Nazi camp guard Demjanjuk dies

[Cooley Hurd]

Source: the Beeb

John Demjanjuk, who was found guilty for his role as a guard at a Nazi death camp in World War II, has died aged 91, German police say.

He had been sentenced in May 2011 by a German court to five years in prison, but was released pending an appeal.

He died at a home for the elderly.

The court said Demjanjuk, 91, was a guard at Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He denied this, saying he was a prisoner of war and a victim too.

An estimated 250,000 people died in the gas chambers at Sobibor. Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of the 28,060 people who were killed there while he was a guard.

</snip>

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17414127

---

Buh bye, Nazi scum...

[lunatica]

1. We used to think those crimes would never happen here

But we were very wrong. Maybe realizing it can happen here could keep it from happening if we understand that this kind of evil doesn't just spring into existence from the Void.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Nah, a couple of deranged kooks tarnished the reputations of

decent nazis. Most of them were outstanding moral individuals, they attended church regularly, had strong family values, and worked diligently to rid the world of the socialist menace of atheistic communism.


dear jury: this is sarcasm.


All I can really say about Demjanjuk's demise is "good".

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Lesson learned

Always scroll down far enough to see the entire posting before performing any conclusion-jumping. Being familiar with your work, however, I had a good feeling it was sarcasm before reaching your disclaimer.

[bitchkitty]

9. LOL

[secondvariety]

4. Burn in hell douchebag

[TheOther95Percent]

5. My favorite sentiment on the passing of assholes

This quote - often attributed to Mark Twain - was actually written by Clarence Darrow.

"All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

[roguevalley]

6. whatever comes next is karma for him I am sure.Perhaps a long walk through the silent

millions he helped kill. I hope so.

[emilyg]

7. May he rot in hell...

I know Mom and Dad are celebrating in heaven.

[azurnoir]

8. He should have died in a prison cell

and not been allowed to die in the relative comfort of a 'rest' home.

[hedgehog]

10. I'm going to throw in some food for thought here -

if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that no one knows what they will do in a bad situation until they get there. With all the upheaval of the war, a lot of people ended up in strange places doing things they never would have done otherwise. I don't know the details of this case, and Demjanjuk may well have been a nasty piece of work. But a lot of men (and women) who would have been nice neighbors in normal times did horrible things during the war. And for every person directly involved, how many others just sort of kept their heads down? It's very easy to condemn Demjanjuk. It's harder to be honest about what you would have done in that situation. The hardest thing of all is to ask what we are keeping our heads down about today.

[Auggie]

11. +1

[obamanut2012]

13. Nice men and women didn't tend to enter the SS

And, if somehow they did, they didn't last long. They were kicked out or, in the case of some female guards at Ravensbruck (I think -- I need to check), they themselves were thrown into the camps as prisoners when they refused to be sadistically cruel to prisoners.

There's a reason why Irma Grese and Maria Mandel were hanged, and Johanna Langefeld wasn't (the latter was dismissed from the SS for excessive sympathy to prisoners, had her son taken from her, and threatened with trail and death until the end of the war).

[mackattack]

17. SS, two different things

The german SS were hardcore Nazis...no doubt about that.

Foreign troops (like Ukranians) were in the SS but it they were not the 'shock and awe' troops like the german equivalent was...they were just foreign troops in the german army.

He very likely never cared for the party and the party wouldnt have him as a member anyway (slav). He was jsut a guy who got ended with the germans (and this was foreign SS) and ended up in a shitty situation.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

14. +1 very well said. n/t

[MisterP]

12. here's one response

[CrawlingChaos]

15. Disturbing responses of the "burn in hell" variety

Anybody interested in the truth of the situation? This link has a lot more info:

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-mew-john-demjanjuk-20120318,0,5985531.story?page=1

He was a very young man, a prisoner himself, caught up in sweeping world events and forced to serve. He was never anything more than a guard and there's no evidence he ever harmed anyone. It is a circumstance anyone could have found themselves in.

What's even more disturbing are the relentless attempts by prosecutors to trump up a phony case against him. How does it honor the victims of the Holocaust to persecute another innocent person?

[Warren Stupidity]

19. A lot of Ukrainians volunteered and participated willfully in slaughtering Jews.