GUILTY Germany - John Demjanjuk, former Nazi guard, for war crimes, 2005

[believe09]

I heard a segment on NPR-the defense is essentially conceeding that he was there and likely a guard and likely a participant in loading the showers. Their position is 1.) The higher ups who were prosecuted in the 50's and 60's were acquitted, so how can he be guilty of war crimes if he was working for innocents? 2.) That he was a prisoner of war so he was as much a victim as any of the other survivors. Witnesses to the trial state that he is in ghastly health, so all procedures are limited to 90 minute segments.

 

[believe09]

Does anyone remember when they tried him in 1987 for being Ivan the Terrible???

 

[Gozgals]

Does anyone remember when they tried him in 1987 for being Ivan the Terrible???

I remember Believe the whole incident when they accused him of being Ivan the Terrible. It was a long time ago but I followed these trials and Nazi History. I'm glad at that point he was cleared of those charges as he was not Ivan.

I feel he is guilty as he volunteered to be a guard in the camp. He could have taken another route even if it proved to be death. Just my opinion on what would have been a better course.

"Demjanjuk, a former Soviet Red Army soldier, is now accused of volunteering to serve as a guard under the SS after being taken prisoner by the Nazis in 1942."


Gozgals

 

[WhyaDuck?]

He got 80 years more than his alleged victims did, and I am sure his incarceration is much more respectful.

It's times like this, I wish I believed in an afterlife.

 

[gaia227]

Demjanjuk stood accused of being the infamous prison guard "Ivan the Terrible' at Sobibor camp where over 27,000 Jews died. He was sentenced to die in Israel in 1988 but his death sentence was overturned. He relocated to Ohio until he was charged again. He is now 89 yrs old and was wheeled into court in Munich yesterday seemingly unconscious and unaware of what was going on. There is a lot of speculation as to if he really was a prison guard who was an accessory to 27,000 Jewish deaths. He was fighting for the Red Army when he was captured by the Nazi's and forced into several concentration camps where he was a guard. After the war he joined the Vlakov army which aligned itself with the Germans against the Soviets.

There is much more at the links below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091130/wl_nm/us_germany_demjanjuk

http://www.esquire.com/features/john-demjanjuk-1109

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

 

[believe09]

We have a thread going here too, gaia:
Alleged Nazi Guard on Trial for 27,900 Deaths - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

 

[gaia227]

Thanks Believe! I did a search using his name and didn't come up with anything.

 

[gaia227]

Feature about John in Esquire:

http://www.esquire.com/features/john-demjanjuk-1109

 

[gaia227]

Sorry Gozgals - I didn't see this thread and started another one under Crimes in the News.

I will probably catch some *poo* for this but I wanted to throw these thoughts out there.
How long into his imprisonment did John volunteer to become a guard? Did he volunteer because guards were better clothed and fed? Starvation, exhaustion, and group think combined with our instinct to live will cause people to do things they never thought they could do in order to survive. If John was not the one standing at the door pushing Jews into the showers it would have been someone else. They would have died either way. So does that make John guilty of murder, or accessory to murder when neither his presence or absence would have made any difference on the outcome?

 

[believe09]

Sorry Gozgals - I didn't see this thread and started another one under Crimes in the News.

I will probably catch some *poo* for this but I wanted to throw these thoughts out there.
How long into his imprisonment did John volunteer to become a guard? Did he volunteer because guards were better clothed and fed? Starvation, exhaustion, and group think combined with our instinct to live will cause people to do things they never thought they could do in order to survive. If John was not the one standing at the door pushing Jews into the showers it would have been someone else. They would have died either way. So does that make John guilty of murder, or accessory to murder when neither his presence or absence would have made any difference on the outcome?

I am glad you brought this up-I have mixed feelings regarding this case and whether or not the defense is sincere. Let's assume for a moment that the defense is accurate in portraying him as a victim who found a way to survive-a "kill or be killed" scenario. I do not believe it is fair then to punish him in the courts for his brutality if he was a victim too-I say this grudgingly because I would like to believe that there would have been a choice he could have made that would not have meant aligning himself with the perps....but everything was out of the window in those camps. Stockholm Syndrome does not even touch the surface of it....

The fact is that the SS was very sucessful in identifying prisoners who had the "moral flexibility" to do their dirty work in exchange for better food, and life. At least for a while. Of course the idea was then to sweep those few remaining into the ovens and lock the doors of the camps once the inmates had been completely wiped out. Including the thugs.

I wonder how he has lived with himself for all of this time-what was it about him that caused him to be able to live a somewhat quiet life after having seen and participated in horrors most of us will never, ever understand? How do you lock that away and putter through life for the next 60 years, complaining about traffic and paying your bills????

I wish I could ask Eli Wiesel what he thinks about it...

 

[gaia227]

If he is charged, then shouldn't ALL men and women who served as guards? What about the Jews whose job it was to clean out the showers, load the dead into the ovens? They surely did not want to be doing those things but they did it because they had too.

