A court heard for the first time horrendous details of murders allegedly committed or abetted by the first Australian charged with war crimes in Europe during World War II.
Ivan Polyukovich, a 75-year-old retired pensioner and naturalized Australian citizen, has been charged with killing 24 Jewish men, women and children after mass killings by Nazis in and around the village of Serniki, in the Ukraine, between September 1942 and May 1943.He has also been charged with being involved in the mass killings in 1942 in which another 553 to 850 others died.
Prosecutor Greg James told the court Monday evidence would be produced that Polyukovich had been a prewar forest ranger who joined a police force set up by the Nazis after they invaded the Ukraine.
He said witnesses would tell the court that in September 1942 Polyukovich took part in the march of a large number of Jews from a ghetto in his home village of Serniki.
The Jews were shot over a 12-hour period and thrown into a mass grave in a nearby forest, which was filled in later in the day by 100 conscripted villagers.
Witnesses are expected to tell how they escaped from the ghetto after being tipped off that the massacre would occur, only to be hunted down and confronted by Polyukovich.