Trial of Remembrance

WOMEN AND CHILDREN burn quicker than men.

That fact emerged last week in the most significant trial in Israel since Adolf Eichmann was brought to justice 26 years ago. One after another, Holocaust survivors have been taking the witness stand to testify against John Demjanjuk, a retired auto worker from Cleveland who stands accused of operating gas chambers in which 850,000 Jews were killed during World War II.

The trial, and its accompanying tales of death and torture, is the best thing to happen to Israelis and Jews worldwide this decade.

Like most Jews in America--like most people in America, for that matter--Israelis continually strive for a more comfortable, secure existence. But Jewish history shows that such a material quest is not enough to maintain religious liberty; it must also be accompanied by a struggle to maintain cultural identity for Jews to ensure their freedom in a non-Jewish world.

But this struggle can only be driven by an inner fire--a passionate, personal commitment by Jews to protect their freedoms. For every generation since World War II, the Holocaust has ignited that fire. But the flame is shrinking. Fast.

FORTY YEARS after the war, there are few Holocaust survivors still alive. Soon, none will be left. Meanwhile, many Nazis who dodged prosecution after the war and escaped to the West have lived ordinary lives, camouflaged by new identities. Demjanjuk is the first suspected Nazi to be extradited and brought to trial in Israel. (Eichmann was not brought to Israel through extradition proceedings. He was captured in Argentina by the Israeli secret service.)

Demjanjuk's trial is so crucial because it may be the last of its kind. Soon no survivors will be left to tell of the sufferings they and their families were forced to endure merely because they were Jews. No one will be left to break down in tears and strike out in unavenged rage against their past tormenters--before our eyes.

The trial brings before the world vivid, living evidence of hell. It should be splashed across the front pages of newspapers and drilled over and over again on the evening news. So we are reminded. And inflamed.

Yet the trial is not even being broadcast daily on Israeli television; state network officials say the case has not generated sufficient interest in the country. And there are no long lines of Israelis eager to sit in on Demjanjuk's trial, as there were for Eichmann's trial in 1961.

WHY ISN'T THERE more outrage? Demjanjuk is accused of being "Ivan the Terrible," the guard who beat and tortured Jews and ran the gas chambers at Treblinka, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. He is charged with "crimes against the Jewish people, [and] crimes against humanity." He has been positively identified as the infamous "Ivan the Terrible" by the first two witnesses called to the stand.

But the man who is accused of enthusiastically participating in such heinous crimes is reacting with callous glee. When he enters the courtroom, he grins at the audience and greets them by saying "Boker Tov," Hebrew for "good morning." He then listens without emotion to the chilling testimony against him, yawning and fiddling with his earphones while those on the stand weep. He even tried to shake the hand of one death camp survivor, who "without the slightest doubt" identified him as Ivan.

DEMJANJUK'S TRIAL--the testimony against him, as well as his callous reactions to it--should incite a passionate reaction. Jews, especially, owe it to themselves to pay attention to and learn from this trial. To remember, to hurt, to burn, along with the survivors.

Some say it is a mistake to reopen old wounds. But you can't open wounds that have never--and will never--heal. The Demjanjuk trial rips off the 40-year-old bandages that have allowed some to shield their eyes to their own scars. And it exposes the youngest generation to the gory wound for the first time.