The Devil Next Door (2019): Season 1, Episode 4 - Facing the Hangman - full transcript

John Demjanjuk was deported
from the United States

after he was accused of being
the sadistic Nazi guard

known as Ivan the Terrible.

Today he begins testifying
in his own defense.

You'll recall the emotional testimony

of both Pinchas Epstein
and Eliahu Rosenberg,

the two Treblinka prisoners

who pointed their finger at Demjanjuk
earlier in the trial

and positively identified him
as Ivan the Terrible.

I hope to hear him.

The lies.



Rosenberg says he wants to hear
what he calls Demjanjuk's lies

directly from the lips of the man
he says is the demon of Treblinka.

Please state your name.

Honorable court,

my name is John Demjanjuk.

It's important you remember,

when you answer
the questions of the court,

you must tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth.

Yes.

Your Honors, it was very painful for me

to sit here and hear the terrible tragedy

that befell the Jewish people
because of Nazism.

It's a very, very sad tragedy,



and I hope
that they have all reached Heaven.

But that butcher was not I,
Ivan Demjanjuk.

And I have no doubt in my heart.

My heart is pure.

I am innocent.

Demjanjuk chose
the best defense that one can choose.

His defense is, "I was not here,
not here, not here."

I was a POW."

How can you find any...
How can you break such an alibi?

I was a victim of the war.

So why would you put me on trial?

One
of the best investigations of Demjanjuk

was the very first one...

that was done by simple...

investigators of the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.

They knock on the door...

and they come into his living room,
and they sit with him.

And then they take an interview with him
of what he did during the war.

Investigator Rusak asked you:

"Have you ever been to the towns..."

Kosov or Miedzyrtztk-Kodalsky?

And your answer...

"You are pushing me to Treblinka."

How would you know
about a small, little town

that's very near to Treblinka?

A town of no significance whatsoever.

How would you know?

Why was your answer

that you were being pushed
towards Treblinka?

If there was a question
regarding it, I always said

I was never in Treblinka.

I don't remember saying Treblinka.
At that time, I was in Chelm.

I don't believe him.
I don't believe him.

By the time he got to Jerusalem,

he had learned the movement of Ukrainians,

what happened with them.

He knew from his own experience
what happened.

Demjanjuk slowly learned
his alibi and what he should say.

You were accused that, in 1942,

you were in the extermination camp
in Treblinka.

You say that you were not there.

They keep accusing me
of being at Treblinka.

My heart goes out for your people.

Never in my life was I at Treblinka

or at Sobibor, nor at Trawniki.

The amazing fact,

when Demjanjuk wanted to immigrate
to the United States,

and he had to fill out
the visa application,

there was a place where he had to describe
what did he do during the wartime.

And he wrote there,
with his own handwriting,

that he was at a place in Poland
called Sobibor.

Now, this is a fingerprint

that the criminal leaves
in the scene of crime.

I mean, there were five camps

that the German government set up

solely to exterminate human beings, Jews.

And Sobibor was one of them.

Human beings were transformed

from flesh and bone to...

ash...

within hours of their arrival.

It was a death factory.

So, when one sees that US visa application

and sees that word, "Sobibor,"

a chill goes up the spine.

Isn't it a very strange coincidence

that in the Trawniki card

that you claim you never saw...

is written "Sobibor"?

And also on your US immigration form,
it's written "Sobibor."

Do you think
I would have given that name

if I had been in Sobibor?

I would never do such a thing!

Demjanjuk gave
these versions of his alibi defense,

which changed every time he told it,
pretty much.

I said I've been to Sobibor,

and that's where I worked on a farm.

This breaks, of course,

his alibi...

into pieces.

And it puts him, first of all,

in this scheme

of, uh, of the extermination of the Jews.

I keep getting into trouble

because I didn't pay attention
remembering my past.

I didn't know
it would get me into trouble.

As far
as I'm concerned, he would not testify.

He's a... a very simple,

unsophisticated person,

and he can easily put in trouble
by any...

um...

you know, high quality prosecutor.

Uh, and it was out of the question
that the court will believe him.

I mean, we'll prefer his testimony
to the survivors'?

I mean, it's a joke.

We were put into stables.

We were called to the doctor
for examination,

and there, our blood was typed.

I don't understand your previous sentence.

What do you mean,
you had your blood groups typed?

