The Demjanjuk Farce: Germany Prepares a Show Trial
Peons like Demjanjuk are targeted, while authentic Nazi war criminals live comfortably in Germany.
“The smallest of the small fish.” This is how the Dutch law professor Christian F. Rüter has described John Demjanjuk and his role in the Nazi death camp system. Rüter is the co-editor of the projected 50 volume Justiz und NS-Verbrechen or “Nazi Crimes on Trial,” a comprehensive collection of trial judgments handed down by German courts in Nazi capital crimes cases. Once upon a time, it was thought that Demjanjuk, born Ivan Demjanjuk in Ukraine, was “Ivan the Terrible,” a particularly sadistic Ukrainian guard at Treblinka. Israel even tried and convicted Demjanjuk for the crimes of Ivan. And then released him five years later after evidence emerged that Demjanjuk had been a victim of mistaken identity: he was not that Ivan, after all. “Nobody would pay any attention to Demjanjuk,” Rüter told the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) , “If the rumor had not stuck to him that he was ‘Ivan the Terrible’ — which he demonstrably is not.”
Even the very description of Demjanjuk as a suspected “Nazi war criminal” is misleading — to say nothing of the wildly exaggerated ranking of him as the “number one” Nazi war crime suspect. In the sense that every cog in the machinery of the Nazi camp system was somehow involved, Demjanjuk may well have been involved in Nazi war crimes. Based solely upon the evidence of an identity card whose authenticity has long been contested, German investigators claim that he served as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp. But even if this should be true, Demjanjuk was not a Nazi, much less an SS man, as is commonly suggested. Demjanjuk was in fact himself a Red Army soldier who was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1942 and interred at a Soviet POW camp at Chelm in occupied Poland. If Demjanjuk served the Germans at all, he did so as a so-called SS “Hilfswilliger,” which is to say, a “volunteer helper” of the SS.
Moreover, the “voluntary” character of these “volunteers” must be regarded as a highly relative matter. The brutality displayed by the Germans to Soviet prisoners of war is legendary. In keeping with the Nazi disdain for Slavs — or Slavic “sub-humans,” as the Nazis labeled them — captured Red Army soldiers were notoriously permitted to starve to death. It is estimated that over half of the Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans died in captivity. According to Friedrich Schmidt writing in the FAZ, investigators “are convinced that Demjanjuk offered his services as a so-called volunteer helper in order to save himself from starvation.” Indeed, the very fact that Demjanjuk is alive is regarded as proof of the falsity of his claim that he remained a simple POW, since “the conditions at Chelm suggest that he could not have survived there for so long.”
So why does Germany appear intent on trying Demjanjuk of all people? Why try a foreigner who was conscripted into service by the Germans under desperate circumstances and who is alleged to have participated in crimes that occurred on foreign soil? (Or do German prosecutors believe that the German occupation of Poland was legitimate and that the German so-called “Generalgouvernement” over Polish territory is still in place?) Germany’s pursuit of Demjanjuk creates the impression that Germany is extraordinarily thorough about prosecuting Nazi war crimes. And this indeed must be the point of the exercise — because the reality could hardly be more different.
Since the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the German courts and the German legislature have displayed incredible indulgence toward Nazi war criminals, transforming the territory of the Federal Republic (i.e., from 1949-1990 “West Germany”) into a more or less safe haven for them. The Nazis in question are, however, Germans and hence real Nazis and not merely imaginary ones like John Demjanjuk.
As Christian Rüter has pointed out, it has in fact been the express policy of the German authorities responsible for the prosecution of Nazi crimes to refrain as a rule from bringing charges against “small takers-of-orders”: “like, for instance, members of firing squads [Erschießungskommandos].” The latter specification is included in a 1959 judgment of the District Court of Bielefeld. It should be underscored that it refers, of course, to Germans — i.e., persons who were unquestionably above the likes of John Demjanjuk in the command hierarchy and whose direct participation in murder is known. Millions of Jews and Soviet communist officials were killed by such “firing squads” on the Eastern Front: most notably, by the infamous SS Einsatzgruppen.
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John Rosenthal’s writings on European politics and transatlantic relations have appeared in English, French, and German in such leading publications as Policy Review, Les Temps Modernes, and Merkur. He holds a PhD in philosophy and he taught political philosophy and classical German philosophy before turning to journalism. More of his work can be found at Transatlantic Intelligencer.
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55 Comments
1. Dave:The real reason for all this? Cowardice.
Harmless people are hounded no end simply because they are harmless.
Harmful people are given the widest possible berth.
May 21, 2009 - 1:49 am 2. J. B.:The United States hounds Demjanjuk on the basis of what may well beforged information and, yet, George Soros brags that he put stuffed Jews and Gypsies into cattle cars going to Auschwitz and nothing is done. Must be nice to be rich
May 21, 2009 - 3:18 am 3. don:The German Army Infantry school, in Hammelburg has two quiet courtyards, surrounded by stone walls and (as they were in 83′) covered in grass. One contains the mass grave of thousands of Czech POW’s, the other, the mass grave of thousands of Russian POW’s. Both have small brass plaques as “Denkmals” (”Memorials”). Those of you who watched “Hogans Heroes” during the 60’s remember “Hammelburg” being mentioned often, it (and Dresden) had the highest percentages of POW camps in Germany proper. To volunteer to be a “Hiwi” was a chance to improve ones chances of survival and (for the Ukrainians and other ethnic minorities) a chance to get back at the earlier oppressors, the Soviets. In Bad Toelz (again during the early 80’s) a good percentage of the civilian employees at Flint Kaserne were Russian and Ukrainian “Refugees” from the war (at least 5 of them were “Hiwis” or Vlasov Soldiers), the others? A good percentage of them were former SS (”we were the Fire Brigade”) and (of course) none of them fought against the Americans, all of them fought only the Russians . . . ?) The writer names 7 former SS that participated in a mass killing in Italy, maybe a better question about them is why are the Italians not requesting their extradition?
Is there any real documentation of Soros’ betrayal other than rumor and innuendo? I would hope the story is not true (in spite of my opposition to his efforts), but if it is . . . ideology makes for strange bedfellows.
May 21, 2009 - 4:04 am 4. Fragmentarian:Many Ukranians jumped at the chance to get back at the Russians. They had good reason. Stalin’s and Soviet war crimes and crimes against humanity barely get mentioned and mostly go unpunished, as well. Both the the Germans and Russians protect and cover up some horrendous crimes and criminals. This tragedy apparently will never end and, daily, threatens to happen again.
