What do you think?
Rate this book
Beiträge zur Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts #29
The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial
Now the subject of the Netflix documentary The Devil Next DoorThe incredible story of the most convoluted legal odyssey involving Nazi war crimesIn 2009, Harper's Magazine sent war-crimes expert Lawrence Douglas to Munich to cover the last chapter of the lengthiest case ever to arise from the the trial of eighty-nine-year-old John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk’s legal odyssey began in 1975, when American investigators received evidence alleging that the Cleveland autoworker and naturalized US citizen had collaborated in Nazi genocide. In the years that followed, Demjanjuk was stripped of his American citizenship and sentenced to death by a Jerusalem court as "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka—only to be cleared in one of the most notorious cases of mistaken identity in legal history. Finally, in 2011, after eighteen months of trial, a court in Munich convicted the native Ukrainian of assisting Hitler’s SS in the murder of 28,060 Jews at Sobibor, a death camp in eastern Poland.An award-winning novelist as well as legal scholar, Douglas offers a compulsively readable history of Demjanjuk’s bizarre case. The Right Wrong Man is both a gripping eyewitness account of the last major Holocaust trial to galvanize world attention and a vital meditation on the law’s effort to bring legal closure to the most horrific chapter in modern history.
337 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 21, 2015
54 people are currently reading
992 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
March 27, 2018
Warning: disturbing passages contained within
This is an astute examination of the many trials of John (Ivan) Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk was put on trial in Israel and then Germany. He was extradited twice from the United States – his citizenship revoked.
The first time, in 1986, he was put on trial in Israel where he was thought to be the sadistic Ivan the Terrible. Israel sentenced him to die, but with the dissolution of the Soviet Union records were made available showing definitively that Demjanjuk was not Ivan the Terrible, who likely died in Yugoslavia fighting alongside German troops. But the records also showed that Demjanjuk was a camp guard at Sobibor. Israel at this stage had no desire in pursuing another trial of an unknown entity. So Demjanjuk was put back on an airplane to the U.S.
But the U.S. restarted extradition procedures based on the fact that Demjanjuk had lied on his application for U.S. residency after the Second World War. An individual who served as a camp guard in a German camp was ineligible for U.S. residency. Finally in 2009 Germany accepted Demjanjuk and put him on trial.
The author gives us a description, and I found this fascinating, of the trial procedures in both Israel and Germany, and the extradition processes in the U.S. So Demjanjuk does disappear for many pages as the author explains the changing trial procedures.
Israel, besides assuming that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, used similar trial strategies that they had used in 1961 for Adolf Eichmann. This was a mistake. At the Eichmann trial there was no question concerning the identity of the defendant. Both were trials of witnesses and cross-examinations. Demjanjuk was a slippery character, was elusive, and adept at playing the fool.
The German trial, by contrast, was totally different. It used historical documents and historians to elucidate the era and importantly distinguished between what the different camps across Europe signified. The author also explains that it took the German legal system many years to acknowledge the severity of its crimes against humanity. There was much obfuscation – and many murderers (one should say mass murderers) were let go because of the very dubious law “of being an accessory”. In a very real way perpetrators had been transformed into “victims” – victims of the German Nazi state.
The historical records showed that Demjanjuk served at Sobibor when tens of thousands of Jews were put to death; many of them from the Netherlands and completely unaware of what awaited them. Unlike, for example Aushwitz which was a very large complex used for a variety of purposes – one of which was to kill Jews, gypsies..., Sobibor was solely an extermination camp used to kill Jewish people. If you were a camp guard at Sobibor you participated in killing innocent people. It was your job.
Page 253 my book
The judge placed special emphasis on the transport of June 8, 1943, the so-called Kindertransport, in which one-third of the three thousand passengers had been children under the age of fourteen. He noted that the youngest victim during Demjanjuk’s service had been only a few weeks old, while the oldest had been born in 1848.
Demjanjuk was convicted and served the last of his days in an old age home in Germany.
