So then we were down to a one-eyed attorney, Nishic jokes in the humor of a pained man. In the citys tight-knit Ukrainian-American community, as footage in The Devil Next Door shows, he was by all accounts known as a churchgoing family man. Demjanjuk claimed hed never seen the picture and couldnt be sure whether or not it was him, and his lawyer called it a phony card sent to the U.S. from the KGB, meant to spread misinformation and drive a wedge between Ukrainians and Jews in the States. In 1993, Sobibor Death Camp guard, Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk under the fake name John Demjanjuk was acquitted on the charges that he was the notorious Gas chamber guard. Both U.S. Justice Department spokespeople and Israeli officials all but convicted him before he ever went to trial, they say. An article by Cleveland.com mentioned how Eddie Nishnic once stood up for the author when they were getting beaten up by other kids. Ill sit down with any Ph.D. in history and discuss the ins and outs of the Holocaust. According to his New York Times obituary, Demjanjuk was born on April 3, 1920 in the Ukrainian village of Dubovye Makharintsy. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Demjanjuk was convicted in May 2011 of . It was one of the hardest things for me to watch. Netflixs new docuseries The Devil Next Door, which premiered Monday, tackles these uncomfortable and unanswered questions, and attempts to shed light on the murky life and legacy of Demjanjuk. To. Lydia Demjanjuk was the oldest of the two daughters aged 37 when he was on trial in the 1980s. The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted Demjanjuk in 1993, and in 1998, he regained his U.S. citizenship. However, the Trawniki ID card helped sway judges in the prosecution's favour and in 1988 he was found guilty of crimes at Treblinka and sentenced to hang. Hidden away are dozens of boxes filled with more information about the Holocaust, the Russian Army, Treblinka and the man now suspected of being the real Ivan the Terrible, Ian Marchenko. Arti & Jamal Dropped Major Clues Theyre Still Together After 'Indian Matchmaking', Get Even More From Bustle Sign Up For The Newsletter. But it wasnt until he and the man he often refers to as Mr. I might be able to teach him a few things, Nishnic says confidently. she wondered. During the Israeli tRials, 12 survivors of Treblinka testified on a stage-turned-courtroom that John Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible. Six feet over his right shoulder is a dinosaur of a computer, a big heavy machine that holds in its memory the list of thousands of people who have donated to the John Demjanjuk Defense Fund. He believed in his wife and her love for her father. emerged potentially suggesting Demjanjuk was a guard at Holocast camp Sobibor in Berlin. And theyve become beggars, asking for money to cover the estimated $2 million they have spent on legal fees and travel costs to defend John Demjanjuk. You keep getting hit between the yes that you cannot understand how it happened. Prosecutors alleged Demjanjuk was the sadistic concentration camp butcher, who was known for slicing off the ears and noses of his prisoners with a sword, the Times also reported. He had been fighting the ruling in an appeals court at the time of his death. Over the years, Nishnic, 37, and John Jr., 27, have become experts on myriad subjects. Who can comprehend that? John asks. Whatever promise his father made, he kept. In 1952, they moved to Cleveland, where he worked as a Ford plant mechanic. Ivan "John" Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine, and drafted into the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War. The place is a magnet to him. Last June, Nisnic was so optimistic that the end of the ordeal was imminent that he ordered business cards for himself. Kate Storey is a Writer-at-Large for Esquire covering culture, politics, and style. I thought he was a genuine guy. After Demjanjuk died in 2012, Vera Demjanjuk was still saying that the Justice Department had done a dirty job, Cleveland.com reported. But, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. One child says his dad is a lawyer, another works at the Ford plant. Irene said she believed everything had been a lie from the beginning and he wasnt getting a fair trial. His Family Always Disputed That He Was Ivan the Terrible Getty John Demjanjuk leaves the court after his verdict on May 12, 2011 in Munich. Since 1986, Nishnic an d John Jr. have created central headquarters out of the shell that John Demjanjuk left behind. His citizenship was once again revoked, in 2002, and he was deported in 2009 to Germany, where he was charged