The SS tattoo was a blood type tattoo

that was used by the SS.

He admitted
that he had placed the SS tattoo...

under his armpit.

There was really no way
we would have known that...

had he not volunteered that.

As I said before,
blood was taken from the finger.

After the blood was typed,

it was tattooed on the arm.

Not all SS criminals had it.

And this is, really, the special unit
of the Totenkopf of the SS.

They were the only one
who had such a tattoo under their armpit.

Nobody forced him to do it.

It was voluntary.

He went out of his way,

in one way or another,

to belong to this... uh...

to this unit.

When did you take the tattoo off?

I began removing it when I found out

the SS division had the same tattoo.

All of these elements combined
create a definitive image.

The accused claims: "I was elsewhere."

We say to him,
"You're not telling the truth."

You were at Treblinka.

I wish to say one thing only.

I am not the gas chamber operator
of Treblinka

who persecuted your innocent people.

I am not the man
the prisoners called "Ivan the Terrible."

Please don't commit this vicious act

and put the noose around my neck

for somebody else's crimes.

On April 18th, it will be the real thing:

the culmination of a year's worth
of tales of torture and death.

The three judges
will now review the evidence

and reach their final verdict,

exonerating John Demjanjuk of the crimes
committed by Ivan the Terrible

or finding him guilty
of the brutal murder of 870,000 Jews.

I just know one thing,
one way or the another one,

I'm a hero. That's all.

- A hero?
- That's right.

- Even if you don't... If...
- Even if they hang me, I am a hero,

because nobody have a court
like so many... so many year like I am.

Even no big Nazi.

And I am not Nazi.

I'm Ukrainian.

- Even if they'll hang you?
- I'm full Ukrainian.

Even if they'll hang you, you're a hero?

Yeah.

As many people here in Jerusalem

who have been following
this case can relate,

it's almost like it's, up until this day,

a soap opera unfolding.

The tales have been so horrendous,

it's been absolutely difficult
to comprehend.

Today, it's time for the verdict.

The family were...
was full of hope... natural.

I told them that I hope
the court will come to its senses.

And will not convict your father

based on such a flawed evidence.

This is how
Demjanjuk, still officially a defendant,

arrived today at the courtroom
in Jerusalem.

Crying and complaining
about severe back pain,

carried by four police officers
into the courtroom.

The end.

It was a very difficult decision.

We were not adjudicating the Nazis
or the horrors.

We were deliberating whether
this man committed those crimes.

If it was a mistaken identity,
then he didn't commit those crimes.

We'd be committing a terrible crime
by killing an innocent man.

I'm opposed to the death penalty.
I was conflicted about it.

If there were doubts,
then he shouldn't be sentenced.

But this was a man who, in all likelihood,
committed these crimes,

and he could be sent home?

It's cruel, but it is the law.

I had sleepless nights.

The responsibility was there.

This is a living person.

He might die.

And yet,
you are preoccupied with what you do,

and you don't hear
all these noises around you.

All rise!

Good morning. Please be seated.

Criminal case 373/86,

State of Israel v. Ivan John Demjanjuk.

The verdict.

Before us is a horrible
and shocking indictment.

Its words are burning,
and its story is raising terror.

It is the terrible and bitter truth
that we are asked to uncover

in order to determine whether the accused

took part in these crimes.

The conflicting arguments
that are present in our case

require a swift and determined answer

that will not leave place
to reasonable doubt.

Written evidence, papers, documents,

are not enough to reach
a definitive conclusion in this case.

For that reason,

we're required to use the testimonies
of the remnants of the fire,

survivors who have seen the perpetrators
in the death factory of Treblinka.

But, it should be said,
it is important to listen to their words

and analyze their credibility.

If their testimony is not influenced
by wishes of the heart,

failed memory,
or an innocent mistake of identity.

One may ask: Is it possible to remember

and portray accurately
what had happened so long ago?

Forty-five years ago and more?

One may ask: "How can one forget?"

How can someone
surviving the death fields,

the daily killings and humiliation,
the abuse...

How can they forget?

According to the said above,

we convict the accused
with crimes against the Jewish people,

according to Israeli law 1A1:
Nazi and collaborators crimes law, 1950.

Crimes against humanity,
according to law 1A2.

War Crimes, according to law 1A3.

And crimes against prosecuted people...

My learned colleague, Judge Tal,
will read out the sentence.