May 21, 2009 - 5:31 am 5. Dan:So, tell me Mr. Rosenthal, should or shouldn’t Demjanjuk be put on trial? I read the article but I still don’t know what your point is vis-a-vis Demjanjuk. I get it that there are bigger fish but was Demjanjuk involved in even some small way? If so then he should be put on trial. I don’t care if he was a Hiwi. Having so been means only that he made a (sort of) Faustian bargain and it’s time to pay up. IF he was involved in the operation of a death camp then he should be put on trial and IF found guilty pay the consequences. How can you justify your arguement of going after the big fish if you’re not willing to filet the small ones? But perhaps I misunderstood your arguement (as I stated above).
May 21, 2009 - 6:06 am 6. Paul from Hamburg:This is a good article. One other point needs to be emphasized. As a Ukrainian in the Red Army, he already was virtually a prisoner. Prior to WWII, The Ukraine was an occupied nation just as much as Poland. As a young man, Demjanjuk was subject to regime every bit as brutal as the Nazis. I find it very hard to condemn anyone in his situation who might have seen the Nazi Germany as a better alternative to the Soviet Union.
May 21, 2009 - 6:17 am 7. Crass Boersting:Bad luck for Demjanuk that he became a visible and recognizable figure.
The Germans should have cleaned their own stables decades ago. Then they might have the right to persecute an octogenarian who was problably nothing but the lowest ranking forced labourer in their WW2 death machinery.
Shame on the Germans, now again and for ever.
May 21, 2009 - 6:55 am 8. vb:I find it interesting that there so much effort is placed on finding war criminals in the US. Has there been similar interest in finding people in South America? Or is this an attempt to show that our hands are not clean either?
OT: Germans are finally admitting that their reluctance to take Uyghurs in Guantanamo has to do with unwillingness to upset the Chinese. Apparently, the fate of those poor innocent detainees weighs less in the equation than German-Chinese trade relations.
May 21, 2009 - 9:02 am 9. Garyj:If he is not Ivan the Terrible he should not be prosecuted. I remember many years ago after being taken to Israel it was disproved. Have they found new evidence that he was this brutal guard? If so he should be prosecuted if not he is a victim of the new Jewish religion holocaustism.Justice is paramount but if he isn’t Ivan the Terrible they should go after the ones who are the real danger like the ones who were captured yesterday. It’s funny how the ones who claim to represent Judaism show great bravado going after the real and imaginary remnants of the Nazis yet mollify and appease Islamic fanatics at every chance.
May 21, 2009 - 9:07 am 10. Dave:I was in Cleveland when Demjanjuk was first ‘discovered’.. he is a harmless old man trying to survive another year of a miserable life.. Soros is far guiltier than Demjanjuk of making Jews suffer and making the Nazis’ jobs easier.
TRY GEORGE SOROS. arrest him, charge him, try him. He has admitted his crimes. He might have been only 14, but he darn sure knew what he was doing, and practically brags about it now.
May 21, 2009 - 10:38 am 11. lisa:To # 4 and # 6:
Shame on you
May 21, 2009 - 10:38 am 12. MiamaMan:Again, I ask the same question…So, tell me Mr. Rosenthal, should or shouldn’t Demjanjuk be put on trial?
All the excuses in the world, whether this or that other, more responsible, person, was never brought to trial brings us to the fact that life is not fair and each case should be tried on its own merits. But we should not go to the length of dismissing a guilty person because of that.
Now, it is obvious that Ivan Demjanjuk was not Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka, and that was Israel Perosecutor’s mistake, rightly corrected by Israel Supreme Court 5 years later.
No, the question is whether he was a Sobibor guard, which Demjanjuk emphatically denies. Why deny that? Ukrainian Sobibor guard Danilchenko, now deceased, twice stated Demjanjuk was not only a guard, but a purposeful one who drove the Jews into the gas chambers. Moreover, why he mentioned the little town of Sobibor (a few houses only)in Poland, as a placed he lived once when he entered the US if he is from the Ukraine? Finally, there is the incriminating SS card that identifies him with his photo as a Trawniki man and places him in SOBIBOR.
I talked on the phone with one of the few survivors of the Sobibor revolt, 83-year-old Thomas Blatt, who was 15 then. He traveled from California to Munich and is now waiting to testify at the trial. He does not remember Demjanjuk (nor the face of his father after 60 years), there were over 120 Ukrainian guards. He does not care whether he goes to jail, but he believes there a lot that he can say that we yet do not know. Check this article from Der Spiegel on this subject:
May 21, 2009 - 11:10 am 13. Themistocles:http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html
#11 Lisa:
I read #4 and #6 twice after seeing your comment. What, exactly, did either one say that prompted you to judge them so harshly… and not say one word about the convicted criminal George Soros?
May 21, 2009 - 12:11 pm 14. whataloadacrap08:In Japan Demjanuk would be considered an honored war veteran with a space allotted to him in the Yasukuni Shrine no less. Modern day Germans have an exaggerated sense of war guilt while their Japanese counterparts have no sense of guilt at all. Want to really ruffle some feathers? Put the Mitsubishi and/or Toyota corporation on trial for using allied soldiers as slave labor, some to the point of death. Whoop-de-Doo for my Subaru, huh?
May 21, 2009 - 1:39 pm 15. RW:It’s utterly ridiculous to pursue a man for decades and trump up new charges when the double jeopardy charges have already failed. That a psycho like Soros walks around unscathed for all his criminality is amazing.
The Soviets supplied plenty of falsified evidence against Demjanuk and failed. That evidence was used by the US based OSI and they have determined to get their pound of flesh regardless of the truth. If you were rumored to sell shoelaces to a German concentration camp you are at risk.
Apparently, real Nazi war criminals are allowed to live in peace in Germany. That’s unforgivable.
And #11 Lisa, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are no different than these other people calling for blood. Anyone’s blood. But you are proud to align behind the endless hearsay to destroy this US citizen. It’s appalling what he’s been through.
Hope the Germans are exposed and shamed for their hypocrisy. This has nothing to do with justice.
May 21, 2009 - 2:09 pm 16. blackminorca:When do we get trials for the Soviet crimes against humanity?
Demajanjuk is being railroaded by Leftists that want to insure that the world never recognize the LEFTIST genocide of 100 million in the last century.
Demjanjuk is a 1933 Holodomor survivor- when the communists killed more in Ukraine than all the soldiers killed in WWI. Duranty started the coverup and now other leftists continue the effort – in this case by slandering the victims of Communist genocide as “nazis” – thus the spectacle in Spiegel of the absurd notion that the only remaining nazis are Ukes, Poles, or Balts.