This is a distinguished book on several long drawn out trials. It provides a valuable legal history of how the Holocaust has been viewed in three different countries
This is an astute examination of the many trials of John (Ivan) Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk was put on trial in Israel and then Germany. He was extradited twice from the United States – his citizenship revoked.
The first time, in 1986, he was put on trial in Israel where he was thought to be the sadistic Ivan the Terrible. Israel sentenced him to die, but with the dissolution of the Soviet Union records were made available showing definitively that Demjanjuk was not Ivan the Terrible, who likely died in Yugoslavia fighting alongside German troops. But the records also showed that Demjanjuk was a camp guard at Sobibor. Israel at this stage had no desire in pursuing another trial of an unknown entity. So Demjanjuk was put back on an airplane to the U.S.
But the U.S. restarted extradition procedures based on the fact that Demjanjuk had lied on his application for U.S. residency after the Second World War. An individual who served as a camp guard in a German camp was ineligible for U.S. residency. Finally in 2009 Germany accepted Demjanjuk and put him on trial.
The author gives us a description, and I found this fascinating, of the trial procedures in both Israel and Germany, and the extradition processes in the U.S. So Demjanjuk does disappear for many pages as the author explains the changing trial procedures.
Israel, besides assuming that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, used similar trial strategies that they had used in 1961 for Adolf Eichmann. This was a mistake. At the Eichmann trial there was no question concerning the identity of the defendant. Both were trials of witnesses and cross-examinations. Demjanjuk was a slippery character, was elusive, and adept at playing the fool.
The German trial, by contrast, was totally different. It used historical documents and historians to elucidate the era and importantly distinguished between what the different camps across Europe signified. The author also explains that it took the German legal system many years to acknowledge the severity of its crimes against humanity. There was much obfuscation – and many murderers (one should say mass murderers) were let go because of the very dubious law “of being an accessory”. In a very real way perpetrators had been transformed into “victims” – victims of the German Nazi state.
The historical records showed that Demjanjuk served at Sobibor when tens of thousands of Jews were put to death; many of them from the Netherlands and completely unaware of what awaited them. Unlike, for example Aushwitz which was a very large complex used for a variety of purposes – one of which was to kill Jews, gypsies..., Sobibor was solely an extermination camp used to kill Jewish people. If you were a camp guard at Sobibor you participated in killing innocent people. It was your job.
Page 253 my book
The judge placed special emphasis on the transport of June 8, 1943, the so-called Kindertransport, in which one-third of the three thousand passengers had been children under the age of fourteen. He noted that the youngest victim during Demjanjuk’s service had been only a few weeks old, while the oldest had been born in 1848.
Demjanjuk was convicted and served the last of his days in an old age home in Germany.
This is a distinguished book on several long drawn out trials. It provides a valuable legal history of how the Holocaust has been viewed in three different countries
April 5, 2016
As Lawrence Douglas, an Amherst College law professor describes in his new book, THE RIGHT WRONG MAN: JOHN DEMJANJUK AND THE LAST GREAT NAZI WAR CRIMES TRIAL, the former Ford Motor employee was “little more than a peon at the bottom of the Nazis exterminatory hierarchy.” However, what makes him important is the legal odyssey he navigated from 1975 to his death in 2012. Demjanjuk survived a number of major trials; denaturalization hearings in the United States, prosecution in Israel, and his final legal confrontation in Germany. Throughout the process Demjanjuk lied, acted, obfuscated, as he tried to avoid conviction. The end result was finally being found guilty of “crimes against humanity” in 2011, after having previous convictions overturned because of prosecution errors and the failure of memory on the part of Holocaust survivors.
Demjanjuk’s biography is quite amazing. During the outset of the war Demjanjuk was a soldier in the Red Army. After being captured by the Germans he volunteered to be a guard at the Sobibor death camp. Once the war ended, he was able to immigrate to the United States by lying on his application associated with the Truman administrations 1948 Displaced Persons Act. He settled in Cleveland and became a machinist at a Ford Motor plant, and was able to hide his Holocaust related activities for years, until 1975 when American officials first learned of his possible wartime activities.
