After three years of fits and starts that included an apparent suicide attempt and various legal challenges, the trial of accused war criminal Ivan Polyukhovich opened last week in Adelaide.
Confronting a jury for the first time on March 18, Polyukhovich, the first Australian charged under 1988 Nazi war crimes legislation, pleaded not guilty to two counts of committing war crimes in 1942 in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.
The case against Polyukhovich has been winnowed down considerably since charges were first brought against him in January 1990. The prosecution originally charged him with 24 counts of murder and participation in 850 other murders.
The case has been affected by the deaths of witnesses.
Last month, two of what were four remaining charges against him were dropped.
Polyukhovich, who has lived in Australia since 1949, had originally been slated to face two trials in the South Australian Supreme Court, the first of which was to have begun March 1.
The director of public prosecutions dropped the charges that would have been heard in the second trial, which alleged that Polyukhovich murdered two Jewish men and a Jewish woman in the Ukrainian village of Serniki.
The remaining charges against him pertain to one individual murder and knowing involvement in the murder of 850 other Jewish villagers.
In the trial’s opening address, prosecuting attorney Greg James accused Polyukhovich of aiding and abetting, or wilful involvement in, the German occupation government’s plan to “exterminate the Jews of Europe.”
The prosecution must prove not only that Polyukhovich committed murder but that he did so as part of a general policy of genocide.
In June and July 1990, Australian authorities exhumed the remains of 407 females, 98 males and 48 bodies which could not be identified by gender, from a burial pit in a forest area outside Serniki.
James said 20 witnesses, former residents of the area, would be called to give evidence about Serniki and the murder of its Jewish population.
The trial is expected to last six weeks.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
