(21 Dec 2009)
1. Various of John Demjanjuk, defendant, being wheeled towards courtroom in wheelchair
2. Media interviewing Professor Cornelius Nestler
3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Professor Cornelius Nestler, Cologne attorney for some of co-plaintiffs:
"I'm representing the victims, the so-called co-plaintiffs, and they will give testimony about what happened to them when they were children and their parents had to give them away on to the underground in The Netherlands and how they survived."
4. People entering courtroom
5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Paul Hellmann, co-plaintiff:
"Well you really hope, against all hope, that Mr Demjanjuk will actually tell what happened and that that will make clear to the world, we all have a sort of picture of what happened there, but the real facts should be also told by him and what was his role. And you hope also that he would say something like 'I am sorry' for once, you know. Not many people have ever done that."
6. German policemen outside courtroom
7. Pan of Robert Cohen, co-plaintiff, walking to courtroom
8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Robert Cohen, co-plaintiff:
"Well I hope that the process, which is going on today will be a result that the man, Demjanjuk, will be punished as heavy as possible because he has done a lot of bad things. He worked at Sobibor and he has killed one-thousand people a day. He has given his assistance to do that, you see. And he has done this job during months and months and months."
9. View of people inside courtroom
10. Close-up policeman's belt with baton and handcuffs
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rob Wurms, co-plaintiff:
"I expect that he will sit or lay down and close his eyes and be, mentally, as far away as possible from the process."
12. Policeman leaving courtroom
STORYLINE:
Relatives of victims killed at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp have given sometimes emotional accounts of their losses at the war crimes trial of John Demjanjuk in Munich on Monday.
Several dozen relatives have joined as co-plaintiffs in the trial of Demjanjuk, a retired US car worker who is charged as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews for his alleged activities as a guard at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Demjanjuk, 89, wearing a blue baseball cap, was brought into court in a wheelchair and kept his eyes shut throughout the testimony.
Paul Hellmann, a Dutch co-plaintiff whose father was killed in Sobibor, said he hoped "against all hope" that Demjanjuk would tell the court what really happened at Sobibor.
"You hope also that he would say something like 'I am sorry' for once, you know. Not many people have ever done that," said Hellmann.
Dutch co-plaintiff Robert Cohen, who lost his parents and brother in Sobibor and who himself survived KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau, said he wanted Demjanjuk punished.
Cohen, 83, said he spent 27 months at various camps, and recalled at one point being transported in open railway cars for 10 days without being given any food.
Robert Jean Wurms, whose two half-sisters were killed at Sobibor and whose father died at Auschwitz, said he found out about their fate from his foster mother when he was 10 or 11.
German law allows for victims of a crime or their relatives to join a trial as co-plaintiffs - offering them the opportunity to review evidence, file motions and question witnesses.
However, cases are always led by public prosecutors.
There are no direct living witnesses to Demjanjuk's alleged activities at Sobibor but prosecutors argue that, if he was a guard at the death camp, that means he was involved in the Nazi machinery of destruction.
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