with being an accessory to the murder of about 28,000 Jews at Sobibor. The ID card which identified John Demjanjuk as a death camp guard. By this point, Demjanjuks family claimed he was too old and sick to continue with the process, but doctors cleared him for trial. Digital Spy participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. Several former inmates of Sobibor gave evidence in the trial, but, as TIME reported, it was by then difficult to find living witnesses who could link him to specific deaths. But the following year, U.S. prosecutors reopened the case. Demjanjuk served in the Soviet army during World War II. In Germany, Demjanjuk stood trial on charges that hed aided the Nazis in killing Jews at the Sobibor death camp in 1943. The day Eddie was born was one of the toughest on both Ed and Irene Nishnic. Demjanjuk died in 2012 at the age of 91, while his final appeal against his conviction was still pending. Did this woman die because her genitals were cut? They did not have access to the unknown millions spent by the U.S. and Israeli governments trying to prove the former auto worker was Ivan the Terrible. When Holocaust survivors took the stand at Demjanjuks trial in Israel, they delivered vivid and horrifying accounts of their time at the death camps. Six years later, Eddies link to Dido comes from stories he has heard about his grandfather's power-tool prowess. Photo: They said evidence showed that a different man was Ivan the Terrible. Digital Spy is launching a newsletter sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox. He inherited the case when Demjanjuk returned to the country. Russia missile attack on Ukraine injures 34, damages homes, Far from Russia, a pro-Moscow sliver of land tries to cling to its identity and keep war at bay, Man who lost wife, son in Texas mass shooting tells story. In 2002, his citizenship was revoked again and, following years of Demjanjuk fighting against the charges, he was deported to Germany in 2009. By Abigail Kussow. His body lay splattered on the ground after he supposedly jumped from a 15th -story window. Other times he teases that he and John Jr. are the caped avengers from Gotham, Batman and Robin, fighting for the rights of every man and woman. The Demjanjuk case was the subject of a five-part documentary series, The Devil Next Door, that Netflix released last year. German prosecutors filed charges in 2009, based partially on an SS ID card. Only 16-year-old John Jr. was outside, sanding down his 1971 Ford Torino, when a tall, black-hared man walked up the drive. She was disillusioned by the media and believed most of the reports were biased, Toledo Blade reported in 2009. Experts say the man in the front row center was John Demjanjuk, who later became an Ohio autoworker. Magazines, Digital The documentary shows a small but clear headshot of Demjanjuk which set in motion the investigation against him in 1985. The documentary series shows that the evidence linking Demjanjuk to the savage prison guard included a Nazi identity card that prosecutors claimed was from an SS training camp, with a photo of a man who looked like a younger Demjanjuk. What were the survivors who testified to think? Sometimes his parents dont realize the effects until their son recounts a story from school. Kirschbaum is a special correspondent. He also recalled the media reports. Id sit down with any Jewish scholar. Survivors who testified as witnesses said the man they thought to be Ivan the Terrible would cut off Jewish prisoners body parts using a sword, stab women and children, and use a steel pipe to beat people while shepherding them to the gas chambers, the New York Times reported. In 1988, during one of his trials, Irene Nishnic, John Jr., and his wife Vera walked onto the stage and yelled at the prosecutors, telling them that they were all liars. His defence team also put in a request for a federal judge to posthumously restore his US citizenship, something that would have allowed his widow to receive his Social Security benefits. Rood Food's Fun Centers Around Wunderkin Netflix released a new docu-series titled "The Devil Next Door". Each has been in and out of Israel so many times their everyday language is spiced with Hebrew and Yiddish words. A few feet down that wall is a copying machine. Or was he a hard working family man and Ukrainian refugee who escaped the horrors of World War II to live the American dream, as his family proclaimed? Eli Rosenbaum was the acting Director of the United States Office of Special Investigations, which was primarily responsible for identifying and deporting Nazi war criminals. In the 1980s, John Demjanjuk was a retired auto worker living a quiet life with his family in a Cleveland suburb. By Chris Manning, How the constant flow of publication purchasing can be toxic - not only for your wellness regime, but for society at large. The Devil Next Door, which comes to Netflix on Nov. 4, attempts to explain the allegations that surrounded Demjanjuk for the latter part of his life. At his advanced age and poor health he could not survive another legal process, he wrote. "I can't trust nobody now," she lamented. All Rights Reserved. A US court rejected his appeal against deportation in 1985. In 1987, Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel, where he stood trial. 