Demjanjuk raus!

[scandal 951]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/world/eu.../12germany.html

Man Accused of Crimes at a Nazi Camp Is Deported

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: May 11, 2009

BERLIN — John Demjanjuk of Seven Hills, Ohio, born Ivan Demjanjuk in Ukraine in 1920, was deported for the second time by the United States on Monday, accused of crimes committed as a Nazi death-camp guard.

The first time was 23 years ago, and he was bound for worldwide notoriety, accused of being the unfathomably cruel “Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka,” one of the Holocaust’s most infamous sadists. He was convicted and sentenced to death in Israel, before new evidence won him a reprieve and eventually a trip back to the United States and the return of his stripped citizenship.

But the wheels of justice began to grind again, and the whole process has repeated itself step by step. Monday night, a frailer Mr. Demjanjuk, now 89 and once again stateless, boarded a special medically equipped airplane, this time bound for Germany, federal officials said, where he is accused of being an accessory in the murder of 29,000 Jews while working as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in eastern Poland.

Investigators say that the documentary evidence is strong and that they will be able to prove that Mr. Demjanjuk was a living cog in a killing factory, where some 250,000 people were put to death in just one and a half years of operation. His son, John Demjanjuk Jr., says that his father, an old man with bone-marrow and kidney diseases, is being hounded by the United States Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations and German prosecutors in an inhumane fashion.

Mr. Demjanjuk’s guilt will be decided in a Munich courtroom, assuming he lives long enough and is deemed fit to stand trial. But throughout the recent months of courtroom battles over appeals and stays of deportation, the gulf between the enormity of the crimes Mr. Demjanjuk is accused of and the frail old man he is now has grown more apparent.

Ultimately Mr. Demjanjuk’s advanced age and poor health serve as reminders, regardless of the outcome in court, of how the living memory of the crimes committed during World War II is on the verge of disappearing. Mr. Demjanjuk’s case might well be the last major war crimes trial in Germany, marking the end of an era that began in Nuremberg in 1945.

Thomas Blatt, 82, who was a prisoner at Sobibor at the same time Mr. Demjanjuk has been accused of having worked there as a guard, said the trial itself was more important than meting out any punishment. “I don’t care if he is released; I do care about his testimony,” said Mr. Blatt, who now lives in California and has written two books about his experiences. “There’s many people right now who say the Holocaust never happened.”

Mr. Blatt said he did not remember Mr. Demjanjuk from Sobibor, but he pointed out that he also could not recall the faces of his parents who were killed at the death camp along with his younger brother. Mr. Blatt was one of the few prisoners to escape Sobibor, in an uprising there in October 1943.

Mr. Demjanjuk was a soldier in the Soviet Army, fighting against the Germans, until he was captured in the Crimea in 1942. Mr. Demjanjuk says he spent most of the remainder of the war as a prisoner. But according to prosecutors, he went to an SS training camp in Trawniki, Poland, where foreign nationals were trained to take part in the Holocaust.

After the war, Mr. Demjanjuk moved to the United States, where he became an autoworker and raised a family. But in 1977, several Holocaust survivors identified him as Ivan the Terrible.

Mr. Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death by an Israeli court in 1988.

But the conviction was overturned in 1993, and he was freed by Israel’s Supreme Court after evidence surfaced suggesting that another man was most likely Ivan the Terrible. An identity card from Trawniki indicates that Mr. Demjanjuk was sent to serve at Sobibor.

His family has maintained his innocence throughout the three-decade legal odyssey. “Now at the age of 89, when alleged witnesses are now dead, he’s faced with having to defend himself again, when with the pain and suffering he’s no longer capable,” his son said on Monday in a telephone interview. “You would have thought that after the mistake they made in nearly sending him to the gallows, they would have just let this go.”

The United States Supreme Court declined to hear Mr. Demjanjuk’s latest appeal last week, and a Berlin court declined an appeal on Monday.

“The only reason not to put someone like Demjanjuk on trial is if he is not capable to stand trial,” said Cornelius Nestler, a professor of criminal law at the University of Cologne, who is advising possible co-plaintiffs in the case. “I think in the same way that the grief of the people who left their parents, very often their whole family, in Sobibor will not be over until their death, the responsibility of the people who did it will not be over until they’re dead.”

[jundp 191]

Ultimately Mr. Demjanjuk’s advanced age and poor health serve as reminders, regardless of the outcome in court, of how the living memory of the crimes committed during World War II is on the verge of disappearing. Mr. Demjanjuk’s case might well be the last major war crimes trial in Germany, marking the end of an era that began in Nuremberg in 1945.

So true.

Edited May 12, 2009 by jundp

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Anyone seen that movie, "The Reader"? I could say they would make a movie out of this but they already did.

[jundp 191]

Ooh, Flower, I saw that in Berlin in March! It was disturbing, but good. I hear the book is even better (isn't it always?).

I just re-read the article again and read the earlier posted one by Nagi. I do hope the truth comes out.

[Nagishkaw 510]

0ne day he will face his maker. That will be the Final Solution in his case.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I'm just not convinced this guy is "Ivan the Terrible"

A lot of holes in the story

[scandal 951]

I'm just not convinced this guy is "Ivan the Terrible"

A lot of holes in the story

He is not being accused of being Ivan the Terrible at Treblinka. The charge is that he was a guard at Sobibor. This was explicitly stated:

he is accused of being an accessory in the murder of 29,000 Jews while working as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in eastern Poland

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I'm just not convinced this guy is "Ivan the Terrible"

A lot of holes in the story

He is not being accused of being Ivan the Terrible at Treblinka. The charge is that he was a guard at Sobibor. This was explicitly stated:

he is accused of being an accessory in the murder of 29,000 Jews while working as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in eastern Poland

Wel,, yeah because they failed to establish that in the first trial because of lack of evidence. By Israeli Supreme Court no less. It's still not clear to me what the nature of his alleged crimes are...possibly he was a collaborater of some sort, most likely he was forced to do things he may not have willingly done once he was captured as a prisoner of war.

Like I say, too many holes and lack of conclusive evidence.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Has any poster in this thread been accused of being a Nazi yet?

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Has any poster in this thread been accused of being a Nazi yet?

stfu, undercover nazi

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

So that's a yes.

[jundp 191]

Has any poster in this thread been accused of being a Nazi yet?

We were waiting for you.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

[Bobby+Umit 161]

0ne day he will face his maker. That will be the Final Solution in his case.

or he can repent now and be on easy street...

[Peikko 1,575]

He'll die, we all do. There will be on recompense for those that died at his hand, if indeed they did.