Demjanjuk has never denied becoming a guard NEAR Sobibor but he has always denied being in ANY concentration camp. As a POW, there was a 50/50 chance he would die but as a volunteer, he could fight the communists who killed 100 million in the last century and survive.
Why did he “lie” to get into the US? It is because the “honest” Ukrainians were killed by the millions when the leftist Roosevelt (who partied with Duranty in 1933 when Roosevelt recognized the communists and Duranty got a Pulitzer for covering up the Holodomor)sent Ukrainian refugees back to Stalin and certain death.
http://cybercossack.com/?p=1267
May 21, 2009 - 4:57 pm 17. MiamaMan:Come on you guys…
16. blackminorca: “Demjanjuk has never denied becoming a guard NEAR Sobibor but he has always denied being in ANY concentration camp.”
What are you saying? there was nothing to guard for a Trawniki man near Sobibor, a hamlet of a few houses. When his SS card states Sobibor, it is the death camp where 250,000 Jews and a few hundred Gypsies were murdered, and nothing else, either he was there or was not, not NEAR. Then why Danilchenko, a fellow Ukrainian who admitted being a guard at Sobibor placed him there?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html
2) 15. RW: It’s utterly ridiculous to pursue a man for decades and trump up new charges when the double jeopardy charges have already failed.
RW, double jeopardy applies to the same country, Israel and Germany are 2 different countries. Israel became greedy and made a mistake as this guy is not Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka. Is he Ivan Demjanjuk from Sobibor?
3) 13. Themistocles:
#11 Lisa: I read #4 and #6 twice after seeing your comment. What, exactly, did either one say that prompted you to judge them so harshly…
Why do you criticize Lisa? she was right on shaming both #4 and #6, who are trying to justify and unjustifiable crime. Check Thoma Blatt, there were a few Ukrainian guards that were not bad, but the majority were animals when they did not have to excel like that.
4) Again RW: And #11 Lisa, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are no different than these other people calling for blood. Anyone’s blood.
SHAME ON YOU! Tell that to Thomas Blatt, who saw when the Nazis at Sobibor took her 7-year-old sister Tzipora and her mother to the gas chamber the same day they arrived from Izsbica, and later saw his father die also at Sobibor.
May 21, 2009 - 6:32 pm 18. RW:http://www.amazon.com/Sobibor-Forgotten-Revolt-Survivors-Report/dp/0964944200/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242955921&sr=8-2
Double jeopardy as a concept is applicable no matter how many countries one drums up to pursue “new charges.” It’s utterly pathetic this no name little guy is being framed over and over as someone of merit who had a hand somehow someway in a concentration camp.
Those camps had pencils. Round up any pencil supplier! It’s the same garbage.
Meanwhile as Mr. Rosenthal has nobly pointed out, the real Nazis sit comfortably inside Germany while a peon is being used again (exactly how long has this witch hunt been underway now) to absolve the guilty Nazis and the real Soviet murderers with blood on their hands.
It’s an utter disgrace. And there are plenty here in the US who were a party to this injustice. The OSI has been cooking the books with falsified Soviet supplied evidence for years on this man.
Some people need to be in jail for that fiasco. Instead they’ve drummed up new charges against Demjanjuk over and over and over again. Where are the charges against these OSI people who framed this guy?
More dead witnesses and those far into their later years all ready to point the finger (again) and put this man on death row. What a disgrace. There is no justice in the US sadly except for the money men like Soros. He’s back to his ugly business of undermining this nation’s Constitution with his Manchurian Candidate ways.
Well now we see how the double jeopardy game is played. Just keep trying someone over and over and export them somewhere else until you get the required result.
And then reference someone who’s suffered a loss as your defense. Erect those straw men. Gee, that Obama disease is getting around nicely now isn’t it.
May 21, 2009 - 7:04 pm 19. blackminorca:“Check Thoma Blatt”
Oh you mean the guy that is trying to sell his book that bashes Demjanjuk for being a Nazi guard… but then he failed to ID Demjanjuk from a line up?
So now his excuse is that “It was such a long time ago and I dont even remember what my parents looked like”. He was 15 when he was in the camp – how could he forget what his parents looked like! How could he forget what the murderer of 29000 looked like when his book describes in great detail his every day at the camp.
Demjanjuk was a guard – of an assortment of fields and forests that were a distance away from the camp. This was WWII when sentrys were posted everywhere.
May 21, 2009 - 8:09 pm 20. Mary:Who is going to prosecute the Jews complicit in the Judenrat?
May 21, 2009 - 11:34 pm 21. Hank:Fine! But John Rosenthal avoids answering the key question: Should Demjanjuk be put on trial or not? If not – why not? Because he was just a small fish a “semi-sadistic guard”? How do you know that without a trail (there seem to be some new evidences)
And who do you mean with “the Germans”? The Jewish community? The ones that spend their whole life finding evidences to bring those Nazis to the court (like the famous prosecutor Fritz Bauer) or the ones that have always tried to silence those voices from the past?
Everyone with the slightest sense for history knows that in the past 60 years only two countries were continuously doing something profound to trial nazi-criminals: In the first place Israel – followed by the Federal Republic of Germany. Not the USSR, not the USA, not France, not East-Germany.
BTW: “It´s easy to condemn Wernher von Braun after he has brought people to the moon”
In other words: You can’t ignore the historical context if you want to explain why some Nazis have been reintegrated into society. It was more than simple hypocrisy – that`s the legacy of the cold war and the fear of covering up unpleasant facts (like collaboration)
May 22, 2009 - 1:23 am 22. MiamaMan:19. blackminorca:
1) Blackie, I know Mr. Blatt, and talk to him on the telephone, he ain’t trying to put together any book on this. Check your sources. There has never been a line up either. You are making stuff up.
“Demjanjuk was a guard – of an assortment of fields and forests that were a distance away from the camp. This was WWII when sentrys were posted everywhere.”
Really, check your history sir…there was nothing to guard around Sobibor at that time, but Sobibor itself.
20. Mary:
Who is going to prosecute the Jews complicit in the Judenrat?
2) I don’t know, I don’t think this trial has anything to do with the different Judenrats…do you? Let each trial stand on its own merits. Were crimes committed involving the Judenrats? Yes, more than likely, but…May be you want to write a book on the subject.
18. RW: “Double jeopardy as a concept is applicable no matter how many countries one drums up to pursue “new charges.”
No, my friend, come on, the American court decided Demjanjuk was extraditable to 3 countries: Germany, Poland, and/or Ukraine. Germany claimed the privilege. Notice that neither of these 3 countries is Israel, so double jeopardy is out of the question.
