His name is Alexei Vaitsen. He is one of the few Jews to survive the torments of the Nazis' Sobibor death camp and the only member of his family who lived to see the end of World War II.
His thoughts these days are hundreds of miles away, in a distant courtroom where the fate of another sick old man is being weighed. John Demjanjuk, who is accused of being a guard at Sobibor, lay on a bed before a judge in Germany last week because, he said, he was not well enough to sit upright.
In Munich, where Demjanjuk is on trial, other aged prisoners have climbed into the witness box. They described the sadism of the guards, detailed the terrors of gas chambers and talked about Jews being led obliviously to their deaths. None of them could remember Demjanjuk.
Vaitsen says he can.
"It's him. I know him," Vaitsen, 88, says vehemently. "I'm 100% sure."
(My heart as all of our hearts should go out to those who survived or saw love ones killed during the evil of the death camps. Also something from the Bible comes to my mind, "your sins will find you out." A soul can hide from the evil they have done but you can't hide from God. Lets hope justice is done for Vaitsen and others who will never forget the evil they saw in these camps. Read more of the above story For elderly Russian, man accused as camp guard is vivid memory.)