It gets tricky when you start picking who is to be charged for war crimes. If you want to be literal about it then shouldn't all persons who have served be charged with murder? Should those who are only in a position to take orders - not make them - be punished during times of war? Most of the orchestrators and architects of the Holocaust were found, charged and found guilty. SS soldiers who served in the camps were not hunted down and charged for serving as guards.

I have thought a lot about what you said Believe, about experiencing and participating in such atrocities and then going back to living normal life. That can be applied to most men and women who have seen the atrocities of war. It is a testiment to humans ability to adapt. I think group think has a lot to do with it too - especially when you are referring to something like SS soldiers during WWII, who were normal until the war, committted terrible acts and then went back to being 'normal.'

 

[believe09]

If he is charged, then shouldn't ALL men and women who served as guards? What about the Jews whose job it was to clean out the showers, load the dead into the ovens? They surely did not want to be doing those things but they did it because they had too.

It gets tricky when you start picking who is to be charged for war crimes. If you want to be literal about it then shouldn't all persons who have served be charged with murder? Should those who are only in a position to take orders - not make them - be punished during times of war? Most of the orchestrators and architects of the Holocaust were found, charged and found guilty. SS soldiers who served in the camps were not hunted down and charged for serving as guards.

I have thought a lot about what you said Believe, about experiencing and participating in such atrocities and then going back to living normal life. That can be applied to most men and women who have seen the atrocities of war. It is a testiment to humans ability to adapt. I think group think has a lot to do with it too - especially when you are referring to something like SS soldiers during WWII, who were normal until the war, committted terrible acts and then went back to being 'normal.'

I took some courses back in the day about the psychology of the final solution and why it was so sucessful-and I am saying that with infinite sadness, not admiration. I was absolutely most astonished by those who were free Germans and were guards at the camps and on the trains-they would come home from work like someone might come home from a GM assembly line-they had families, they went to church, had friends, their children attended school. It was the complicity of the countryside that had me in awe....yes, war is big business as we know, but concentration camps?

I dont know-I am giving my perspective having not lived through the madness. And it may be something I am not fit to speak about in the end...

 

[WhyaDuck?]

I am glad you brought this up-I have mixed feelings regarding this case and whether or not the defense is sincere. Let's assume for a moment that the defense is accurate in portraying him as a victim who found a way to survive-a "kill or be killed" scenario. I do not believe it is fair then to punish him in the courts for his brutality if he was a victim too-I say this grudgingly because I would like to believe that there would have been a choice he could have made that would not have meant aligning himself with the perps....but everything was out of the window in those camps. Stockholm Syndrome does not even touch the surface of it....

The fact is that the SS was very sucessful in identifying prisoners who had the "moral flexibility" to do their dirty work in exchange for better food, and life. At least for a while. Of course the idea was then to sweep those few remaining into the ovens and lock the doors of the camps once the inmates had been completely wiped out. Including the thugs.

I wonder how he has lived with himself for all of this time-what was it about him that caused him to be able to live a somewhat quiet life after having seen and participated in horrors most of us will never, ever understand? How do you lock that away and putter through life for the next 60 years, complaining about traffic and paying your bills????

I wish I could ask Eli Wiesel what he thinks about it...

BBM

There are over 11 million people, 6 million of whom were Jews, who I'd like to ask about it, but, sadly, no one can ask them anything any more.

 

[Gozgals]

It is a complex question as to what is right and wrong and why he served as a guard. I think I will wait for further evidence to come out from the prosecution to find out what they really do have on this man.

Yes, Jews too did comply for better food and worked the gas chambers and slaughtered their own. We did try some SS at the trials but I get the feeling this man did more at the camps then just be a lowly guard. More evidence is needed. Could he have made better choices and lived? Was the madness of the times one we will never know of?

He did live 80 more years then his victims did. Also, a consideration would be, (sadly to state) that the world wants one more trial while it has to chance to condemn another man since there probably won't be anymore trials to come. I hate to admit this but it could be a possibly for going through with this one?
Also, he was mistaken to be Ivan too and that has to be a slap in the face...

I will say I agree with having the trial though under any of the circumstances it is taken place. I believe in justice and I know even under the worst of times, I would not have turned on my fellow man. I may be composed differently.

Goz

 

[Gozgals]

I wish I could ask Eli Wiesel what he thinks about it...

Great thought believe.....


I think from what I gather from Eli's readings, he would want to go through with the trial. (JMO).


Goz

 

[WhyaDuck?]

It is a complex question as to what is right and wrong and why he served as a guard. I think I will wait for further evidence to come out from the prosecution to find out what they really do have on this man.

Yes, Jews too did comply for better food and worked the gas chambers and slaughtered their own. We did try some SS at the trials but I get the feeling this man did more at the camps then just be a lowly guard. More evidence is needed. Could he have made better choices and lived? Was the madness of the times one we will never know of?