Sentence:

What punishment should be imposed
on Ivan the Terrible?

Who, with his very own hands,
killed tens of thousands.

Humiliated, degraded, victimized,
and brutalized,

and persecuted
innocent human beings zealously.

Therefore...

it is for this reason that we sentence him
for the aforementioned crimes.

The punishment of death as stipulated

in Section 1 of the Nazi
and Nazi collaborators law.

Order in the court!

Order in the court!

"Demjanjuk's trial
ended February 18th, 1988,

nearly a year to the day after it began."

It's judicial murder!

"The panel sentenced Demjanjuk to hang."

'Death, death, death, '
chanted a group of teenage boys

in the back of the hall.

All the noises were magnified
by the theater's perfect acoustics.

Chanting, singing, clapping,
shouting comments.

"Ivan's sighs..."

He is a beast!

He's not a human being!

"In the final hour,
John Demjanjuk Jr. stormed"

from the auditorium

as the lawyers bickered
and accused each other of playing games.

"'Son of a bitch, ' he muttered to Shaked."

It amounts to nothing less

than an ordered judicial murder

of an innocent man.

"In chambers, Judge Dalia Dorner cried."

It's hard to imagine
how, if I'd been on my own,

I would've carried this on my shoulders.

Fundamentally, we couldn't envision

any other punishment
that could express the horror.

At the time,
reading the verdict out loud,

I didn't know what was happening
around me.

You're focused on reading the text,
and you don't see what's around you.

You don't know.

I would see
his son go up to him, or his daughter.

I would see a... a loving hug.

You know,
the terrible Ivan John Grozny Demjanjuk

from Treblinka

was reduced to a loving father

and husband,

and so, in some way,
that affection, uh, spoke to us.

But I have to be honest
that I felt inside myself, um...

some joy over the fact

that revenge and justice was about...

was about to happen.

When John Demjanjuk returned
to his jail cell late last night,

I'm told he was smiling

and saying he felt optimistic
about his future.

How's Mr. Demjanjuk today?

It's hard when he sees his daughter
so far away from home,

but he's holding his own.
Everything's going fine.

What is his mental
and physical condition now?

He's an old man.

He's... He's totally devastated
by this whole thing.

He's been accused and convicted

of being the most horrible monster
of this century.

He goes to sleep every night
and wakes up every morning

with a rope hanging over his head.

I just remember the stress
and them talking about it.

We were looking at the fact
that he... we may never see him again,

and they're gonna, you know,
put him to death in Israel.

It was nice, at one point in time,

when we had that bond,
that unity as a family,

but you know, after he went,

everything kinda just fell apart,
you know?

Like, he was the cement
keeping things together.

Next for John Demjanjuk
comes what could be a lengthy appeal.

But according
to the Justice Department people here

who have predicted with great accuracy
the outcome of the trial so far,

John Demjanjuk will most likely lose
his appeal

and will most likely
be put to death by hanging

sometime in the winter of this year.

I told Demjanjuk, I told the family,

"I'm staying in the case,
and we will fight it to the end."

I'm, uh, ready with full force

"to go for the appeal."

Off Flight 483 came dozens of passengers.

One, John Demjanjuk's son-in-law,
Ed Nishnic.

Nishnic says the appeal
will contain new evidence.

We have, uh, right now, detectives out
interviewing, uh, Treblinka survivors

that have, uh, made it through the camp.

There's about 77 of 'em,

and it's shocking that not one survivor
outside of the state of Israel

has identified Mr. Demjanjuk.

During the period of the appeal

which followed the conviction
for Demjanjuk,

I think Sheftel really wanted to try
to rehabilitate himself if he could.

He humiliated himself.

He lost the case,

and his credibility went
from zero to subzero.

But he somehow persuaded Dov Eitan,

a former judge, to come on board
as a defense lawyer

working for Demjanjuk's
overturning of his conviction

during the appeal process.

Sheftel met Dov Eitan
in the American Colony Hotel.

It's the place where Sheftel
used to stay during the trial.

He heard Dov Eitan saying that...
That he noticed

that there are few things
that are not right going on in the trial.

Dov Eitan
was a retired district court judge,

and he said to me,

right in the beginning,
"Listen, I watched the case a lot,

and I cannot believe my eyes."

And quite quickly,

he was on board.

I was Dov's friend.

