This three hour and 49 minute documentary series is a fascinating chronicle of Jon Demjanjuk, the Ukrainian Nazi extermination camp guard who later came to the US, became a naturalized US citizen and then was deported to Israel where he was convicted (and later acquitted) of being the notorious Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka extermination camp--only later to be deported to Germany where he stood trial for other crimes as a guard at another extermination camp.
The directors, Yossi Bloch and Daniel Sivan, manage to present both sides--which include Demjanjuk's family, his defense team along with the prosecutors -- in a balanced fashion. The central question the film attempts to answer: was Demjanjuk the notorious Treblinka guard, Ivan the Terrible.
The directors culled an extraordinary amount of TV footage from the original Israeli trial beginning in 1986. In it, Demjanjuk maintains that he was taken prisoner by the Germans after being conscripted into the Soviet Army and remained a prisoner until the end of the war. Substantial evidence proved that Demjanjuk was lying about his experience during the war. The main piece of evidence against him was an ID card with Demjanjuk's picture on it, listing his status at the Trawniki concentration camp in occupied Poland, a part training camp run by the SS who mainly trained Ukrainian prisoners of war who volunteered for duty as extermination camp guards.
Demjanjuk's team never contested that the picture on the ID card was not of him but maintained it was placed on the ID card which was a KGB forgery. It was rather convenient for the defense to argue that this document was a forgery simply because it came from an unreliable source (i.e. The KGB); but when new evidence emerged from KGB archives following the fall of the Soviet Union, they were quick to use that new evidence, to exonerate their client.
The directors could have done a bit of a better job presenting the mountain of evidence substantiating why the Trawniki ID card was legitimate. The ID card established that Demjanjuk was transferred to the Sobibor extermination camp and other camps after that. While on the stand however, Demjanjuk denied ever being a guard at Sobibor or Treblinka or any other camps. He was cross-examined as to why the ID card principally showed he was at Sobibor, along with earlier statements he made to American immigration investigators that he had been at Sobibor as well as naming a few obscure towns located near Treblinka.
Demjanjuk's family members (including his son-in-law Edward Nishnic) as well as residents of the Cleveland suburb where he came from, are steadfast in their belief that there was no way that a law-abiding, (in their eyes) docile man could have been the notorious Ivan the Terrible. Their convictions really mean little in light of someone like the notorious BTK killer, an American serial killer, who for many years was a well-respected church council president and Cub Scout leader.
Demjanjuk's comes off as arrogant especially when he boasts during the first trial that he's a "hero." Much more damning however is how surveillance footage taken before his deportation to Germany proved that he was faking being a cripple and needing to be in a wheelchair.
Just as those who knew Demjanjuk could not believe he could be guilty, neither did the judges in the first trial ever doubt the Treblinka victims' testimony absolutely identifying Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible. Two of the surviving judges to this day still are convinced of his guilt not only as the Sobibor camp guard but also as the notorious Ivan.
Perhaps the most fascinating character in the film is the Israeli Defense Attorney, Yoran Sheftel, who comes off as both hero and rogue. Committed to the idea that all defendants are entitled to a credible defense, it's through his persistence that Demjanjuk's appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court was successful. Sheftel almost was blinded by a fellow Israeli who regarded him as a traitor to Israel, defending the monstrous Ivan.
Nonetheless, Sheftel's arguments in defense of Demjanjuk only last as to the accusations against him as Ivan the Terrible. He really has no answer to other hard evidence placing Demanjuk at Sobibor and other death camps.
It wasn't until studying this case in further detail that I concluded that Demjanjuk was almost certainly NOT Ivan the Terrible. Nonetheless, given his subsequent deportation to Germany--approximately 20 years after the Israeli Supreme Court's decision--and having been found guilty as an accessory to murder by the German Court, one could argue that Demjanjuk got his just desserts. Because Demjanjuk died while the case was being appealed, technically his conviction was thrown out in Germany. Perhaps this is some consolation to Demjanjuk's family, but in the eyes of the public, he was clearly guilty, at least as having been a guard at more than one Nazi extermination camp.
The Devil Next Door is like a murder mystery with many twists and turns. If you love history, this is a series you should see as soon as possible.
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