"Am Yisrael in Israel and throughout the world are waiting for the day when we can make the blessing, 'Baruch she'pataranu' on John Demjanjuk." That remark was made by Rabbi Menachem Porush, long-time askan in the chareidi community, in connection with the highly publicized trial taking place in Germany against the elderly Nazi, John (Ivan the Terrible) Demjanjuk.

Porush said, "Countries all over the world are turning their backs on the Jewish nation. There are countries that totally ignore us. They don't look at history, that is splattered with the blood we shed during the Holocaust. The phenomenon of Holocaust denial is on the rise."

"These days we are seeing a changing trend, as the truth is being exposed before the entire world. The gas chambers that millions of Jews were pushed into. The indescribable horrors that the Jewish people experienced during those terrible years."

With regard to the trial taking place now in Germany, Porush said, "I hope that justice will me met, and the Nazi will receive a fitting sentence."

On Monday this week, the trial against John Demjanjuk opened in a Munich court house. On Tuessday, at the second hearing, prosecutor read the list of charges, which included acting as an accessory in the murder of over 27,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp.

Holocaust survivors who traveled to Munich in order to attend the trial claim that "Demjanjuk is faking poor health" in order to earn the pity of the court. "I am sure he is faking his condition," said Thomas Blatt, an 82-year-old Sobibor survivor from the Netherlands camp who is to give testimony at Demjanjuk's trial. "Yesterday the doctor said he was better now than he was in the United States." Blatt told reporters.

Demjanjuk was brought to the trial by ambulance, in lieu of his poor state of health. Two guards pushed him into the courtroom in a wheelchair, and he was covered with a blanket. Hundreds of journalists congregated inside and outside of the courtroom.