A very shy man...

very modest.

He was a true gentleman.

Sheftel's complete opposite,

and Sheffi managed

to convince him he had a strong case.

He announced he's joining the team,

that he's going to be
one of the two defense lawyers.

Now, he was married,
and he had two daughters.

I never had an idea, never had a clue

that he was a homosexual as well.

Dov Eitan had, uh, not an easy life
in the '80s in Israel.

He was a bisexual.

His wife knew that, and...

she really loved him and...
And accepted that.

And she told me that...

at the beginning,

Dov Eitan really wanted to take part...

um, in this case.

But as the time passed,
it got harder and harder.

We had a lot of telephone threats
all the time. All the time.

Threats on my life

on my husband's life,
on my children's life.

He... He understood that he got
into something

that, uh, it would be hard for him
to get out of it.

S-Someone sent a... a bullet
to their house.

And, uh, all this...

uh, threats of exposing his sexual life
and private details, and...

everything that, uh...

got him to...

to do what... what he did.

Five days before the appeal,

someone wakes me up in the morning,

and tell me that Dov Eitan
committed suicide just now.

Uh, jumping from the highest building
in Jerusalem down.

The lawyer
Dov Eitan, a former court district judge,

committed suicide today,

jumping from the 15th floor
of the City Tower in central Jerusalem.

Dov Eitan was supposed
to represent John Ivan Demjanjuk,

in his appeal to the Supreme Court
next week.

The police rule out the possibility
of someone causing his death.

I was shocked completely.

Because two, three days before,
we were together

at Demjanjuk's cell.

And he was really looking forward,
they were thriving...

uh, for arguing the case.

No sign, nothing.

I mean, I didn't see anything

that can suggest that... that...

something like this can happen.

When we heard the news,
it's hard to imagine...

that someone could be under
so much pressure from blackmail

that he would jump off
a 30-story building.

It seems... I don't know.

Uh, I can't explain it.

Mirian told me that
in the morning of the suicide,

uh, he got a call.

She said that...
That she almost couldn't recognize him

after the... the conversation. I mean...

he... he was really pale, and, um, I mean,
he just...

um, took his bag and... and left.

And then a few hours after that,

he... he jumped.

He died five days
before the appeal was to begin.

The Israeli authorities say
he died from a suicide.

- I don't believe that for one second.
- What do you think happened?

I think somebody didn't want Mr. Eitan
to stand up against his peers.

I don't know who,
I don't even want to begin to think who.

I think Mr. Eitan was pushed out a window.

Sheffi doesn't really like thinking

about complex things.

And here, there were many facets,

one Pandora's box after another.

I don't know.

Maybe it even scares him, I don't know.

With all the tragedy,

I put a motion to the court

to postpone the case.

If the case going to start
within five days' time,

I'm... I'm not there.

No, que... I'm not arguing.
Again, I'm not coming.

You can decide what... I'm not coming.

Now, Dov Eitan was also
a very well-known figure,

so there came hundreds of people
to his funeral.

I went there alone.

And suddenly, I hear someone shouting,

and within seconds,

acid thrown to my eyes.

I just saw Sheftel

and threw it at him.
He started screaming like a pig.

Someone jumped on me

and said, "Wash your face! Wash your face!
Wash your face!"

I didn't want to kill him.

I wanted to scar him.

I wanted every Jew to know
that, living amongst them,

was a Nazi collaborator
who would sell his mother for money.

Yisrael Yehezkeli was in court every day.

He applauded the verdict,
along with everybody else,

but for him, it wasn't enough.

I said to myself,
"How much longer have I got to live?

I will take my revenge
and honor my parents."

His family died in Treblinka.

Yisrael Yehezkeli served
two years in prison.

He was also ordered to pay his victim
£10,000 compensation,

but Sheftel has received no money.

Five percent sight left.

I cannot see.

I almost got blind.

Like this was from getting blind.

Trying to determine
where the family goes

from here is the main issue right now.

We're gonna try to find
another attorney.

I don't know how we're gonna pay for it.

I mean,
our doors are about shut right now.

We almost couldn't go forward
with this trial,

and actually, we really can't, but,

you know, an innocent man's life
is at stake here.

Demjanjuk phoned me from the cell.

He got a permission.

I asked, "What's happening with you?
What's going on?"

Because the family was in total shock

because the defense team,
one after the other, is gone.