Douglas provides intricate detail and analysis of Demjanjuk’s legal journey. He dissects the strategies pursued by defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges as they try to convict Demjanjuk of being Ivan Grozny, “Ivan the Terrible” for his sadistic acts at Treblinka. Further, Douglas explores the gaps in the legal systems that tried to bring him to justice and how previous trials, Nuremberg, and Eichmann in particular impacted legal strategies. The problem that emerges is that Demjanjuk was misidentified and was not Ivan Grozny, but a man who served at Sobibor and contributed to the death of thousands of Jews for which he was finally convicted. Demjanjuk’s legal battles began in 1975 and continued until later in the decade when he would be identified as the former Treblinka guard, “Ivan the Terrible.” Demjanjuk was stripped of his citizenship and extradited to Israel. In 1988 he was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court. After numerous appeals and the emergence of new evidence, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the government had the wrong Ivan. He was returned to the United States and his citizenship was restored.
Demjanjuk may not have been at Treblinka, but earlier testimony seemed to place him at Sobibor, another Nazi death camp. In 2001 he lost his US citizenship for a second time and in 2009 he was dispatched to Germany for trial. On May 12, 2011 he was found guilty by a German court for assisting in the murder of 28,060 Jews. Before his death sentence could be carried out he died, ending one of the last prosecutions of perpetrators of the Holocaust. Douglas’ book is an important contribution to the legal issues that have surrounded the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Douglas raises many important subjects including; the justice of trying old men for superannuated crimes, the nature of individual responsibility in the orchestration of state-sponsored crimes, the nature and causes, and possible justifications of collaboration in the perpetuation of atrocities, and how three different legal systems went about creating legal alloys to master the challenges posed by the Nazi genocide.
Douglas points out that Nazi crimes were so great that retributive justice based on didactic exercises organized around survivor testimony was not enough. What was needed was to use trials as a means of historical education, present history through the eyes of survivor memory as what done at the Eichmann trial. However, even this noble ideal was fraught with holes as was seen in the prosecution of Demjanjuk. What was needed according to Douglas was to develop the role of historians to assist in the preparation and prosecution of Nazi crimes. One of the major drawbacks in the prosecutorial process was the lack of historical context that only historians could provide. This gap was overcome in Demjanjuk’s Munich case as historians came into play in every aspect of the case from drafting of the indictment to the core of the court’s judgement. For the first time a new type of Holocaust trial emerged: the Holocaust as History.
These developments overcame many of the obstacles that were evident in earlier prosecutions. In the United States turf battles between the Justice Department and other agencies, difficulties handling atrocity cases with routine prosecutory tools, the lack of linguistic skills on the part of lawyers, and little or no training in historical research all hindered the development of sound cases against war criminals. Douglas traces the evolution of new techniques and approaches to these types of cases beginning with the Nuremberg Trials, the Eichmann Trial, and the prosecution of the real Ivan Grozny, Fedor Fedorenko that culminated in the final conviction of Demjanjuk.
Douglas asks the important question as to the benefits to mankind that emerged from the Demjanjuk case. “First, it yielded a modified theory of culpability, directly ‘connected to the exterminatory process.’ This disposed once and for all of the defense ‘I was no more than a cog in the machine…I was obeying orders.’ A machine cannot run without its small constituent parts.” As a result it was now enough to prove that a defendant worked in a death factory to obtain a conviction because without the numbers of these types of defendants the Holocaust could not have reached the magnitude that it did. Further, this allowed for the further prosecution of lower-level war criminals and permitted three separate judicial systems to learn from past errors and instill confidence in this type of judicial process. (New York Times, February 26, 2016)
Douglas astute dissection of the Demjanjuk case and the application of his analysis to the overall problem of culpability for war crimes is a major contribution to this type of literature. Though at times it is written in legalese, overall it should be easily understood by the layman resulting a satisfying reading experience.