Finally, RW, your last statement:
“Gee, that Obama disease is getting around nicely now isn’t it.”
Pal, first, for your information:
a) I ain’t Jew. I am just a student of “Aktion Reinhard”, the operation under SS Gruppenfuhrer Odilo Globocnik, including Sobibor, am in contact with expert Michael Tregenza in Lublin, retired Scotland Yard inspector O’Neil in England, and then Mr. Blatt. That’s it.
b) I am a full-blooded conservative and voted for McCain (least than 2 “weavels”) and oppose almost all Obama’s policies…
So, what Obama has to do with this trial?
May 22, 2009 - 4:55 am 23. blackminorca:“Blackie, I know Mr. Blatt, and talk to him on the telephone, he ain’t trying to put together any book on this…You are making stuff up.”
1) You can call me Black Minorca Pullets.
2) You must know a different Mr Blatt or you have aquired Sobibor’s Blatt’s affinity for lies as he most certainly is selling a book slandering Mr Demjanjuk – though he failed to
identify him in a photo line up.
You read how Blatt admitted that he could not ID Demjanjuk – well that is not what he says in his book:
“The Ukrainian collaborators also went into hiding after the war. Only a few were ever caught…One of them named Ivan Demjanjuk was a guard in Sobibor…”
http://sobibor.info/murderers.html
Unbelievably, to cover up this missive, Blatt concocted the lie that neither could he remember his parents – though he recalls in great detail in the book the day he arrived at the age of 15 at the camp with his parents.
3) Nothing in Sobibor to guard besides the camp? You should have google mapped Sobibor and see that it is on the Bug River which is the border of Poland, Russia and Ukraine. This is a MAIN invasion route for centuries – even Napolean invaded this area.
Here is a battle map from 1939 – it is VERY obvious that the Nazis would post sentrys on the border of Poland and Russia.
http://felsztyn.tripod.com/id19.html
You will note that the center of the invasion is Lublin and Sobibor is just due east in a forested area that would provide cover for any attack.
Demjanjuk’s claim that he guarded this frontier just prior to another Russian invasion is not only plausible but to be expected.
May 22, 2009 - 6:51 am 24. The Conservative Conservative:The typical behavior of the World’s elite.
May 22, 2009 - 6:54 am 25. RW:Obama was raised because he is the king of using straw men to prop up against the nearest wall for him to use all the time. That’s the reference you didn’t comprehend pal.
This witch hunt should have ended years ago with the prosecution of OSI officials who eagerly partook of the falsified evidence to take out Ivan the Terrible who they expressed with 100% certainty was John Demjanjuk.
This garbage has been going on for years. There were plenty of witnesses claiming it was fact and now we have the same people on the endless witch hunt saying, we are 100% certain we have it correct now.
It’s utter b.s.
Even if the guy was a guard, there’s no evidence to suggest he had a hand in doing anything other than guarding a fence. And guarding a fence sure beat being starved to death as was done to many others in similar circumstances.
So pal, being a jew has nothing to do with it. It has to do with American justice. John Demjanjuk as an American citizen had his rights trampled on by people just like you that conclude his guilt based on one supposition. Now it’s that he was a guard somewhere else. More of the same pal. You and your OSI friends will be facing a nice day in hell soon for your eagerness to have this man’s blood.
Keep studying pal. You are likely to find new ways to justify the ends. If that’s what they call education today, spare me your pious diatribes and ugly racism. The only one saying anything about being a jew was you.
That Mr. Rosenthal pointed out how many true Nazis are available for prosecution that will never happen is more telling than anything posted by MiamiMan.
Last, I ain’t your pal buddy.
May 22, 2009 - 10:18 am 26. MiamaMan:25. RW
Hey Pally RW, thanks for the diatribe, keep studying Pal.
Blackie, sure you know more than me, you really “pullets” my leg. Napolean did it alright.
May 22, 2009 - 2:06 pm 27. Charles R. Williams:For all I know Demjanjuk is guilty of terrible crimes. Can he get a fair trial after 65 years? How can Germany try him for crimes committed in Poland?
Demjanjuk was born in the Kiev region of Ukraine. Fully 25% of the people in this district died in the Stalinist famine in the early 30’s – when Demjanjuk was about 13. The Soviet Union was not a signatory to international conventions concerning the treatment of POWs. German POWs and Soviet POWs suffered slave labor conditions as a result and many died of starvation and abuse. Many Ukrainians viewed the Nazis as liberators for historically understandable reasons.
When the war ended all Soviet prisoners who survived were viewed as traitors and sent to slave labor camps in the Gulag, where most died. Many people lied to the immigration authorities to avoid the fate of those who were repatriated.
Now how many Holocaust survivors have been tried and punished for collaborating with the Nazis when refusing to collaborate would have meant death?
I think some degree of collaboration is understandable in cases like Demjanjuk’s.
Maybe Demjanjuk deserves to die for his crimes. (None of US know enough to say.) Maybe he can get a fair trial in Germany. I doubt it but I hope I am wrong.
Why is all this energy spent on chasing after a man who probably played a very small role in a huge crime and was probably to some degree a victim himself? Beats me.
May 22, 2009 - 4:04 pm 28. RW:Miamiboy, go study a course on how to do something useful like arrest and convict Soros. We’re not impressed. Your OSI internship isn’t helping much. Other than in following in the footsteps of shills like Elizabeth Holtzman. Look where her lies got her.
May 22, 2009 - 7:10 pm 29. jessie:Demjanjuk’s entire argument is that he was valiantly serving in the Red Army before being caught.
All these hysterical rants by crazy Ukranian nationalists and their supporters that Demjanjuk was resentful of the Soviets does not even agree with what Demjanjuk has said.
Bitter Ukraninians, Poles, Balts, etc. – stop revising history. Stop glorifying Nazi Germany and its collaborators
May 22, 2009 - 8:02 pm 30. Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com:The Jews in Canada tried to do the same thing; namely falsely accuse people of war crimes. They Canadian Federal goverment spent millions of dollars to investigate the Simon Wisenthal Centers claim that there were thousands of war criminals in Canada, including possibly up to 10,000 ethnic Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis. After years of investigating these claims by the Wisenthal Center the Federal Government issued a report in which they clearly stated that the claims were not only false, but that the Jews running the center new full well they were lying but disregarded the truth in order to keep the Holocaust Industry in the news. Imagine the Canadian Federal Government (Dechaines Commission) stated that the Jewish Canadians were basically trouble makers. In the USA, the Jewish American lobby who manage the Office of Special Investigations (OSI0 can make any claims it wants, including falsely accusing innocent John of being a Nazi. He was never tried in the USA and Israel after first convicting him, then decided to release for a number of reasons, including the questionable validity of the idetity card which they used to deport him. The OSI was found to have committed prosecutorial misconduct for having hidden exculpatory evidence. They had evidence proving he was not Ivan the Terrible yet they hid it from the defense. These same liars were allowed a second time to make equally false claims against innocent John, and now he is deported to Germany to stand trial. The American Jewish lobby is mocking the US judicial system. Unlike Canada, the American Jews can do as they please. The USA is showing the world that the corrupt American Jews are above the law and can do as they please. John may die in Germany while awaiting trial, but one thing is for sure, the German people will not convict an innocent man. Neither would the average US citizen. The problem is the with the corrupt Jews who manage the OSI. They are destroying the image of the USA being a just and honest society. It’s time the OSI Jews were fired and tried for prosecutorial misconduct.