1. Note: contains descriptions of Nazi war crimes which some may find upsetting. 2023 BBC. What he remembers most from that conversation is John Demjanjuks saying that if the allegations were true the easiest thing to do would be to take a bottle of sleeping pills, will everyting over to the family, save the family shame and go to sleep forever. John Demjanjuk knew that the end result for a guilty man was death. He fought extradition - protesting that he was too ill to travel. Its not just a crime against one man. It must also be noted, as it was in The Devil Next Door, that he was positively identified by a number of survivors who were actually there and witnessed Ivan's actions. For years he has worked the phones, locating witnesses in his mission to prove that his father-in-law, his wifes father and his children's grandfather was not one of the most proficient mass murders of the century. That has been the goal from the start. Germany awaits a verdict in the trial against John Demjanjuk, accused of being an accomplice in the murder of thousands. By 1944, a cruel guard named "Ivan", sharing his distinct duties and extremely . Mary Lax is a Holocaust survivor who tried to raise money for John Demjanjuks defense. Even if JOhn Demjanjuk were Ivan the Terrible, Lax wanted him to be spared the death penalty and be foreced instead to talk about the atrocities of the Holocaust. Things got even weirder after John Demjanjuk's death. Read about our approach to external linking. Though Eitans daughter said that her father was depressed over losing his judgeship, Nishnic and John Jr. say he was optimistic about the case and talked positively about the future. John Demjanjuk leaves the court after his verdict on May 12, 2011 in Munich, southern Germany. "Clearly the documents established that Demjanjuk took part in the mass annihilation process," he said in the final episode of the documentary. Fast-forward seven years, and Netflix's The Devil Next Door has reignited widespread interest in the case of John Demjanjuk. He prefers to concentrate on the good times he shared with his big bear of a father. He and Vera had three children: John Jr., Irene, and Lydia, CBS reported. As depicted in The Devil Next Door, various pieces of conflicting evidence placed Demjanjuk at different concentration camps during the final years of the war. He is said to have run the gas chambers at the Treblinka extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, where an estimated 800,000 prisoners were put to death. Special correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem contributed to this report. CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty. Its that my wife didnt deserve this. The Niemann collection 361 pictures released to the public in Berlin on Tuesday will be transferred to the U.S. And when home, he was sensitive to his sons needs and wants. Digital Demjanjuk was released by Israel and he returned to Cleveland, where he avoided attention until 1999. What happened to John Demjanjuk? "Ivan the Terrible" gained international recognition following the 1986 John Demjanjuk case. And still the family is $160,000 in debt. Then, at Eitans funeral, someone tossed acid into the face of their other Israeli attorney Yoram Sheftel. "The Devil Next Door" premiered Monday on the streaming service, and it focuses mostly on Demjanjuk's trial in Israel in the 1980s one of the last major Nazi war . In November 2008, state prosecutors in Munich announced they had enough evidence to prove his involvement in the murders of Jews at Sobibor. Two years later he would marry Irene. With crimes that seem like something out of a nightmare, it's hard to think that the culprits might really be living next door. Demjanjuk settled in Cleveland, became a naturalized citizen in 1958 and worked at the Ford Motor plant until his retirement about 30 years later. Another key piece of evidence was an 1948 S.S. He even reserved space in a new office building for the head-hunting business he hoped to start. Nicholas Goldberg: Is God on the side of blasphemy laws? John Demjanjuk was born in 1920 in Ukraine. Sometime in 1936, Cleveland lost the largest book in the world. He had been suffering from a number of medical problems before his death, including a terminal bone marrow disease, anaemia and chronic kidney disease. There are no pictures of inmates or gas chambers. The death was ruled a suicide. The mans son also described his father as a victim and a survivor of Soviet and German brutality and called the charges in Germany a political farce in a 2012 opinion article authored for the Kyiv Post, a Ukrainian English language newspaper. One point they used was a 1985 FBI document that questioned the authenticity of a Nazi ID card. Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies. John Demjanjuk, an elderly former Ohio car worker who was born in Ukraine, was finally convicted of Nazi war crimes after decades of fighting attempts to bring him to justice. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? The last time John demjanjuk saw the basement was the day after Easter in 1985 when he was hauled away for a temporary stay in Springfield, Missouri, before heading to Israel. Its an important development because this is a piece of hard evidence, and there was not a lot of hard evidence at Demjanjuks trial, said Hajo Funke. I am innocent. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. When his. He dated Linda, an insurance executive who supports John Jr., for five years. "How can you? The pictures were part of a recently unearthed collection of private photos that once belonged to the deputy camp commander and show a young man resembling the Nazi identity card picture of Demjanjuk as he poses with other auxiliary guards at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied eastern Poland in early 1943. He just watched me on the rides. 05/11/2011. John Demjanjuk was in solitary confinement in Springfield, Missouri, awaiting extradition to Israel. We had a suspicion it was him and we were able to enlist the support of the state police. For six years and counting, the men have toiled in the Demjanjuk family basement, giving up social life and a semblance of anything most would consider a normal life. He was. The new series reexamines the evidence against retired Cleveland auto worker John Demjanjuk. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Why is this happening to you? He was held until 1993 when the KGB faxed over additional paperwork indicating that another man named Ivan Marchenko was Ivan the Terrible. As in Nazi war criminal. While living in Ohio, Demjanjuk was accused of being a Nazi guard known as Ivan the Terrible, who was notorious for his intense cruelty toward prisoners. Erik Kirschbaum is a special correspondent. Demjanjuk said he was born in April 1920, CBS reported, in central Ukraine. This represents a quantum leap forward as far as visual records of the Holocaust in occupied Poland are concerned, said Cueppers. The ID card had placed Demjanjuk at Sobibor, and the new trial investigated his role as an accessory to murder for the more than 27,000 killed there. Now armed with what they say is clear proof that certain individuals within the Justice Department knowingly withheld information that would have cleared John Demjanjuks name before it was ever sullied, they have no doubt that Big Brother has been listening in for years. Included in their evidence was an ID card showing that Demjanjuk was transferred from the Nazi training camp Trawniki to Sobibor in March 1943, according to TIMEs coverage of the trial. In 2019, Netflix released a new docu-series titled "The Devil Next Door" exploring the John Demjanjuk case, and in 2020, new evidence emerged potentially suggesting Demjanjuk was a guard at Holocast camp Sobibor in Berlin. We might not have a definitive answer as to whether or not in addition to other crimes he was Ivan the Terrible, but perhaps new information will come to light now that the world is watching once again. To his left is a fax machine, spitting out missives from Israel, Washington, D.C. and downtown Cleveland. When the shop at the West Side Market, they cannot maneuver through the throngs without someone yelling out their names and asking about the case. He added that camp documents and modern police biometric technology played a supporting role in reaching that conclusion. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Netflix's Devil Next Door Follows The Decades Long Hunt for Holocaust Killer Ivan the Terrible, Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux Open Up, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. They used modern investigation tools such as biometrics to conclude this is the same person as Demjanjuk.. This in no way should diminish what happened. He wanted to date her, not her dad. John Jr. was 11 years old, a sixth grader at Seven HIlls Elementary School, in 1976 when all the allegations began and strangers appeared at his house to talk to his father about a war that happened years and years earlier in some faraway land. An open blue sky, constraint what we know happened in there .. You see the rail cars that brought the Jews there. D were alone one day in 1984 or 1985 that Nishnic says he finally got the guts to ask his father-in-law: why you? Walking toward the tan-brick Seven Hills house an hour and a half late, the 25-year-old worried about the impression he would make on the family. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? Questions about John Demjanjuk an auto worker from Cleveland who was convicted of serving as a Nazi guard at a concentration camp during World War II captured headlines and worldwide attention for several years starting in the 1980s. John Demjanjuks Family & Children: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. The tow young men say the survivors did nothing more than repeat what they were told. Nichnic (sometimes spelled Nishnic) and Demjanjuks grandson appear on the Netflix series. Historican Martin Cueppers points at a man, presumably former security guard John Demjanjuk, at the Nazi death camp Sobibor during a news conference of newly discovered photos from the Sobibor . The Israeli Supreme Court struck down the earlier guilty conviction on grounds of reasonable doubt, pointing to the new evidence. Nishinc, an ever boisterous man with a quick smile and a quicker retort, greets a guest with, Welcome to the bunker! In the far corner of the long and narrow, dark, cave-like room, Ed Nishnic leans back in a chair, size-11 feet propped up on the desk, left hand gripping a phone receiver. He was a tractor driver for a collective farm and was captured during the battle of Kerch Peninsula in May 1942. They said they had obtained hundreds of documents and a number of prosecution witnesses. Netflix has docu-series on John Demjanjuk, the accused Nazi guard who lived in Northeast Ohio In Israel, he was convicted of being "Ivan the Terrible," a conviction that was later overturned by. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! And in the case of Ed Nishnic, father of 6 year-old Eddie Jr. and 3-year-old Olivia, he is a dad who has missed milestone moments in his childrens lives, including their first words and first footsteps, because he was off in another country searching out death camp witnesses and the man the world may now believe is the real Ivan the Terrible. You make a left out of the campe and head toward the town where hed go to drink.. Romas, those with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people and political opponents were also targeted and killed en masse. Ivan the Terrible, one of the most heinous criminals of the 20th century, who slashed off women's breasts with a 6-foot sword as they headed for death in Treblinkas gas chamber. The card showed that Mr Demjanjuk belonged to the Trawniki unit - an SS-trained section of non-German volunteers which was tasked with persecuting and murdering Jews. He argued that his links to Nazi activity. The pictures are also included in a new book, Photos From Sobibor, which was presented at Tuesdays news conference, held at the Topography of Terror, a museum on the site of the former Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. Nishnic sometimes describes their fight as the proverbial David versus Goliath story. Demjanjuk returned to the U.S., but was again deported in 2009 after Germany charged him in a new case as an accessory to murder of nearly 28,000 Jewish prisoners at Sobibor, another German extermination camp in occupied Poland, according to the Guardian. She spent two years as Hearst Digital Media's News Director, managing an international shared news desk. But back in America, decades later, an immigration judge ruled there was enough evidence to prove he had been a guard at other Nazi camps, and he was sent abroad for trial again in 2009. John Jr. tries to help. After the war, Demjanjuk lived in southern Germany, working as a driver for various international refugee organisations, according to Germany's Spiegel magazine. A 1943 image of camp guards at Sobibor in Nazi-occupied Poland. Then John jr., catching up his father on the cases progress in Ukrainian. They believed Mr Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible - one of the most infamous guards at Treblinka. The son of famed John Demjanjuk has dismissed the claim that newly emerged photos of the Sobibor death camp show