It looks like accused war criminal John Demjanjuk will be forced to face his alleged Nazi concentration camp past in what in all likelihood will be the last World War II Nazi war crimes trial of our lifetime.
German doctors have determined that Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial on charges that he was an accessory to murder at Sobibor, a Nazi death camp. Doctors state that the 89-year-old retired auto worker, recently deported from the United States, can stand trial so long as his time in court does not exceed two 90-minute sessions daily.
Prosecutors and Demjanjuk’s defense attorney, said the trial could begin by autumn.
A key witness against Demjanjuk recently stepped forward dealing a devastating blow to his claims of mistaken identity. Alexander Nagorny, a former concentration camp guard will testify that he not only worked with Demjanjuk in a camp but lived with him for a period of time.
Nagorny will be a key witness against the 89-year-old Demjanjuk. He will testify that he worked with Demjanjuk at a concentration camp in Flossenburg, Germany, and lived with him after the war in Landshut, a Bavarian city near Munich. While he does not put Demjanjuk at Sobibor, if believed it is a severe blow to Demjanjuk’s case as he has steadfastly claimed he is the victim of mistaken identity and was never a concentration camp guard. The fact that Nagorny lived with Demjanjuk makes his testimony uniquely powerful and unlike others in similar trials who claimed that they served with or only saw a particular guard in a camp. This type of testimony could often be discredited based on the combination of brief interactions, mistaken identity and passage of time. His testimony is also crucial because if believed it ties Demjanjuk to a specific concentration camp guard I.D number. That same number places Demjanjuk at Sobibor, the camp in which he is accused of committing war crimes.
Like Demjanjuk, Nagorny is old and very ill. If his health renders him unavailable to testify at trial, his testimony at a preliminary hearing will be admissible.
In a case of life imitating art, the new witness also rings eerily similar to the movie Music Box which is loosely based on the Demjanjuk saga. In that movie, the character, “Mike Laszlo” played by Armand Muller Stahl is accused of being the war criminal “Mishka” who murdered Jews as part of the Hungarian “Arrow Cross” death squads. Like Demjanjuk ,he claimed mistaken identity.
Now we have another piece coming into play. In Music Box, a witness, “Pal Horvath” came forward claiming he had served with Mishka and identified that person as Mike Laslow. He, like Nagorny was old and in failing health. It turned out however that he had previously given affidavits identifying two other individuals as Mishka. His testimony was discredited and ruled inadmissible. Michael Laslow went free.(it was a deportation hearing, not a criminal hearing). In the end it turned out that Laslow was in fact the war criminal Mishka.
Is Alexander Nagorny a real life “Pal Horvath“? Is John Demjanjuk a real life Mishka? It looks like we are going to find out.
Whatever tune comes out of this real life “Music Box”, it is a song that will never be played live again. It needs to be heard and recorded for history so no one ever forgets.
