Big thumbs up. It is about Ivan the Terrible potentially being found in the US in the 1980s.

Knew nothing about this going into it. I honestly didn't know what was coming. I thought the series did a great job going back and forth between convincing me the guy was Ivan the Terrible and then convincing me he wasn't Ivan the Terrible. And, it was super hard to stop watching; each episode led into the next episode really well.

The US government and the entirely of the prosecution didn't come off too well in this, in my opinion. They came off smug and had an opinion that seemed to have a significant amount of reasonable doubt... Yet, they were so confident that they were right. Definitely made me want to look more into it (going it isn't a making a murder type thing where a bunch of evidence was left out).

They should make one called "The Devil Is Nextdoor," about the website Nextdoor.

Finished it tonight as well. Very complex, emotional, fascinating subject material that the show did a good job of piecing together while remaining unbiased. I could see this thread blowing up because it was so thought provoking.

I found his wiki page helpful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

thanks for the link, very interesting read.

I'm watching this now and am 3 or 4 episodes in. I'm gonna avoid this thread until I'm done.

It's really good right now.

I'm hoping they get more into how this came about. So far it's pretty vague at simply someone showed up from USSR with this ID card.

I vaguely remember this from the 80's, but not the outcome. The whole thing was so F'ed up. Great show though.

Body By Fisher said:

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They should make one called "The Devil Is Nextdoor," about the website Nextdoor.

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Ha, more like "Nextdoor is for Devils (and people who like to ***** about everything)"

...and lost dogs.

I was in Marine Corps OCS when this happened, so without access to any news of what was going on in the real world.

2 episodes in, and it seems clear at this point that the Jews simply, desperately needed this guy to be Ivan the Terrible. Understandably, there is so much anger and sadness, and absolutely no way to alleviate it except to let time heal them.

Am I the only one who briefly wondered why there would be a show about a 16th-century Russian monarch being found in 1980's USA?

Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Body By Fisher said:

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They should make one called "The Devil Is Nextdoor," about the website Nextdoor.

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Found a black and white lab mix with no tags. Come and get him if he's yours.

On episode five right now. This is an incredible docuseries.

Does anyone know what the basis for charging former Nazis with a war crime was? Did the accused have to be a leader, or simply a participant?

ETA Nevermind. My question was answered.

That defense attorney...he was...icky.

Good series, well done.

The prosecutors across the board come off very poorly in this. Desperate to be right.

Defense attorney could be Saul Goodman.

Really well done series. Incredible story with so much real life drama. Biggest question I came away with...did they ever mention anyone's ages? It sort of seemed like the witnesses were older than the defendant (or same age), at least based on appearances. How old was Ivan purported to be when he was running things?

Really enjoyed the series. I wasn't quite as captivated as I was by Wild Wild Country, but this was very good.

It was a good docuseries but I was disappointed that there was very little back story on how a Ukrainian became a Nazi. I had to research this on my own.

Ag_07 said:

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Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

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He wasn't Ivan the Terrible, but he was at Sobibor and probably Treblinka.

Yelnick McWawa said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

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He wasn't Ivan the Terrible, but he was at Sobibor and probably Treblinka.

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So he got off on a technicality? He did bad things but not the bad things he was accused of?

Just finished it...I can't even imagine the level of pain, angst, anger, sorrow, hate and so many other emotions.

West Point Aggie said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

---

He wasn't Ivan the Terrible, but he was at Sobibor and probably Treblinka.

---

So he got off on a technicality? He did bad things but not the bad things he was accused of?

Just finished it...I can't even imagine the level of pain, angst, anger, sorrow, hate and so many other emotions.

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Why are you directing your incredulity to me? I'm not defending the man and I certainly wasn't a judge in Israel that overturned his conviction. If you watched, then you know why the conviction was overturned. You also know that he was brought to trial and convicted in Germany for being a Nazi at a death camp.

I'm not the person you're mad at.

Yelnick McWawa said:

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West Point Aggie said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

---

He wasn't Ivan the Terrible, but he was at Sobibor and probably Treblinka.

---

So he got off on a technicality? He did bad things but not the bad things he was accused of?

Just finished it...I can't even imagine the level of pain, angst, anger, sorrow, hate and so many other emotions.

---

Why are you directing your incredulity to me? I'm not defending the man and I certainly wasn't a judge in Israel that overturned his conviction. If you watched, then you know why the conviction was overturned. You also know that he was brought to trial and convicted in Germany for being a Nazi at a death camp.

I'm not the person you're mad at.

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Gosh sorry...I in no way intended to come across that way...my apologies. Just found the whole story so sad.
Again my apologies if it came across as an attack on you...NOT my intent!

West Point Aggie said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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West Point Aggie said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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Ag_07 said:

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Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

---

He wasn't Ivan the Terrible, but he was at Sobibor and probably Treblinka.

---

So he got off on a technicality? He did bad things but not the bad things he was accused of?