his father performing duties as a guard. For so many years my life has been focused on Treblinka, what went on there. In August 1977, Demjanjuk was accused of having been a Trawniki man. Prosecutors had maintained that Demjanjuk was one of the Trawniki men Central and Eastern European collaborators recruited from Nazi-run camps for Soviet prisoners of war and served at the Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenburg camps. Irene Demjanjuk was married to Ed Nichnic, Toledo Blade reported in 2009. Its sort of a twisted feeling, Nishnic says as his speech slows and this usually gregarious man grows quiet and withdraws into himself. Ed Nishnic was on his way to pick up John Jr.s sister, Irene, for their first date. A year after he became a U.S. citizen again, the government restarted the process of denaturalizing him, over charges that hed served as a guard at other concentration camps. "It's all been lies from beginning to end," his daughter, Irene Nishnic, said through tears during his trial in Jerusalem in February 1988, per the L.A. Times. Ed kept trying to reassure his wife that the mistake would be learned and her daddy would not be taken away from her. He died in 2012 at the age of 91 in a nursing home in Germany, insisting that he was innocent. "He's slipping, Demjanjuks son-in-law Ed Nishnic told the Associated Press prior to his deportation. However, his similarities to the real-life Ivan the Terrible, the Grand Prince of Russia from 1553 to 1547, go beyond their shared moniker.Ivan the Terrible was rumored to have killed his eldest son, a truly unthinkable act, and Demjanjuk also took part in heinous murders during his time as a Nazi guard at the Sobibor concentration camp. These two men of Eastern European descent, John Jr. and Ed, who is third-generation Czech and Carpatho-Rus, learned the same as most junior- and high-school students about World War II and the Holocaust. ", The Subject Of Netflix's 'The Nurse' Denies Her Attempted Murder Convictions, This 'Indian Matchmaking' Clue Predicted Priya & Vim's Relationship. Instead, it was the suspicious death of one of their Israeli attorneys five days before the start of John Demjanjuks appeal. Rood Food's Fun Centers Around Wunderkin Editor's Note:This story, originally published in November 1992, is being republished as part of Cleveland Magazine's "Historic Read of the Week" series. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. You have the cabbie pull over and climb up inside them and try to feel how these people felt, locked inside with no water and holes in the ceiling., Nishnic begins to quiver and shake. Though no documents placed him at Treblinka, Sobibor was located near the camp in question and it was argued Demjanjuk could have been transferred over. Nishnic married into the family. However, Demjanjuks family, who had always claimed he was a Ukrainian prisoner of war, and that the accusations were simply a case of mistaken identity, had fought vigorously to prevent his deportation to Germany, defended him, and stood by his side until his death. As Nazi Germany committed crimes against humanity by killing a forgotten several million Soviet POWs by a tortuous starvation and diseased death, todays Germany intentionally chose such a surviving POW as a scapegoat.. John Demjanjuk, original name Ivan Demjanjuk, (born April 3, 1920, Makharintsy, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.died March 17, 2012, Bad Feilnbach, Germany), Ukrainian-born autoworker who was accused of being a Nazi camp guard during World War II. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. Read about our approach to external linking. Vera, too, has always maintained Demjanjuk's innocence and became very jaded during the decades-long legal battles. John R. and Vera Demjanjuks two daughters, Lydia, 43, and Irene, 33, have chose not to let the men in their family lead the fight to free their father. Feb. 9, 2021. Demjanjuk always claimed that he had been a Ukrainian prisoner of war in Germany and Poland, and after the war had settled in America with his family. He was convicted on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison; however, he died in a German nursing home in 2012, at the age of 91, while seeking an appeal. If a 2-ton book was around, somebody would know.. https://t.co/ToYL3r7Ex3, . What may happen to the survivors is theyll feel betrayed by the very people who set them up. Assuming the pictures reveal something real, as they appear, it just adds another layer of knowledge in the open account we have with anyone who commits horrors against other human beings.. Well just be happy to get him home and try to rebuild our lives, Nishnic says.