Demjanjuk’s biography is quite amazing. During the outset of the war Demjanjuk was a soldier in the Red Army. After being captured by the Germans he volunteered to be a guard at the Sobibor death camp. Once the war ended, he was able to immigrate to the United States by lying on his application associated with the Truman administrations 1948 Displaced Persons Act. He settled in Cleveland and became a machinist at a Ford Motor plant, and was able to hide his Holocaust related activities for years, until 1975 when American officials first learned of his possible wartime activities.
Douglas provides intricate detail and analysis of Demjanjuk’s legal journey. He dissects the strategies pursued by defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges as they try to convict Demjanjuk of being Ivan Grozny, “Ivan the Terrible” for his sadistic acts at Treblinka. Further, Douglas explores the gaps in the legal systems that tried to bring him to justice and how previous trials, Nuremberg, and Eichmann in particular impacted legal strategies. The problem that emerges is that Demjanjuk was misidentified and was not Ivan Grozny, but a man who served at Sobibor and contributed to the death of thousands of Jews for which he was finally convicted. Demjanjuk’s legal battles began in 1975 and continued until later in the decade when he would be identified as the former Treblinka guard, “Ivan the Terrible.” Demjanjuk was stripped of his citizenship and extradited to Israel. In 1988 he was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court. After numerous appeals and the emergence of new evidence, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the government had the wrong Ivan. He was returned to the United States and his citizenship was restored.
Demjanjuk may not have been at Treblinka, but earlier testimony seemed to place him at Sobibor, another Nazi death camp. In 2001 he lost his US citizenship for a second time and in 2009 he was dispatched to Germany for trial. On May 12, 2011 he was found guilty by a German court for assisting in the murder of 28,060 Jews. Before his death sentence could be carried out he died, ending one of the last prosecutions of perpetrators of the Holocaust. Douglas’ book is an important contribution to the legal issues that have surrounded the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Douglas raises many important subjects including; the justice of trying old men for superannuated crimes, the nature of individual responsibility in the orchestration of state-sponsored crimes, the nature and causes, and possible justifications of collaboration in the perpetuation of atrocities, and how three different legal systems went about creating legal alloys to master the challenges posed by the Nazi genocide.
Douglas points out that Nazi crimes were so great that retributive justice based on didactic exercises organized around survivor testimony was not enough. What was needed was to use trials as a means of historical education, present history through the eyes of survivor memory as what done at the Eichmann trial. However, even this noble ideal was fraught with holes as was seen in the prosecution of Demjanjuk. What was needed according to Douglas was to develop the role of historians to assist in the preparation and prosecution of Nazi crimes. One of the major drawbacks in the prosecutorial process was the lack of historical context that only historians could provide. This gap was overcome in Demjanjuk’s Munich case as historians came into play in every aspect of the case from drafting of the indictment to the core of the court’s judgement. For the first time a new type of Holocaust trial emerged: the Holocaust as History.
These developments overcame many of the obstacles that were evident in earlier prosecutions. In the United States turf battles between the Justice Department and other agencies, difficulties handling atrocity cases with routine prosecutory tools, the lack of linguistic skills on the part of lawyers, and little or no training in historical research all hindered the development of sound cases against war criminals. Douglas traces the evolution of new techniques and approaches to these types of cases beginning with the Nuremberg Trials, the Eichmann Trial, and the prosecution of the real Ivan Grozny, Fedor Fedorenko that culminated in the final conviction of Demjanjuk.
Douglas asks the important question as to the benefits to mankind that emerged from the Demjanjuk case. “First, it yielded a modified theory of culpability, directly ‘connected to the exterminatory process.’ This disposed once and for all of the defense ‘I was no more than a cog in the machine…I was obeying orders.’ A machine cannot run without its small constituent parts.” As a result it was now enough to prove that a defendant worked in a death factory to obtain a conviction because without the numbers of these types of defendants the Holocaust could not have reached the magnitude that it did. Further, this allowed for the further prosecution of lower-level war criminals and permitted three separate judicial systems to learn from past errors and instill confidence in this type of judicial process. (New York Times, February 26, 2016)
Douglas astute dissection of the Demjanjuk case and the application of his analysis to the overall problem of culpability for war crimes is a major contribution to this type of literature. Though at times it is written in legalese, overall it should be easily understood by the layman resulting a satisfying reading experience.