May 22, 2009 - 10:16 pm 31. Hank:Ok, what is the intention of the article? Creating a contrast between “the cuddly KZ-Guard-Granddad” vs. the “evil post-war Germans”? Is its goal to underline the own moral standards by pointing the finger at others and questioning their integrity?
Fine! But some might be interested in the facts:
Even in Germany you can’t open up a trial without evidences and I don’t think an US-Court would agree to Demjanjuks extradition just for fun.
The truth is that you can’t separate this new process from the 1993 trial in Israel. It was the Israeli prosecutor Mr. Shaked who has found some new evidences in Russia and Germany during his researches which he couldn’t use in his process. Ok, Demjanjuk isn’t “Ivan the terrible” (which was Ivan Marchenko) but that doesn’t mean that he’s innocent. Let’s find it out!
PS: Mr. Rosenthal, writing the names and residence of alleged Nazi-Criminals correctly isn’t enough to open up a trial – you need evidences! Believe it or not – those guys have lawyers. If you have something in your hands to trail them just go ahead! But don’t think you are the first who got this idea
May 22, 2009 - 11:35 pm 32. TomF:Whether Demjanjuk is guilty or not, I do not know. But one thing I do know is that, God knows. He also knows about all the masterminds of the Holocaust. It doesn’t take long for a person to realize that there is not always justice in this world. People have a great aversion to the belief in the existence of hell, and yet our internal moral desire for justice demands it. Don’t forget that the grand mastermind of them all took the easy way out, escaping the courts of men. Well, I am sure of another thing, he has not escaped the judgment of God.
May 23, 2009 - 12:26 am 33. NZ Antz:OSI were manipulated by the Isrealis who wanted him.
May 23, 2009 - 3:59 am 34. NZ Antz:The OSI were too keen and the Isrealis to willing to manipulate.
The bigger issue should be the naming and shaming of those (living & dead) who knowingly allowed active and ethusiastic participants of the Holocaust genocide to either escape through the ratlines (with the help of the vatican & american intelligence agents)to South American and those who help others to move (with their families)to take jobs in American industry and science or else become part of the US intelligence industry.
They were treated as if their crimes were of no consequence and as if the US didn’t care about the victims.
These are also criminals who aided and abetted the NAZI’s and disappeared into American suburban respectibility.
In Europe they would be called collborators.
Who were they? It’s time their families also suffered the shame of having NAZI collaborators in their midst. Perhaps their graves should be marked accordingly and their name recorded in histories of the time.
After all – they should not be allowed the defence of just following orders.
May 23, 2009 - 4:25 am 35. NZ Antz:Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com
“They are destroying the image of the USA being a just and honest society.”
I always find such assertions amusing (esp considering my comment above). Oh how Nationalism blinds!
The perhaps greatest damage to the US reputation in the world in all the 20th Century was to its claim to be a “just & honest society” – the “great democracy”.
Joseph McCarthy demonstrated that America was as capable as the Soviets, Chinese and Vietnamese at holding “Show trials”, at blacklisting people who thought differently, at destroying their jobs and employment propects, of ostracising them from society, putting innocent people under big-brother state surveilance, creating “files” on them in a system with the beuraucratic efficiency and idelogical malice of a Bera or stasi.
Since then people who remember their history are skeptical about claims of “just and honest society”
And just when it looked like people forgot that ol’ drunk McCarthy, along came the impeachment trials – trials championed by people who have since confessed to have been committing adultery at the time they were giving morality-laced sound-bytes to the American electors.
I guess if you write a few more books and get your talking head on Fox often enough you can wash out that dam-ned spot of hypocracy and deceipt.
It also helps to smile and smile!
May 23, 2009 - 5:04 am 36. Charles R. Williams:Jessie: Demjanjuk may well be lying. For that matter, he may be far guiltier than any of us imagines. That does not mean he will get a fair trial. That does not explain the disproportionate attention given to his case.
Those who would have us remember the Holocaust do not bolster their case by minimizing what others suffered in the 20th century, specifically, what the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Bielorussians, the Ruthenians, the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Estonians, the Volga Germans and the Crimean Tatars (among others), suffered at the hands of the Bolshevik regime over 70 years. That many of these people initially collaborated with the Nazis is perfectly understandable. What is not understandable is that for every nut-case Holocaust denier there are a hundred “respectable” people who deny, minimize or excuse the crimes of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and those who worked with them or for them.
For that matter, let us remember Joseph McCarthy and the fact that his own political party pulled the plug on him in short order and he died in disgrace.
May 23, 2009 - 6:27 am 37. RW:Has anyone in the OSI been tried and imprisoned for trying to use falsified evidence to kill someone? Using Soviet supplied evidence they knew was fake to have a man killed. Listen to the howls for blood. They are insatiable.
Had not heard about the report on the witch hunt in Canada but that’s simply amazing. If you want a Nazi, there are plenty as Mr. Rosenthal has demonstrated. If you want some blood from a high profile guy, why not Soros. He’s so cheerily happy to recount his efforts in sending people to their deaths.
But nothing but crickets. And support for the evil work of the OSI.
May 23, 2009 - 7:10 am 38. Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com:NZ Antz stated in point number 33 “OSI were manipulated by the Isrealis who wanted him.”
Most people would disagree with that statement. In fact, the Israelies believed the evidence they were given had met the burden of proof of the USA judicial system and only for this reason they were eager to try him. Clearly as some point during the trial, the Israelies came to realize that John was being framed by the OSI which had used questionable Soviet evidence. To their everlasting honor and credit, the Israelie Supreme Court in a unanomous statement statement agreed to free John because they had come to realize that the evidence he had been given was not authentic. If the Israelies thought that John was responsible for the death of even one Jew anywhere in the world, they would have demanded that he be retried in Israel. The Israelies however have come to understand what everyone else around the world knows: the OSI is managed by a bunch of corrupt American Jews who are desperate to keep the Holocaust in the news so that they can keep their well paying jobs. If the Jewish managed OSI needs to frame someone – so be it – they get to keep their jobs. These OSI employees would never get jobs again that pay so much for such incompetence.
