Chaotic opening to Demjanjuk trial

In what is probably the last great Holocaust trial to be held in Germany, John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Sobibor Nazi death camp in Poland, stands accused of having been an accomplice in the murder of 27,900 people in 1943. His trial opened on 30th November in a Munich court that was “badly prepared and overtaken by events,” reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung. For example, the newspaper criticises a court sign reading ‘Demjanjuk meeting area’ for its “lack of historical sensitivity. There was great injustice even in the size of the courtroom chosen for the trial [only 147 seats for several hundred observers],” the Munich daily writes. In its comment pages, the SZ argues that the trial against this ‘subordinate’ should still go ahead, even if some of Demjanjuk’s superiors were cleared or have not appeared before German courts.