Presenter: Claire Aubin
Faculty Mentor: Julie Hessler
Presentation Type: Oral
Primary Research Area: Social Science
Major: International Studies/Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Funding Source: Research Seminar Participant, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Travel and accommodation expenses & $250 stipend;
UROP Mini-grant, UO Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, $1000
In the 1980s, John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian immigrant living in suburban Ohio who had been accused of a singularly horrific type of Holocaust perpetration, became the accidental poster child for international legal battles. He would face multiple deportations, be subjected to two lengthy trials for two different sets of war crimes committed by two different people, and ultimately die in Germany without a completed appeals process or criminal record. Though Demjanjuk’s relationship to the Holocaust has been the subject of much debate, there has not been enough discussion of the ways his trials reveal the abilities of international bodies to serve as arbiters of justice. Demjanjuk’s case calls into question the efficacy of both domestic and international legal systems, most especially their relationships with war crimes investigative processes and the politics of postwar justice. The influence of history, memory, and political goals on the legal system as it relates to late-period Holocaust trials is enormous, and this project explores how that influence can be seen throughout the Demjanjuk trials. The failures and successes of the trials are exemplary of the postwar international legal system in almost all ways, particularly as that legal system has attempted to provide redemption for survivors of genocide. Archival documents, interviews with original trial investigators, and trial transcripts are used to provide social, political, and historical context for the case. This project is also the basis of a more in-depth undergraduate departmental honors thesis.