Just finished it...I can't even imagine the level of pain, angst, anger, sorrow, hate and so many other emotions.

---

Why are you directing your incredulity to me? I'm not defending the man and I certainly wasn't a judge in Israel that overturned his conviction. If you watched, then you know why the conviction was overturned. You also know that he was brought to trial and convicted in Germany for being a Nazi at a death camp.

I'm not the person you're mad at.

---

Gosh sorry...I in no way intended to come across that way...my apologies. Just found the whole story so sad.
Again my apologies if it came across as an attack on you...NOT my intent!

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Ah the beauty of the written word....the difficulty of expressive writing and the lack of any inflection.

No worries at all.

Yelnick McWawa said:

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West Point Aggie said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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West Point Aggie said:

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Yelnick McWawa said:

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Ag_07 said:

---

Finished this up last night. Great docuseries. Really does a good job of not being one sided. And the whole story was just fascinating.

Defensive attorneys typically make me cringe but for some reason I did really like his Jewish defense attorney.

I will just say this...

I think he was Ivan the Terrible but I also don't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

---

He wasn't Ivan the Terrible, but he was at Sobibor and probably Treblinka.

---

So he got off on a technicality? He did bad things but not the bad things he was accused of?

Just finished it...I can't even imagine the level of pain, angst, anger, sorrow, hate and so many other emotions.

---

Why are you directing your incredulity to me? I'm not defending the man and I certainly wasn't a judge in Israel that overturned his conviction. If you watched, then you know why the conviction was overturned. You also know that he was brought to trial and convicted in Germany for being a Nazi at a death camp.

I'm not the person you're mad at.

---

Gosh sorry...I in no way intended to come across that way...my apologies. Just found the whole story so sad.
Again my apologies if it came across as an attack on you...NOT my intent!

---

Ah the beauty of the written word....the difficulty of expressive writing and the lack of any inflection.

No worries at all.

---

Indeed!

I watched this in one sitting last week. I went back and forth during the trial whether he was guilty or not. I don't think the witnesses were credible, I think they were simply wanting their "pound of flesh." But, I do think he was guilty of being a soldier in a camp. It's amazing that he was sentenced in Germany to five years for assisting in the deaths of 29,000 prisoners. That's a pretty weak sentence.

The quote from his grandson at the end, with the young great grand daughter on his knee, is really disturbing.

"...I can imagine what he could have done. But not just him, everybody in that situation. You, me, your friends, my friends. If you were put in that situation, and you were given the choice between life and death, I mean, what are you going to pick? So, whatever he did and wherever he was is insignificant to me."

Mass murder and torture of men, women and children, and then denying your complicity in the acts is acceptable and insignificant, because hey, everybody else was doing it? How about somebody rips that child out your arms and tosses her in an oven...is that insignificant?!

Great series until the very end when Netflix tried to make a political statement about how there are still Nazis all around or whatever. Big eye roll. Otherwise great.

Had a question about the SS tattoo that D had. So it was just a tattoo that indicated his blood type? And all members of the SS got them? To what end? And also what was his angle in bringing that up as the Israeli trial? I couldn't really understand what he was getting at, but I interpreted him to be saying he was forcibly rounded up in a barn somewhere in Poland by the nazis, they took his blood type, tattooed it on him, then years later he tried to remove it himself after he supposedly learned that the SS had them too? That whole sequence was odd to me.

Not sure of why the issue was raised by Demjanjuk, but this explanation from the Holocaust Encyclopedia:

Demjanjuk's Tattoo
Another piece of evidence in the prosecution's case involved scars under Demjanjuk's left arm, the remains of a tattoo identifying his blood type. SS authorities introduced the practice of blood-type tattooing into the Waffen-SS (Military SS) in 1942. Some members of SS Death's Head Units in the German concentration camp system also received such tattoos, as they were considered linked to the Waffen SS administratively after 1941. Nevertheless, blood-type tattooing was never consistently implemented. Hence this physical evidence only suggested, but by no means proved, that Demjanjuk might have served as a concentration camp guard.

The existence of scars from an "SS tattoo," particularly given confusion in popular culture between the blood-type tattoo (mandatory) and the SS-rune tattoo (voluntary), misled prosecutors both in the United States and Israel as to its significance. There is no evidence that POWs trained as police auxiliaries at Trawniki received such tattoos.

Quote:

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Great series until the very end when Netflix tried to make a political statement about how there are still Nazis all around or whatever. Big eye roll. Otherwise great.

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I agree on the "America sheltering Nazis" bit towards the end, it seemed like someone just shoe-horned it into an otherwise great documentary.

Just finished:

The witness that lied about killing Ivan years earlier. Why wasn't his testimony completely thrown out at that point? That was covered but that should have been covered more in-depth.

The 3 judges in the first case seemed horribly argumentative/one sided and completely incapable of being impartial.