May 23, 2009 - 11:05 am 39. davod:“Joseph McCarthy demonstrated that America was as capable as the Soviets, Chinese and Vietnamese at holding “Show trials”, at blacklisting people who thought differently,”
Senator McCarthy has been proven more right than wrong. You might be confusing Senator McCarthy with the bi-partisan House committee on Un-American activities.
Show trials? what show trials? I do not recall reading about summary punishment by firing squads or sentencing to the Gulags.
May 23, 2009 - 2:12 pm 40. MiamaMan:RW, Blackie, and other revisionists…
Can we just concentrate on Mr. Ivan Demjanjuk, and leave all the peripheral BS, just for a second concentrate on the merits of this trial, if any, and the person in question.
1) Yes, he is not Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka. That was Israel’s mistake, which luckily their Supreme Court reversed.
2) He was definitely a Trawniki man, trained in that camp to help Nazis as concentration camp guards and similar function. His SS identification card has the Trawniki seal. This same card states he was posted to Sobibor, which was a strictly a death camp.
3) Ukrainian Sobibor guard Danilchenko, now deceased, left a written confession placing him not only as a guard in Sobibor, but as a willing executioner of Nazi’s orders. Why Danilchenko would do that?
4) When he emigrated to the US, he stated that one of the places he had lived at in Europe was: Sobibor. Why? He is from the Ukraine, Sobibor is a Hamlet of a few houses in Poland.
It is true that I admire Thomas Blatt, as well as deceased Sasha Peshersky, and still alive at over 90 Arkady Wajpaper, who lives in the Ukraine. Yes, I talk to Mr. Blatt on the phone, am a student of “Aktion Reinhard”, but I have nothing against John Demjanjuk, and I am not even sure what he did or didn’t. But to say let him go without a trial, no good, not for old, for you need to understand a little what the majority of the Trawniki men this in these camps before making a decision. There are many things we still don’t know that he, if he was there, can shed light on.
May 23, 2009 - 2:27 pm 41. Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com:Your facts are incorret MiamiMan.
(1) The fact that he was proven not to be Ivan the Terrible is to Israel’s credit not mistake. Israel’s Supreme Court overturned a lower courts conviction citing new evidence which made it impossible for John Demjanjuk to be Ivan the Terrible.
(2) In fact, the Trawniki card was proven to be a forgery. The “hater” at the OSI were able to have innocent John deported to Israel based on “the good word” of the Soviet KGB that “the card was authentic”. Whenever the defense asked for it to be submitted into evidence in Israel, the Soviets refused to release it. Nonetheless, there were several documents experts who were able to prove that the Trawniki card was a fake hense why it remains to this day in Russian hands.
(3) The corrupt Jews running the OSI simply got a letter from their KGB friends which stated that a man who was a guard at Sobibor confessed to having seen Demjanjuk in that concentration camp. Danilchenko was never cross-examined by te defense or by the Isralies who were prosecuting Demjanjuk. How convenient ! That amounts to nothing more than hearsay, and given that the source was the KGB – you really have to be a nut case to accept it as fact.
(4) Demjanjuk did in fact state that he was imprisoned in the AREA of Sobibor (NOT the CONCENTRATION CAMP). For your information, there were 10’s of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war in that area who were conscripted into forced labor. He told US immigration of all the places he had worked in his declaration.
The hateful Jews running the OSI simply accepted from the Andropov era KGB an ID (Trawniki Card) which the Isralies found not to be credible and for this reason released John Demjanjuk. The corrupt OSI that was “sure” that John was Ivan the Terrible and sent him to the gallows, now claims that he was a guard at another camp. THERE IS NOT NEW EVIDENCE. The Germans have exactly what the Isralies had and for that reason the Israelies did not want to engage in “double jeopardy”. The corrupt American Jews managing the OSI were given a ‘carte blance’ to do just that and so they deported him to Germany this time. The OSI does not want him to get a fair trial because he will be found ‘not guilty’. They just want him to die in prison – that way they get to keep their American taxpayer jobs. Where else will these liars find employment ?
May 23, 2009 - 9:34 pm 42. MiamaMan:41. Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com:
OK Mark, no problems, answers:
1) So, Israel Supreme corrected the mistake from the lower court, that’s what I said, and Mr. Demjanjuk IS NOT Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka.
2) You are totally incorrect, the SS Card, which has a Trawniki seal on it, is not a forgery by the NKVD (not KGB, did not exist at that time). It is accepted as authentic by several experts.
I think it was the ALIENS, not what you refer in your Anti-Semite bias “hateful Jews”, which you judge from your couch (potato couch). Many of these “hateful Jews” probably had families slaughterer during the Shoa.
Alas, no, it was Elvis the one one falsified that “KGB” card, ha, ha, ha!
May 24, 2009 - 6:01 am 43. Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com:Hi MiamiMan,
(2) You are correct in stating that the NKVD did not forge the card, it is believed that this occured later, possibly by the Yuri Andropov KGB. What is most important to understand is that ‘the card’ was provided by the Soviet Union. Although there were some ‘experts’ who initially claimed the Trawniki card was authentic, there were others who claimed otherwise.
At a critical juncture in the appeal process (1990) – when Demjanjuk’s life hung in the balance- fate intervened. One of the appeal judges had a heart attack, and the case was postponed.
During the postponement, in 1990, the Soviet Union suddenly collapsed. As a result, the KGB archives on the case were opened. In the KGB file dealing with Demjanjuk, the shocking truth was revealed – the Trawniki certificate had been forged to frame the Ukrainian as part of a campaign against Ukrainian nationalists.
The whole case against Demjanjuk was fabricated and the Israeli Supreme Court had no choise but to release him. Again, as I previously mentioned, the Trawniki card remains in Russian hands to this day – not the USA or Germany. The OSI refuses to back down, and instead had continued to hunt this poor man.
My being critical of the hateful Jews running the OSI is not anti-semitism – it’s simply fact. The people who are falsely accusing Demjanjuk are hateful American Jews who know the truth and have disregarded it for the sake of keeping their jobs. The Israeli Jews are not hateful because they were able to provide John with justice, something the American OSI has not. Framing innoncent John will ensure that they get to keep their well paying (US taxpayer) jobs.