December 12, 2017
Це насправді ціла Одіссея Івана Дем’янюка - людини, яку кілька разів звинувачували у колаборації з нацистами і злочинах проти людства. Це такий гостросюжетний роман, що важко уявити за ним справжнє життя. А ще з книжки ви дізнаєтеся дуже багато про те, як розвивалося законодавство і основні підходи до вирішення повоєнних судів над нацистами.
January 31, 2016
The strange legal odyssey of John Demjanjuk, Cleveland autoworker and accused Nazi camp guard, who was stripped of his American citizenship twice between the late 1970s and 2000s. A Ukrainian who was in the Soviet Army during World War II, Demjanjuk was captured by the Germans and impressed into service as a guard in a death camp, later gaining entry to the United States while concealing this fact. Years later he was mistakenly identified as a brutal Treblinka camp guard known as "Ivan the Terrible" with forged identifications provided by the USSR, (who considered Demjanjuk a traitor for working for the Nazis.) And it goes on from there.
December 28, 2025
Douglas always puts on a masterclass in legal historical writing and this book is no exception. Exceptionally researched, theoretically rich, and yet deeply accessible. I think there was more to probe re: the role of the historian as expert witness and the complexities of collaboration, but I think Douglas successfully makes a v interesting legal & historical argument here.
February 22, 2021
This book must be written by a lawyer who has no knowledge of how to create interesting characters and plot lines. Yes, it is a true story, but I never felt like I got to know any of the main characters, and the book gets bogged down in legalese. I had to slog my way through it because it was a book club selection that I wanted to be prepared to discuss, but I would have quit reading if that hadn't been the case. The story itself has potential, but people who are interested in the story would be better off watching the film about Demjanjuk on Netflix.; the book itself was a snooze-fest.
February 20, 2020
One of the sources for the documentary about Demjanjuk case, The Devil Next Door, which is why I picked it up. It's a very tough slog -- written by a law professor in language that is dull and sentences that are difficult. It's more about the procedures and laws regarding the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in three countries, rather than the sociological impact of their crimes.
April 28, 2025
One of the most comprehensive accounts regarding an mistaken case of indentity. Douglas asserts very early on in the book that Israeli's simply had the wrong guy; Demanjuk was most definitely a guard at a death camp. However, his alleged identity of Ivan Grozny (Russian Epithet - Ivan The Terrible) by Israeli's was mistaken. Douglas acknowledges the social and historical motivations that have may have contributed the Israeli's insistence that John Demanjuk was in fact Ivan the Terrible.
The book highlights several factors that may have intiated the reluctance to try Nazi War Criminals in special courts and attributing them with specially created statutes that related to Crimes Against Humanity & The Atrocity Model. The book also brings into question the concept of voluntariness and involuntariness when it came to the functions and responsiblites of SS Axuliaries.
Quite frankly, most of the revelations that the book provides are quite frightening when it came to Post-War Germany. The motiviation to treat Crimes Against Humanity as Ordinary Murder as if the act of genocide and murder are one in the same. One of the most horriying accounts of the holocaust are going to come from the survivor testimony presented in this book by the survivors of Treblinka. Be warned. One of the most starking reveals came when Douglas substanitaed that 80% of Germany's highest appelleate court post-war after the fall of the Nazi Regime were former Nazi's, card carrying members of the nazi party. One can definitely understand why no action was taking in regards to the prosecution of these mindless foot soldiers that facilitated the means of extermination of Jewish people and all other "undesirables". As the very idea of convicting ones friend or the very person they served alongside would have turned off many former nazi's. The idea of creating special statutes and courts conjured the idea of the Nazi "Special Courts" Modern day Germany was trying to distance themselves from.