He did live 80 more years then his victims did. Also, a consideration would be, (sadly to state) that the world wants one more trial while it has to chance to condemn another man since there probably won't be anymore trials to come. I hate to admit this but it could be a possibly for going through with this one?
Also, he was mistaken to be Ivan too and that has to be a slap in the face...

I will say I agree with having the trial though under any of the circumstances it is taken place. I believe in justice and I know even under the worst of times, I would not have turned on my fellow man. I may be composed differently.

Goz

Respectfully, I think we all think we know ourselves and what we would do, but can't ever really know - and I hope none of us ever have to. I, too, would like to think I would not... but then I ask what I would do for extra food for my child, instead of for me, etc... That is where my thinking falters and cannot proceed.

 

[gaia227]

I am sure in the 20's or early 30's if you would have asked a Jewish man if he would be killed rather than shovel bodies of his comrades into mass graves he would have quickly said - die. If you would have asked a German college student would he stand up to his authority and refuse to trick and round up Jews to shove them into a train literally on top of eachother he would have said, of course I would refuse. If you asked a Russian before the siege of Leningrad if they would rather starve than commit cannibalism they would have most likely said starve yet when faced with the reality many of them did. The instinct to survive is strong especially if you have a family to protect. The psychology behind why people participate in atrocities is complex.

I am not trying to validate or dismiss what people did during the Holocaust or during the war and I certainly do not judge any Jewish person for what they did to survive - I admire and honor them for what they endured.

I do think you make a valid point GozGals about why there should be a trial my only argument with that would be there already was a trial and his role at the camp is still not clear. I will be surprised if Demjanjuk lives to see the end of this trial. I guess ultimately what I think is I understand and agree with the first trial but at this point the man is 89 yrs old, he is in bad health already, I just don't really see the point other than validation for the families who believe he had was partly responsible for the deaths of their family members but if he should be held responsible then shouldn't every living man and woman (excluding the Jews) who participated.

 

[Gozgals]

Much information on the internet on John and the trial. Would like to locate a Isreal paper but do not know if I can get in my area.

Here is snip from an article on evidence/charges.

John Demjanjuk: The charge sheet

* The evidence against John Demjanjuk includes testimony from seven sources who claim that he was present at the Sobibor death camp.

* Prosecutors have 20 boxes of documents showing Mr Demjanjuk was trained in nearby Trawniki, lived in barracks at the camp, and was there while executions were at a high level.

* He is accused of pulling Jews from arriving cattle trucks, taking them to be stripped of clothes and valuables, and escorting them to gas chambers.


------

"Thomas Blatt said yesterday that it was immaterial whether he was sent to prison. "For me a trial is the most important thing. I want the truth," he said."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-nazi-war-trial-1684044.html



The whole article is interesting.


Goz

 

[believe09]

Much information on the internet on John and the trial. Would like to locate a Isreal paper but do not know if I can get in my area.

Here is snip from an article on evidence/charges.

John Demjanjuk: The charge sheet

* The evidence against John Demjanjuk includes testimony from seven sources who claim that he was present at the Sobibor death camp.

* Prosecutors have 20 boxes of documents showing Mr Demjanjuk was trained in nearby Trawniki, lived in barracks at the camp, and was there while executions were at a high level.

* He is accused of pulling Jews from arriving cattle trucks, taking them to be stripped of clothes and valuables, and escorting them to gas chambers.


------

"Thomas Blatt said yesterday that it was immaterial whether he was sent to prison. "For me a trial is the most important thing. I want the truth," he said."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-last-nazi-war-trial-1684044.html



The whole article is interesting.


Goz

Thanks Goz. I think that this puts a twist on it that may be a valid one in the end-it will enter into a legal record things that went on in the camp that perhaps have not been documented formally before. There are boxes of evidence that cannot be combed by survivors families-but now the information will become available for the world. It may be worth it to inconveniance this man at the end of his life for 180 minutes a day to get it all into a legal transcript. Perhaps in the end it is the least he can do for the rest of those who were so deeply affected.

 

[OkieGranny]

From March 2012:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/world/europe/john-demjanjuk-nazi-guard-dies-at-91.html?_r=0

The stranger settled in Cleveland after World War II with his wife and little girl. He became an autoworker and changed his first name from Ivan to John. He had two more children, became a naturalized American, lived quietly and retired. His war and the terrors of concentration camps were all but forgotten.

Decades later, the past came back to haunt John Demjanjuk. And for the rest of his life it hovered over a tortuous odyssey of denunciations by Nazi hunters and Holocaust survivors, of questions over his identity, citizenship revocations, deportation orders and eventually trials in Israel and Germany for war crimes.

He was convicted and reprieved in Israel and, steadfastly denying the accusations, was appealing a guilty verdict in Germany when he died on Saturday at a nursing home in southern Germany, his son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said. He was 91.