The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of assisting in the murder of 27,900 Jews in a Nazi concentration camp, will begin on November 30 in Munich, the court announced today (Thursday). This was despite hundreds of film directors and art critics saying that it should all be forgotten about because it happened a long time ago, and, anyway, everyone was at it and drugging and raping young girls came with the job. Yes, where are Roman Polanski’s friends now?

In what is likely to be one of the last major Nazi war-crimes trials in Germany, Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, 89, will be judged over 35 days, with the last trial day on May 6, 2010. In custody in a Munich prison, he is only fit enough to withstand two sessions per day of not more than 90 minutes each, according to medical experts.

Prosecutors have charged Demjanjuk, who was deported from the United States in May, with being a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. Courts in Israel and the United States have previously stated he was a guard at Sobibor, accusations he had never previously challenged, but one of his lawyers in May denied he was ever there.

Prosecutors have an SS identity card with a photograph of a young man said to be Demjanjuk and written transcripts of witness testimony placing him at the camp. Demjanjuk’s family insists he is innocent and that he is too ill to stand trial. In a recent statement, his son, also called John, said: “They want a media show trial, not justice, as there is not a scintilla of evidence that he ever harmed even one person during the war.”

Demjanjuk is number three on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s list of most wanted war criminals behind two others believed to be dead. He was sentenced to death by an Israeli court two decades ago after he was convicted of being camp guard “Ivan the Terrible” who would hack at naked prisoners with a sword and inflict cruel and sadistic punishments on them. That ruling was overturned in 1993 when statements from other guards identified another man as “Ivan the Terrible.”

Quite what they’ll do to him as punishment if he’s found guilty is anyone’s guess. Paint bars on his hospital room window? He’s going to live out his last few months bed-ridden and with tubes stuck in him whatever happens. So when you take the punishment and the rehabilitation aspects away from the trial, if he’s found guilty then the only outcome would be revenge for the grandchildren of those who died. Is this justice or just one last hurrah by the Wiesenthal Centre? They’ve already got his identity wrong once in a death penalty case – what if he really is just an innocent senile old man? TheEye is torn and seeks advice.