The book may seem in going on in tangents in certain places but do not despair ALL - of the information presented in this book is not only relevant to the Demanjuk case but to the atrocity model in German Law and Internation Tribunals. Do not skip anything. Douglas formulates all the very problems surronding Demanjuk and the Nazi War Criminals and their respective punishment for facilitating genocide of innocent People.
The book highlights several factors that may have intiated the reluctance to try Nazi War Criminals in special courts and attributing them with specially created statutes that related to Crimes Against Humanity & The Atrocity Model. The book also brings into question the concept of voluntariness and involuntariness when it came to the functions and responsiblites of SS Axuliaries.
Quite frankly, most of the revelations that the book provides are quite frightening when it came to Post-War Germany. The motiviation to treat Crimes Against Humanity as Ordinary Murder as if the act of genocide and murder are one in the same. One of the most horriying accounts of the holocaust are going to come from the survivor testimony presented in this book by the survivors of Treblinka. Be warned. One of the most starking reveals came when Douglas substanitaed that 80% of Germany's highest appelleate court post-war after the fall of the Nazi Regime were former Nazi's, card carrying members of the nazi party. One can definitely understand why no action was taking in regards to the prosecution of these mindless foot soldiers that facilitated the means of extermination of Jewish people and all other "undesirables". As the very idea of convicting ones friend or the very person they served alongside would have turned off many former nazi's. The idea of creating special statutes and courts conjured the idea of the Nazi "Special Courts" Modern day Germany was trying to distance themselves from.
The book may seem in going on in tangents in certain places but do not despair ALL - of the information presented in this book is not only relevant to the Demanjuk case but to the atrocity model in German Law and Internation Tribunals. Do not skip anything. Douglas formulates all the very problems surronding Demanjuk and the Nazi War Criminals and their respective punishment for facilitating genocide of innocent People.
January 19, 2020
4.0 for my own personal enjoyment, but 5.0 for the writing itself. I can't imagine trying to write about this topic and make it interesting, easy to understand, and clear. What an achievement.
This book was not what I expected it to be. I thought it would be a fairly straightforward true crime kind of book, only with the uncomfortable twist of that true crime being part of the largest act of genocide the world has ever known. That’s not what it is.
This is a book, actually, about legal history. Which I know sounds dreadfully dull, but in Douglas’s hands, it isn’t. He has crafted an in-depth look at the history of German (and US and Israeli) legal attempts to deal with the crimes of the Shoah through the lens of one particular trial (well, three or four trials? At this point I’m not sure I even know how many there were, but they were all ultimately about the actions of one person). I’m glad I didn’t know that it was a legal history, because I wouldn’t have given it a chance, and I’m so glad I did. The topic of how a country deals with justice in a case of state-sponsored crimes against humanity turns out to be a fascinating one.
Douglas is very critical about the failures of the German legal system in prosecuting Nazis, but he also makes painstaking attempts to understand how the jurists made the decisions that they did, and when they make the right decisions—as in the Demjanjuk case—he gives them credit. I found this a deeply humane book, not at all dry, and though Douglas has clearly done impeccable research, it never feels like he’s lost sight of the people at the heart of everything. He manages to balance explaining all the legal background and jargon you need to understand without insulting your intelligence. And I actually deeply appreciate that Djamanjuk the man gets so little attention. It felt right for this unrepentant cog in the machine not to get more attention.
I think this is probably one of the hardest kinds of books to write and one that gets the least amount of praise. Even if you think legal history isn’t your thing, give it a try. I think you’ll find yourself really interested.
This book was not what I expected it to be. I thought it would be a fairly straightforward true crime kind of book, only with the uncomfortable twist of that true crime being part of the largest act of genocide the world has ever known. That’s not what it is.
This is a book, actually, about legal history. Which I know sounds dreadfully dull, but in Douglas’s hands, it isn’t. He has crafted an in-depth look at the history of German (and US and Israeli) legal attempts to deal with the crimes of the Shoah through the lens of one particular trial (well, three or four trials? At this point I’m not sure I even know how many there were, but they were all ultimately about the actions of one person). I’m glad I didn’t know that it was a legal history, because I wouldn’t have given it a chance, and I’m so glad I did. The topic of how a country deals with justice in a case of state-sponsored crimes against humanity turns out to be a fascinating one.
