Posted on 05/01/2009 10:02:59 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
A US federal court has denied former Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk's latest attempt to block extradition to Germany to face charges of aiding in the wartime murder of thousands of Jews. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment on when Mr Demjanjuk would be deported but said the government would continue to seek his removal to Germany. His son said the family is considering an appeal to the US Supreme Court and has also filed a lawsuit in Germany seeking an emergency stay.
The decision is the latest development in a decades-long saga over the elder Demjanjuk's wartime actions. In a dramatic twist last month, the octogenarian won an 11th-hour reprieve when the court stayed his deportation shortly after he was carried out of his Cleveland, Ohio home in a wheelchair to be put on a flight to Munich.
The appeals court on Friday rejected an argument by Mr Demjanjuk's lawyer that his client is in such poor health that jailing and trying him in Germany would cause him pain amounting to torture.
Born in Ukraine in 1920, John Demjanjuk was a soldier in the Red Army when he was captured by the Nazis in the spring of 1942. He was trained at Treblinka in Nazi-occupied Poland and served two years in the camps of Sobibor and Majdanek, also in occupied Poland, and in Flossenburg in Bavaria, southern Germany. He has always insisted he was forced to work for the Nazis and had been mistaken by survivors for other cruel guards. He immigrated to the United States in 1952 with his family, settling in Ohio, where he found work in the car industry.
Condemned to death in Israel in 1988 after he was convicted of being the sadistic "Ivan the Terrible", the verdict was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court because of doubts about his identity. He was returned to the United States over strenuous objections from Holocaust survivors and Jewish groups, who argued there was sufficient evidence that he served as a death camp guard to warrant another trial.
In 1999, the US government filed new charges using fresh evidence that surfaced following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he was stripped of his US citizenship in 2002. Germany issued a warrant for his arrest on 11 March on charges of assisting in the murder of 29,000 Jews.
Copyright © 2009 Radio New Zealand
He was not “Ivan the Terrible”, but one of the many nameless run of the mill camp guards. He probably should have been served a lead sandwich right after the war, but wasn’t... he was allowed to go free... as were countless other Nazis much higher up the food chain.
John Demjanjuk was almost certainly NOT “Ivan the Terrible.”
He was almost certainly an SS guard at a prison camp. Whether he should be deported and tried in Germany, given his poor medical condition, is debatable.
I know Christian men that were held as POWs in Japan. Why aren’t we going after all these Japanese after all these years? The Japs were even more brutal than the Germans.
Is it because Christian are forgiving and the Jews haven’t learned that part yet?
I really don’t know the answer. I just find it an interesting observation that Americans are trying to put old Japanese men up on trial.
Did they ever punish the Jews who joined the police force that helped the Nazis keep Jews in line? I heard they were hated by their fellow Jews but I never heard of them being prosecuted after the war.
I meant to post:
I just find it an interesting observation that Americans are “NOT” trying to put old Japanese men up on trial.
It’s Germany that wants him this time, but I understand your point.
You and I agree on this one, Chet 99. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned his verdict because there were serious doubts about his identity. I can’t see that there is anything to be gained by going through a trial again.
This man may be innocent and he may not. No human being on this earth is going to be able to prove it one way or another. God will be the judge and jury.
What really is the point of sending a bed ridden man that far from his home and family? Is he really a danger to anyone? Can’t they try him via camera/internet and if he is infact guilty then send him then?
Yes, “they” did.
“During the Holocaust memorial ceremony in Brighton Beach last June, each of the neighborhood’s synagogues sent forth one of its faithful to light a candle. A stooped old man named Jacob Tannenbaum represented Temple Beth El, and those who attended the service recall that as he lit the wick he began to cry. And so did the friends who knew that Mr. Tannenbaum himself was a survivor, the sole survivor from a family of 12.
Now the same Mr. Tannenbaum is accused by Federal authorities of wartime atrocities; of viciously beating his fellow prisoners while serving as a kapo, or overseer, in a forced-labor camp. The Justice Department has moved to rescind the 75-year-old Mr. Tannenbaum’s citizenship in the first step toward potential deportation. Only three times before has the United States charged a Jew with collaborating with the Nazis, and only once was the man ordered out of the country.”
This story should serve as a template for stories we’ll be reading in the year 2050 about Talibs we caught back in ‘02 and didn’t summarily execute.
The Israeli Supreme Court issued an opinion that was almost a thousand pages and they thought long and hard about whether it’d be just to try him for being some third rate camp guard after finding him not guilty of being one of the most notorious/evil death camp guards. They concluded in the negative, which is good enough for me...
BUT, if he lied his way into the country to obtain US Citizenship, I don’t see why the passage of time or his age should make a difference. Liberals make the same argument about amnesty for illegal Mexicans who have been here for decades.
I wouldn’t tag Demjanjuk as “bed-ridden”. He appears to be in fairly good health for his age. The family has used health issues for several years as a reason not to do this...which is curious...if the guy isn’t the guilty party, then put the evidence on the table. Several sources have said that at best...he was simply a guard there, and nothing else. If I were the family, I’d be pushing those comments instead.
Most analysts will agree that we are just about at the tailend of WW II and its enormous influence on our lives. The guys who fought in the war are dying. The guilty parties are dying. The political figures of minor consequence still left...are dying. Within a few years, we will have no more debates on this topic, and simply move on.
“BUT, if he lied his way into the country to obtain US Citizenship, I don’t see why the passage of time or his age should make a difference. Liberals make the same argument about amnesty for illegal Mexicans who have been here for decades.”
Did he? Lie his way into our country? I have only read that he immigrated to this country and found work.
He lied on his citizenship application and on his residency application. That is the root and branch of the problem.
If he had not lied, he may have been admitted even so, and we would not be having this discussion now.
He did lie. You don’t get to lie on your citizenship application.
Yeah, he did. He presented himself as a concentration camp victim.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25368834-2703,00.html
He did lie, which is why his citizenship was revoked. He’s not being extradited to Germany - he’s to be deported.
No different than sending an illegal alien back to Mexico.
We deport John Demjanjuk but let George Soros stay here. What kind of screwed up priorities are those?
Thank you both for the info. And thank you, Spktyr, for the link as well.
Didn’t realize he was an illegal. I’ll sure read up on the rest of his story.
No, the US Gov’t let it go because they did not want undue attention brought to those events by a large war crimes trial. Personally, given Imperial Japan’s atrocities, the trials should have been held.
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