Suspected Nazi Guard John Demjanjuk To Stand Trial

[global1]

Does anybody else besides me find it rather ironic that on this day where the decision was made in the U.S. not to prosecute for torture - that this man - John Demjanjuk - now 89 y/o and in a wheel chair - is wanted by Germany because they are prepared to put him on trial. German prosecutors allege that he was an accessory to mass murder at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland in 1943 during the Second World War some 66 years ago.


Check out this link:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6094255.ece

Bottom line the Germans are embarrassed by what went on in their countries name. They need to prosecute people like Demjanjuk to show the world that there is a rule of law and that they stand behind it. I bet they think that until every last one of these monsters are either prosecuted or dead that Germany will not get back its self-respect and standing in the world community.

The U.S. is faced with a similar situation right now and it looks like the path that we are taking is to overlook these criminal acts and move to the future and put this behind us.

Well for Germany - it is the future - and it still isn't behind them.

The question we need to ask ourselves today is - 66 years from now - will the U.S. still be wanting to gain back its self-respect and standing in the world community.

Let's not wait - Mr. President. Don't push this responsibility on to a future President. Do the right thing - NOW.

[rockymountaindem]

1. The answer to your question has nothing to do with today's decision

Demjanjuk may have participated in the murder of many, many people. The CIA agents in question may have crossed the line in the physical treatment of (I've heard) 28 people, none of whom died. The actions of Demjanjuk and the CIA agents are not comparable in the nature of the breech or their scope.

Where do people get the idea that everything bad that happens is somehow comparable to the Holocaust?

[11cents]

3. There's been no comparison of CIA torture with the Holocaust in terms of scope.

The obvious parallel is in the notion that people who obey illegal orders should be culpable, as well as the people who issue them. (That said, Demjanjuk wasn't just a functionary who was "just obeying orders." He was a Ukrainian who volunteered to work at an extermination camp.)

However, I don't think Germany provides as good a model as the original poster suggests. Germany let people who were responsible for ordering tens and hundreds of thousands of deaths crawl into high positions in government and business in the 1950s and didn't begin its own prosecutions until the 1960s. Even then, only a fraction of criminals were prosecuted, and the ones who were convicted often got short sentences or were released early on bogus "health" and other grounds. And sometimes the judges themselves didn't have clean hands in the Nazi years. So there's some irony in Germany's going hard after the likes of Demjanjuk, as the German press itself has pointed out.

A better model, if we had to choose, would certainly be to prosecute the higher-ups and let the "Demnjanjuks" go. But I don't think Obama has any intention of pressing for those prosecutions, unfortunately. The only way they will happen will be through intense and widespread public pressure, which I also don't see happening.

[stopbush]

2. Isn't this the same guy who was tried in Israel and acquitted of the same charges?

[11cents]

4. No. He was tried in Israel on different charges.

He was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible," a notorious concentration camp guard. The Israeli court found that he was not "Ivan the Terrible" and acquitted him. But he's been proven in a US court to have been a guard at Sobibor, which was an extermination camp. The vast majority of people who arrived there were dead within hours.

[stopbush]

5. OK. Thanks for the info.

[TorchTheWitch]

8. In Israel he was only acquitted on appeal

Incidently, both Treblinka and Sobibor were death camps (although I think Treblinka was both a concentration and extermination camp). Demjanjuk's defense was that he was captured by the Germans and was never at any time an SS Wachman, he remained a prisoner the entire time, and the SS identity paper (Trawniki Certificate) with his photograph was a forgery. However, it has been found more recently that this document is in fact authentic. Based on the SS identity paper for Demjanjuk as well as many other documents he was believed to have been Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka (no witnesses recalled him being at Sobibor, but many including other SS Wachman remembered him at Treblinka). He worked at several camps. Demjanjuk also had a scar under the arm where the SS tattoo was rather obviously removed (apparently, SS Wachman were tattooed as well).

much interesting info here.... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Demjanuk2.html

The SS identity paper (Trawniki Certificate) which has been authenticated:


Close up of the corner photo:



Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka or not (and I still think he is) he was indeed an SS Wachman at several camps, and I have zero sympathy for him.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Yep

The Israeli Supreme Court threw out all the charges and issued an apology.

--d!

[11cents]

7. See above.

He was acquitted in Israel of the "Ivan the Terrible" charges, but his *defense* there was that he couldn't have been Ivan the Terrible (a guard at, I think, Treblinka) because he was a guard at Sobibor. Sobibor was an extermination camp. This guy is not innocent.

[DailyGrind51]

9. Yeah, but Dick Cheney remains free! Go figure?