Holocaust survivor Rob Fransman has been attending the war crimes trial of former Ukrainian and alleged Nazi henchman Ivan Demjanjuk, or 'Ivan the Bedridden’ as Mr Fransman calls him in his blog.

Over recent weeks Mr Fransman, a Dutch national, has spent a lot of time travelling between the Netherlands and Munich, Germany, to take part in the legal proceedings. His mood has been swinging from anger and annoyance to highly emotional. He couldn’t care less about the eventual sentence, just as long as Demjanjuk is found guilty.

Faking it
At the start of each session, the 89-year-old accused is stretchered into the court due to his 'ill health'. However, Mr Fransman is convinced Ivan Demjanjuk is faking it - he just lies there without moving a muscle and never reacts to what is being said in court.
 

Mr Fransman says that during the sessions Ivan Demjanjuk pretends to be severely ill, but afterwards his condition improves considerably. He will talk to his lawyer and reportedly takes walks in the hospital where he is being held.
 

"He [Demjanjuk] made some noises the first time, but that was also the last time: 'Oy, Oy, Oy'. These are the only worlds I have ever heard him say. Apparently that's an expression of the pain he was experiencing. On that first day, he sat up on his chair, and that was also the only time I have seen him sitting up. He's lain motionless on his stretcher on every single occasion since. He's just an object. It makes no difference whether he is there or not. German law stipulates he should be present, but with the exception of his doctors and nurses, nobody pays any attention to him. He is simply there."

Accomplice to murder of 30,000
Ivan Demjanjuk stands accused of being a guard at Sobibor concentration camp during World War II. He was allegedly an accomplice to the murders of about 30,000 Dutch Jews.
 

Rob Fransman, whose parents were killed in Sobibor in 1944, is one of 20 Dutch 'co-prosecutors' in the Demjanjuk trial. German law allows interested parties to join in certain judicial procdures in this way and, in this case, any person whose relatives were killed in Sobibor is allowed to register as a co-prosecutor.
 

Rob Fransman describes the shock he felt when the names of his parents were read out in court:
 

"Quite unexpectedly, the judge read out the names of the murdered relatives of the co-prosecutors. We hadn't expected that would happen. So, when I heard the names of my parents, that was really emotional. Suddenly, I heard the names Rachel Fransman van Lochem and Isaac Fransman being read out in a very dignified manner by a German judge in a German court. It was the most emotional moment of the entire trial so far."

Victims and murderers
Mr Fransman realised that his parents were never officially named as victims of World War II. They disappeared in the gas chambers of Sobibor and were never given a final resting place. He was just five years old when the war ended, but he is convinced Mr Demjanjuk was a guard at Sobibor. He says there is plenty of evidence and Mr Demjanjuk’s lawyers are not even denying it anymore. Those same lawyers, however, argue that it cannot be proved that the accused actually killed people in Sobibor. To Mr Fransman that’s just nonsense.
 

"There were only two kinds of people in Sobibor: victims and murderers. It was a killing factory and everybody was taking part. There were no cooks, gardeners or stable hands. There were people doing these jobs, but they were freed from all other duties when a transport [of human beings, ed.] needed to be killed and they had to take part. They wouldn’t have had enough people otherwise. So everybody took part, if you were there you were either a killer or being killed."

Life sentence
Mr Demjanjuk’s lawyers have repeatedly pointed out that in earlier trials concentration camp guards received far lighter sentences than the life sentence that their client could face now. To Mr Fransman the length of the sentence is not all that important, just as long as Ivan Demjanjuk is convicted.
 

“Ivan Demjanjuk has the bad luck of being a symbol. The case has become a matter of prestige to the German authorities, so he will probably be convicted. It will make no difference to the man. I hope he will be convicted, but the sentence does not interest me at all.”
 

The case is expected to last until early May. The court should present its ruling a few weeks later.