Douglas is very critical about the failures of the German legal system in prosecuting Nazis, but he also makes painstaking attempts to understand how the jurists made the decisions that they did, and when they make the right decisions—as in the Demjanjuk case—he gives them credit. I found this a deeply humane book, not at all dry, and though Douglas has clearly done impeccable research, it never feels like he’s lost sight of the people at the heart of everything. He manages to balance explaining all the legal background and jargon you need to understand without insulting your intelligence. And I actually deeply appreciate that Djamanjuk the man gets so little attention. It felt right for this unrepentant cog in the machine not to get more attention.
I think this is probably one of the hardest kinds of books to write and one that gets the least amount of praise. Even if you think legal history isn’t your thing, give it a try. I think you’ll find yourself really interested.
May 9, 2025
After watching "The Devil Next Door" on Netflix YEARS ago, I immediately added the book it was based on to my never-ending tbr. And in a non-fiction frenzy I finally picked it up!
"The Right Wrong Man" was different than I expected, leaning a lot more toward academic explanation than narrative thrills... yes, this was about John Demjanjuk and a case of mistaken identity, but it was even moreso about the nature of Holocaust trials and how to get justice for acts that lie outside the bounds of typical criminal law and experience. And whether that's even possible.
Of course I found the narrative of John Demjanjuk's life and the mysterious evidence against him interesting—that's the whole reason I picked up the book! But I also found some of Douglas' other explorations fascinating as well, particularly his rumination of the nature of survivor testimony and how it is, isn't, and should be weighted when it comes to crimes of this magnitude. There were also, however, some parts of the book that reallyyyy dragged... I'm thinking specifically about the history of German murder case law, which took up so many pages and was frankly exhausting to wade through, but there were other similar slow moments. And though I do understand why some of these deep-dives were necessary, I also struggled with them and they hampered my enjoyment of the book.
But not entirely! I'm still giving this one 3.5 stars rounded up to 4, and would recommend it as a unique look at Holocaust justice through the lens of a very specific case.
"The Right Wrong Man" was different than I expected, leaning a lot more toward academic explanation than narrative thrills... yes, this was about John Demjanjuk and a case of mistaken identity, but it was even moreso about the nature of Holocaust trials and how to get justice for acts that lie outside the bounds of typical criminal law and experience. And whether that's even possible.
Of course I found the narrative of John Demjanjuk's life and the mysterious evidence against him interesting—that's the whole reason I picked up the book! But I also found some of Douglas' other explorations fascinating as well, particularly his rumination of the nature of survivor testimony and how it is, isn't, and should be weighted when it comes to crimes of this magnitude. There were also, however, some parts of the book that reallyyyy dragged... I'm thinking specifically about the history of German murder case law, which took up so many pages and was frankly exhausting to wade through, but there were other similar slow moments. And though I do understand why some of these deep-dives were necessary, I also struggled with them and they hampered my enjoyment of the book.
But not entirely! I'm still giving this one 3.5 stars rounded up to 4, and would recommend it as a unique look at Holocaust justice through the lens of a very specific case.
July 19, 2020
I watched The Devil Next Door on Netflix and really liked it. The author if this book is mentioned in the series so I sought out the book. I vaguely remember Demjanjuk's trial in Germany, but his first trial in Israel is much more interesting. This book goes into much more detail than the series which is a double edged sword. I now know much more about the German system of jurisprudence than I ever really wanted to. The portion of the book that covers Germany's legal system goes on and on and on. I may have skimmed some parts. All in all the story of Eichmann's capture and trial is better.
November 26, 2018
This was a fascinating book that addressed a lot of interconnected topics and did an excellent job of balancing them. It managed to be clear about the changing legal situations in multiple countries. The narratives of the lives of the people involved were engaging. Most especially interesting was the discussions of culpability and responsibility at the heart of any Nazi war crimes trial.