May 24, 2009 - 10:00 am 44. MiamaMan:43. Mark_Horgan100@yahoo.com:
Mark:
I must admit that you make a good argument of it. It comes to the point that there is so much conflicting information, after so many years, so many angles, that Gitta Sereny’s argument back in 1993 to drop all post-war trials of this nature, has a certain validity to it.
May 24, 2009 - 3:52 pm 45. Michael:Your discussion and link on Hans Gmelin and his daughter who caused the row preIraq war as an ally of Schroeder comparing Bush to Hitler is excellent. I want to get the documentary, ‘2 or 3 Things I know about my father,’ on HG’s boss who was executed. Your point about making a show about righteousness in pursuit of the criminals while letting ‘our criminals’ go has, sadly, the ring of truth. Miles Dunnington, my godfather, wanted to get into the investiture of the German president Schmidt IFIK. He didn’t have tickets and was told so by the gatekeeper at the ceremony. He reported then asking the guard (my pidgin German) ‘Warenst du in ..hausen in neuzsehnhundert vier and zwansich?’ with kind of an aggressive tone and was ushered in immediately. I suppose the back story in part is that there is a lot of coverup in Germany.
May 24, 2009 - 8:20 pm 46. NJTruth:MiamaMan, if you are seriously researching this case, you will learn that the Trawniki ID card is at the very least very questionable and that the Danilchenko testimony–shamelessly presented as fact by Der Spiegel, then shamelessly reprinted as such by ABC News and the NYTimes, is riddled with inconsistencies, seems heavily scripted and the product of a KGB “interview” that may or may not have ever taken place.
The other posters are right–it’s hearsay that would never be admitted as evidence to any legitimate court of law as neither the prosecutor nor the defense ever had the chance to interview Danilchenko themselves. But the burden of proof is apparently much less in a civil immigration hearing, leaving many to believe Mr. Demjanjuk is already guilty, when much of the evidence used against him would not hold up to close scrutiny in a criminal case. I don’t think the OSI should ever have been allowed to bring further charges against Mr. Demjanjuk after their gross misconduct the first time around.
But setting all that aside, and that’s a lot, believe me, what if Mr. Demjanjuk was indeed a guard at Sobibor for six months? Well, beyond the shaky Danilchenko testimony, there is no evidence linking Mr. Demjanjuk to atrocities committed at Sobibor. We learned from the Ivan the Terrible trial that typically no more than two or three Ukrainian guards were entrusted with operating the gas chambers at these camps. Not only Mr. Blatt but several other Sobibor survivors have no recollection of Mr. Demjanjuk and several other Ukrainian guards have no recollection of him either or can remember him only to say he looked familiar to them. Maybe he was a sentry on the camp’s perimeter, maybe he sat in a watchtower for six months and never fired his gun, maybe he was a driver, as Mr. Demjanjuk first explained his wartime duties at Sobibor on an immigration application after the war.
If you say it doesn’t matter, he was a Nazi collaborator at a death camp, he was complicit in the atrocities committed there, well, OK, but keep in mind that among all that Mr. Demjanjuk has endured the last 30 years, he has already spent 7 1/2 years in an Israeli prison, wrongly convicted of being Ivan the Terrible. As Mr. Rosenthal points out, that would be 3 1/2 years more than the SS officer Joseph Oberhauser, who oversaw the drafting and training of Ukrainian POWs as death camp guards, spent in prison. And 7 1/2 years more than any of Oberhauser’s SS officer co-defendants got for their roles in the death camp atrocities. Given that reality, was there any need to do this to an 89-year-old man and his family? I don’t think so. The Israeli Supreme Court didn’t think so 16 years ago either. Part of its logic then was that the Sobibor evidence was not significant enough to convict Mr. Demjanjuk of anything more than he had already been punished for.
Mr. Blatt has said punishment doesn’t matter, that Mr. Demjanjuk must just give a full accounting of himself. Fair enough, but how reliable could Mr. Demjanjuk’s memory be now, 66 years after the fact? Mr. Blatt acknowledges that his own memory is limited.
It sure does seem like an example is being made of Mr. Demjanjuk to show the rest of Europe’s complicity in the Holocaust when Germany has failed to punish many of its own perpetrators who were guilty of far worse. Mr. Rosenthal adds some much-needed perspective to this awful story and I thank him for that.
May 26, 2009 - 2:09 pm 47. Dave:This old guy should have been left alone after it was proven he was not Ivan The Terrible, and he was removed from Death Row, in Israel.
Jun 15, 2009 - 3:12 am 48. Mannstein:MiamaMan wrote:
“‘Warenst du in ..hausen in neuzsehnhundert vier and zwansich?’ with kind of an aggressive tone and was ushered in immediately. ”
Your father asked whether the German was at ..hausen in 1924. What a joke! Why would the guard take on an agressive tone and be ushered in for the ceremony as you claim by such an obviously stupid question.
You are shooting a lot of BS for American readers consumption who know very little what actually happened in WWII other than what they learn from Hollywood.
American and British officers shortly after WWII turned Russians who had lived for years in Europe over to Stalin under Operation Keelhaul. A considerable number of these Russians were civilians consisting of men, women, and children. Some in fact left Russia before the Soviet Union came into existence. NKVD executioners, a forerunner of the KGB, immediately had them killed when the prisoners were turned over to them in Austria. The lot of the victims at Soviet hands was clear to the officers in charge of the operation beforehand.
When will these guys be prosecuted for war crimes or “were they just following orders”? But then again that defense is valid for the Allies but not the Germans.
During the Normandy invasion June 1944 the Allied troops were ordered to take no prisoners. This order in spite of the Geneva Convetions came right from Eisenhower’s HQ. Eisenhower also ran the notorious Rhine Wiesen Lager for captured German POWs. He had them reclassified as DEFs (disarmed enemy forces) so that they would not fall under the protection of the Geneva Conventions for POWs. By this legal trick he starved to death thousands of prioners at Bad Kreuznach and other camps along the Rhine. The Red Cross was not given access to the camps. Food was not allowed in and civilians were shot at if they attempted to do otherwise.
The whole sordid story is well documented in James Bacque’s book, “Other Losses”.
When is Ike going to be branded a war criminal for this little gambit?
Obama and Wiesel recently visited Buchenwald concentration camp. That was quite a show. There was a lot of coverage about the victims of the Nazis. The NBC announcer even claimed Buchenwald under the Nazis was a death camp. Every historian has long admitted that the camp had no gas chambers. Nevertheless it is still called a death camp. What was conveniently left out by all the media circus was the victims of the Soviets our commrades in Arms who ran the camp after the war.
