The World - News from March 12, 1987

An Israeli court was told that John Demjanjuk defended Ukrainian prisoners of war who collaborated with the invading Germans in World War II. Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born auto worker extradited from Cleveland, is on trial in Jerusalem on charges that he is the brutal Treblinka death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.” An Israeli police interrogator, who disguised himself as a prison guard to try to elicit information from Demjanjuk, testified that Demjanjuk told him: “I was prepared to die for a loaf of bread. Can you imagine Germans suddenly coming up to you and saying: ‘Come with us.’ Who could refuse? How can you put someone on trial for that?”