Posted on 05/12/2011 7:08:48 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
MUNICH — A German court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison on Thursday for his role in the killing of 27,900 Jews at a Nazi death camp.
Lawyers for Ukraine-born Demjanjuk said they would appeal the verdict.
The Munich court found the 91-year-old guilty of being an accessory to mass murder as a guard at Sobibor camp in Poland during the Second World War.
Demjanjuk, who emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, became a naturalized citizen in 1958 and worked as an engine mechanic in Ohio, had been exonerated in a separate Holocaust trial two decades ago in Israel. In that trial he was initially sentenced to death for being the notorious "Ivan the Terrible'' camp guard at Treblinka in Poland, but the ruling was overturned by Israel's supreme court after new evidence exonerated him.
Demjanjuk, who was once top of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most wanted Nazi war criminals, said he was drafted into the Soviet army in 1941 then taken prisoner of war by the Germans.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
The people who were the policy-makers are dead at this point. There comes a time to move on.
And under “Operation Keelhaul,” after the war, the Allies sent thousands of Eastern Bloc civilians and troops back to Stalin where they were often SHOT in front of their British truck drivers before getting off the trucks.
Many of those who knew where they were being sent, plunged their heads through the windows of the barracks in which they were housed and, pressing their throats against the broken glass, slashed their jugular veins, exsanguinating before their guards could react.
When he was with WERE in Cleveland, my late friend Mort Downey, Jr. did HOURS on the John D’s case, implicating the OSI division and Neal Shearer of the Justice Dept. in the persecution of the man, the forged ID card his primary evidence. John was even tried in an ISRAELI court and found not guilty of being Ivan the Terrible.
The moral is DON’T CHALLENGE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT as the truth is no longer a positive defense. If they want you, bend over and kiss your backside gooddbye.
Having said that, except for the DU trolls who lurk here and try to create trouble for FR, most all of us will soon find ourselves on Holder’s Hotsheet.
The guy should have been executed!
You are aware that he had the SS tattoo removed from under his arm. You are aware that he lied on his application to reside in the USA.
Guess some folks are more welcome here than others. But, however. Right!!!!!!!
Do they have proof that he killed even one prisoner, or signed any orders authorizing the killing of any prisoners?
Well it looks like with the light sentence and all he was convicted of being an “accomplice” to the Holocaust by being a guard. Never mind he was a Russian POW impressed into service as a guard at the camp. Kurt Vonnegut was impressed into work details also when he was an American POW (see Slaughterhouse 5). Anybody still alive who “helped” the Third Reich is “guilty” of something, it seems (and except George Soros).
When are the Germans going to indict Soros?
This is just one more example of kicking NAZI’s. We did NOTHING to the Japanese emperor. We did NOTHING to any Soviets including the ones that starved the Ukraine. If we look back at Japan, there was just a hand full of high ups that were charged and punished. There were NONE in the Soviet Union. After about 30 years, do you really want to keep hunting and punishing Nazi’s that are now living an exemplary life? If they discovered Lamps made from Jews in his living room, well, OK, but as far as I know, there was NONE of that in this country. I would rather prosecute Bill Ayres or some Black Panthers or something than waste money on this. I’m sure there are some Viet Nam Vets that are hoping nobody looks into some of their activities during the war. War is BAD! Most people do things they can’t be proud of but are just trying to survive a ridiculous situation. I’m sure it was very tough to be a Nazi guard in a prison camp. Do you do what you are told, or do you risk being shot for treason? In war, many soldiers have the attitude that it sucks to be you. If you are looking for hero’s that stand against the powers, you will find them in the library with books about them and you can visit them in the cemetery. Bonhoeffer comes to mind. It’s great if you can do it, but most don’t. I suggest it was more like what we find in the movie, “The Reader”. What purpose is served by putting a law abiding citizen in prison for his last few years? If I was making a list of people needing prosecution, this wouldn’t even make my top 100. Half of Obama’s cabinet and most of his friends, however........
The Austrians allowed Kurt Waldheim to become their President (after he was Secretary General of the UN).
Great post. Thanks.
And we allowed Klaus Barbie and a bunch of SD types to work for us, get our protection, and escape with forged documentation. Demjanuk was real small fish.
You should change your screen name. Sounds like you've had waaay more than enough beer already.
Scroll down to Neill Macaulay. He died in retirement after a long career as a professor @ UF.
http://www2.fiu.edu/~fcf/yanquifidelistas.html
Then maybe you could explain the German prosecutions of Friedrich Engel, convicted in 2002, Heinrich Boere, convicted in 2010, and Josef Scheungraber, convicted in 2009.
You are quite right.
It is arguable he deserves his punishment.
It is not arguable to claim he wasn’t aggressively pursued far out of proportion to the severity of his “crimes.” Certainly in comparison to the perpetrators of the Soviet and other Communist prison camp systems, which killed a multiple of those killed by the Nazis.
If the claims about his limited options at the time are accurate, I contend none except those who have been in a similar situation and refused to participate in evil have a moral right to condemn him. And my experience is that most of these people, those who manage to survive, don’t feel the need for condemnation of those who are less able to resist.
A German was not forced to join the SS, it was strictly voluntary.
Not true.A family member was married to a man who was drafted into the SS at 16 and sent to the Eastern Front. There were many drafted to fill the ranks of the Waffen SS that was decimated in Russia
Or as the Israelis put it, "So, he was Ivan the Not Quite So Terrible."
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