Buchenwald unknown to most Americans was taken over by the Russians to incarcerate Germans from the Soviet Zone of occupation. Twenty one thousand, mostly civilian, were killled at Buchenwald under Russian administration. They were deliberately murdered through violence, mistreatment, and starvation. The victims included 12 and 14 year olds accused of being Hitler youth. Even the Soviet official in charge of the concentration camps in East Germany, General Merkulov, acknowledged the severe lack of order and cleanliness, particularly at Buchenwald. In 1949 there were still 14,000 prisoners at Buchenwald.
These victims of course cannot be mentioned because they have been reduced to a second class status.
Jun 15, 2009 - 8:49 am 49. Richard Mallett:When are the henchmen of Stalin, who killed 20 million Russians in the Great Terror, and 10 million Ukrainians in the holodomor, going to be brought to trial ? Churchill said that, in order to defeat Hitler, he had to get into bed with the devil (Stalin) – Hitler was just an amateur by comparison.
Jun 15, 2009 - 3:23 pm 50. Peter:This sounds like a reasonable article. The statement “Germany’s pursuit of Demjanjuk creates the impression that Germany is extraordinarily thorough about prosecuting Nazi war crimes” says it all. Interestingly, as the years go by since the war ended, the hunt for war criminals becomes more intense.
Also “Holocaust Memorials” have been popping up all over the world. Germany completed a huge “holocaust memorial” in Berlin just 3 or 4 years ago and the United States has a huge Holocaust memorial in Washington, D.C (built in 1993) and a big one in Los Angeles too, as well as smaller ones sprinkled throughout the country. Most of these been built relatively recently. Interestingly, before 1991 the Soviet Union which had 25 million people killed in the war (far more people than any other country) did not have separate memorials for Jews. This is understandable, since most of the 25 million killed were Russians that were not Jewish. Everyone that suffered was memorialized – not just Jews. Some American Jews considered this anti-semitic, they wanted separate recognition for Jewish suffering.
The USA which had about 450,000 people die in the war (no civilians) and is on a separate continent than Europe, has some kind of holocaust memorial in almost every state (some states have more than one). But there are no memorials at all to the suffering of Blacks in 300 years of slavery or the genocide committed against the American Indian. Holocaust Studies programs (studying the suffering of the 6 million Jews that died in the war) is now offered in many or most universities in the USA. The almost 50 million Europeans that were not Jewish get no such recognition.
Germany has done more than any country to prosecute war criminals. Its actually more accurate to say Germany is the only country to prosecute its own citizens for war crimes committed during WW II. Not one Russian, Briton or American has been prosecuted for war crimes despite the fact that two million German women were gang raped (and many then murdered along with their family) by the Soviets and British and Americans murdered 125,000 Germans in the city of Dresden in two nights of bombing. This was the first use of napalm, but Dresden is a city so it was the napalm was meant to burn Germans, not forests. While looking at the plan to bomb Dresden, President Roosevelt commented “we may have to castrate the Germans”. Similar bombing attacks were done on many German cities.
Jun 16, 2009 - 8:05 pm 51. blackminorca:The persecution of Demjanjuk is epitomized by the Justice Dept Prosecutors knowingly destroying evidence that proved Demjanjuk innocent …way back in the 80’s!!
They did it by throwing it away in a McDonald’s dumpster!
How vile is that!!
http://cybercossack.com/?p=1252
Jun 18, 2009 - 2:06 pm 52. Tribeless:I wonder why all interested parties involved in WWII have not seen fit to establish a Truth and Reconciliation position so history of the vanquished and their collaborators (”volunteered” or otherwise) can be more faithfully recorded?
There is probably no more than a decade (or two at best) wherein data can be gathered from those people alleged to have committed crimes against humanity.
Let them all speak without fear of retribution…then, move on.
Those amongst humanity who hold delusional belief in an omniscient judge can live in the foreknowledge that all perpetrators are eternally damned. If that doesn’t satisfy their insatiable thirst for vengeance then their god is utterly useless.
Jun 18, 2009 - 4:27 pm 53. Peter:The author of this article is wrong when he says Germany does not go after its own citizens. Below is an article on another 90 year old the Germans want to put in jail for the rest of his remaining life. He is a German who was a 25 year old soldier when he allegedly ordered the WW II killings of 14 Italian civilians in reprisal for partisan attacks.
Although there are no witnesses the man gave the order to kill the people, the prosecutor maintains he is guilty. The “evidence” he has is that there is a picture of the soldier at his comrades funerals (killed by the partisans).
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihWlE4GG68B8XU_xRlcJ6KNywDEQD98T47EG0
I would hope Germany stop these witch hunts. Millions of German civilians were killed by allied soldiers and none of these allied soldiers has ever been brought to trial..
Jun 20, 2009 - 8:11 pm 54. icr:I knew some idiot would bring up Joe McCarty.
A few people lost their cushy FedGov bureaucratic jobs. Some of the people he accused of being Reds or security risks effectively rebutted him. He mainly made reckless charges that came to nothing. Does anyone think that George Marshall lost any credibility after McCarthy attacked him?
Also, McCarthy did not conduct any “show trials”. He (briefly) conducted investigations as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations.
If want something resembling American fascism you have to back to the Wilson administration.
Jun 23, 2009 - 11:39 am 55. paolosilv:Luckily, Wilson had a stoke in Oct 1919 and then
Warren Harding restored civil liberties after his election in 1920.
“125,000 Germans ” is stated as the number killed at Dresden above, yet other sources say it is closer to 30,000.
The truth is that Germany did conduct trials, but gave many of its offenders such light sentences , such as the one cited above, as to make it seem ridiculous.
One writer alleges that Eisenhower ordered prisoners from Germany to be left in ‘camps’ to die. He cites only one book, which was never accepted as accurate. I find it hard to believe, because most of the Germans who surrendered to the Allies chose to surrender to America, knowing full well the US reputation for leniency. Is there more evidence than one book by a Canadian author to support that claim? And how many are alleged to have died? Why has not Germany ever mentioned the matter? Where are the widows and mothers?
It’s important to have a museum or memorial for the Holocaust because the world looked away at the time. The camps were not bombed, the Vatican was almost silent. The other victims, Polish POWS, Soviet POWS, should also be remembered.
As for Demjanjuk, I think they should get to the facts of what happened. They should retest the I D card that both Israel and the US accepted as legit. Then he’ll probably go to an old age home.
If he’s innocent, then it’s a travesty of justice, and he will have to somehow ‘prove his innocence’. But if he was guilty of being a Sobibor guard, then he will have had a just retribution.
Jul 3, 2009 - 2:26 am