called it a typical shock tactic. Busch is hoping to provoke us so that we now say something that he could use in his later defence. I would not know what that would be. The details are much too complicated, all that legal jargon eludes me. The bottom line is that we obviously don't know all the details of what happened at the camp. The defence hopes to use this. Perhaps Demnjanjuk only raked the paths in Sobibor.
 
When Mr Busch finally finished, something happened to me that will stick to me for the rest of my life. The court listed the names of all relatives of the co-prosecutors who were killed in Sobibor. With an almost emotionless, soft voice he read:
 
Isaac Fransman: born in Amsterdam July 23 1898, deceased 9 April 1943 in Sobibor; Rachel Fransman-Lochem - born in Amsterdam July 7 1900, April 9 1943 deceased in Sobibor.
 
I heard the names and I broke down. Literally. Look, I went here as a tough boss. "I can do it," I thought. "I can". Certainly, I have no regrets about signing in. But again, I broke. I thought I kept my emotions under control nicely. But the nurse brought me a glass of water. Apparently I was an open book to everyone in the courtroom, not just to him.
 
The Shoah is a concept with large numbers. Six million; three million victims in Auschwitz; two hundred thousand deaths in Sobibor. The numbers are endless. But in all these years however, the names of my father and mother were not mentioned in any courtroom. I've often said the Kaddish. That's what you do on quite a few occasions as a Jewish man. I've never specifically said it for my parents. Do not ask me why I never did. The way the judge read out the names this afternoon was a prayer. He said Kaddish for me. How ironic - a German judge in Munich.
 
Well, a glass of water does wonders. But the reading of the names was not the end of the day. It was the witnesses' turn. One by one. Four of us told our story. Who they were, how old they were at the end of the war, who had told them that their parents would come back, who had caught them, if more relatives were killed in Sobibor, if  any of them was family. Oh ...
 
The judge asked his questions in a very polite and gentle way and was very friendly. He also gave people ample time when emotions rose. And they will, the emotions. You will undoubtedly have read  the story about the letter that was thrown from the train. I will not tell it here, otherwise this blog too long.
 
The plan was that today more witnesses would take their turn. Unfortunately, the procedure is determined by the health of Demjanjuk who thought he had lain too long on one side. His doctor stated that it was enough for today. Tomorrow, the other witnesses speak. Me too. And I do not bloody break.