Demjanjuk also said,

kind of understandably, he said,

"Farewell, uh, you know.
Thank you for what you've done and...

but I understand
that, uh, you're not going on."

I said, "No, I'm going on, I'm going on."

If next spring the appeal fails,
that that's the decision

and he...
And his sentence to death is upheld,

will you... can... will you and can you
even appeal that sentence?

No. Uh, the Supreme Court of Israel
is the final stage.

When I found out that the verdict
was going to be followed

by a sentence of death,

and it was going to be death
by hanging,

I had no doubt that they would do it.

It said that Demjanjuk's cell,
where he was kept,

was within earshot

of the gallows being constructed
for his own execution.

That was the sickest feeling
I've ever had.

They had a special building crew come in

and build the gallows

while we sat in the cell talkin' to Mr. D.

And it's hard to adjust
when you've been going 100 miles an hour,

full tilt, 24-7,

as I did in this case, and, uh...

I feel like we bought him time,
but that's all.

And as for the accused,
John Demjanjuk,

he sits tonight
in his constantly lit jail cell

about 37 miles east of Jerusalem,

awaiting his fate.

It's late at night in Berlin,
300,000 people here.

They don't give one hoot about the fact
that it's about 27 degrees outside,

and you're looking directly
into East Berlin,

where the Brandenburg Gate Plaza is.
That's the Berlin Wall.

Hundreds, if not thousands,
of people on top of it right now...

In 1989,

I think it was November 9th,

in a space of human gridlock,

hundreds of thousands of people trying
to break our way up

to the Brandenburg Gate,

where people were starting
to stream through already.

Unbeknownst to me at the time...

it signaled the downfall of communism
in Soviet Russia.

In the last weeks and months,

we've seen one Communist party
after the other in Eastern Europe

knocked off its perch by the people.

The Soviet Union disbanded.

Russia opened up the files of the KGB.

In the files of the KGB,

there were thousands
and thousand pages of testimony

about some of these German death camps
in Poland.

And among those thousands of pages

were several dozen ironclad,

take-it-to-the-bank,
positive identifications

saying that John Demjanjuk
could not have been Ivan the Terrible.

I thought the big story of my life
was to be present

when the Berlin Wall fell.

This eclipsed it
by a wide, wide, wide margin.

It was clear that in order
to get to the bottom of this case,

you must have the entire evidence

concern Treblinka and Ivan the Terrible

which was in the Soviet Union,

and only this can clear Demjanjuk.

So, we arrived in Moscow

in the first week of September 1990.

It's obvious,

from the very first second
that I stepped on the cursed Soviet soil,

that it's collapsing.

Johnny and Nishnic and myself,

we go into the district court,

we ask, "Where is, uh, the judge?"

And we were told second floor,
something like this.

And we see a nice, uh, young lady,

and behind her, a huge picture
of a photograph of John Lennon,

no other.

I said to myself, uh,
"This place is falling apart."

Anyway, uh,
we ask if we can, uh, see the judge,

and the judge says,
"Listen, this was a case of the KGB."

They cannot give the material
to be photocopied

without permit from the headquarters
of the KGB in Ukraine,

"which is Kiev."

Like, uh, in the films and the stories,

we are brought downstairs,

and the KGB man asked, "What do you want?"

And we explained, and he affirmed this.

He says, "Yes",

there were a dozen statement
about the operator of the gas chambers."

And I promised him, in Yiddish,
a kleyn matone,

"a little present."

And he said that he will get us
the material by hook or by crook.

The time passes... and nothing happened.

And he says he's trying, he's pushing,
he's going and doing, blah, blah.

No results.

With all this,

we are flying back to Israel.

I contemplated that... uh...

it's a dead end.

Only this evidence

can clear Demjanjuk,

and it was hundred percent obvious
that it's not gonna happen.

The hearing on the appeal
of John Demjanjuk

will take place
in this courtroom next week.

For the time being,
he remains a convicted war criminal,

and he awaits the hangman.

And then...

as my Yiddish mame always says,

the mazel starts to speak.

Uh, the good luck.

Less than one week before the deadline,

I received a fax
from the headquarters of the KGB

with seven extracts

from the statements
of the Wachmanns of Treblinka,

clearly stating Demjanjuk,
that he's not Ivan the Terrible,

and who is Ivan the Terrible.

Ivan Marchenko.