August 8, 2025
essential
If you think there will ever be atrocity trials for any of today’s authoritarians, dictators, or war criminals, you should read this book. Governmental systems and citizens prefer to forget the atrocities, which is one reason for Israel to exist. Netanyahu is the war criminal that is making anti-semitism popular.
If you think there will ever be atrocity trials for any of today’s authoritarians, dictators, or war criminals, you should read this book. Governmental systems and citizens prefer to forget the atrocities, which is one reason for Israel to exist. Netanyahu is the war criminal that is making anti-semitism popular.
January 30, 2020
Very interesting and well researched book. Selves into the laws in place and how countries can ‘self correct’ and learn from their mistakes. This is a must read after reading The atrial of Ivan the Terrible.
February 6, 2024
Not necessarily the book I was expecting to read – I thought it would be more along the lines of the Netflix documentary but in more detail – but ultimately probably a more enlightening look at the second Demjanjuk trial and the legal questions around how to prosecute Nazis and their collaborators
March 19, 2020
If you watch the documentary on Netflix, you only get part of the story. This book, while difficult to read in parts because of legal jargon, fills in the gaps left by the documentary.
Read
March 15, 2021Too dry.
December 17, 2016
I read this account of the pursuit of Ivan Demjanjuk written by Lawrence Douglas for war crimes associated with his service as a camp guard at Sobibor during the Holocaust for a discussion group, so I ordinarily wouldn't have chosen this book as I was reasonably familiar with the subject. But, once I got into the book, I got a good appreciation of the legal issues involved, particularly as it related to Germany. There, the prohibition of the use of retroactive law was a serious impediment to prior prosecutions of Holocaust participants. The legal rationalization that no law existed against genocide simply because Hitler effectively made the killing of Jews legal was repelling. The prosecutors were able to use the accessory to murder statute by showing that Sobibor was a camp which was exclusively devoted to death (not also used as a labor camp), all guards rotated through all jobs, and thus any participant in the camp's activities was perforce an accessory. The claim that Demjanjuk was also an unwilling victim, pressed into service, was refuted by showing that some guards in other camps and training facilities were able to opt out without serious life-threatening consequences.
September 11, 2021
In as much as I originally hail from Cleveland, I was aware of the adventure of John Demjanjuk as a war-crimes defendant early on, and felt a certain level of hostility at the time. Don't get me wrong, if Demjanjuk could reasonably be proven to be Ivan "Grozny" I would have had no sympathy for him, but the quality of evidence, and the theatrical nature of the Israeli trial, made me dubious that anything worthwhile could come out of this endeavor. However, times change, as well as how one processes history, and that is the story that Douglas has to tell. So now we can have an understanding of Demjanjuk, not as the victim he chose to portray himself as, but as a SS mercenary who would appear to have found this service tolerable enough not to choose other viable options (labor service or desertion), once it became obvious that his duty station (Sobibor) was a death camp. If I mark down this book for anything it's that the author's writing style can seem a little prolix at time, and there are some really dumb typos in this book, such rendering Brookpark (OH) as "Bookpart" and Fiume in Croatia as "Flume."
March 3, 2016
The subject of the book is fascinating, so I thought the book would be. But for me, the book was a bit too long and the author obvious with his opinion. I have no problem with an opinionated author, but on one hand, it seemed like he was trying to present the facts but would present them in a way that was very leading. I kept reading it for the pieces of the story I wanted to learn about, but wasn't thrilled with the book as a whole. I feel like it might've been better as a long form article, which is how it started- I think in an article for Harper's.
June 26, 2016
This book illuminates the nature of the entire legal enterprise of prosecuting Nazi war crimes in a rich and thorough way. It is lively, fascinating, and engaging. A must-read for anyone interested in Holocaust history or in the legal prosecution of war crimes in general.
Read
April 6, 2016Review by Jack Fischel for the Jewish Book Council.
November 28, 2016
Probably the definitive account of the Demjanjuk story. Well told with an emphasis on the legal aspects.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews