Federal court halts deportation of Demjanjuk

[MsKandice01]

Source: AP

CINCINNATI – A federal appeals court has granted a stay of deportation to Germany for accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made the ruling Tuesday afternoon shortly after the frail 89-year-old was removed from his suburban Cleveland home by six immigration officers using a wheelchair.

An arrest warrant in Germany claims Demjanjuk was an accessory to some 29,000 deaths during World War II at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Once in Germany, he could be formally charged.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court granted the stay pending further consideration of Demjanjuk's motions. His attorneys say painful medical ailments would make sending him to Germany equivalent to torture.

It's unclear if Demjanjuk will be taken back home.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090414/ap_on_re_us/demjanjuk

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Goodness, the man almost looks dead already. I think they're a bit late on the prosecution, aren't they?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Yup, they are a bit late...

There will be no justice in this case, none.

None for his victims, and none for him.

It is sad.

[Ian David]

2. I dunno. It looks like his health is wreaking justice upon him right now.

He will die a slower, more agonizing death than any he ever could have inflicted.

Still, if only Germany could send a court HERE to put him on trial without moving him.

They should hold a tribunal in his livingroom.

[Auggie]

3. Very well put

[Berry Cool]

12. Well, they've beeen trying to get this guy since 1977.

I kid not. I remember hearing about him first back when I was in high school. But since then he's had a conviction in Israel overturned because there's still no surety, or so it seems, that this is the guy who was known to the prisoners in Treblinka as "Ivan the Terrible." Then the DOJ went after him for other charges.

The whole thing is just a mess. I'm not sure anything is served now by taking him anyplace. He's old, debilitated and miserable. To really punish him for what he did, IF he is the one who did it at all, it would have been much better to go after him when he was young and ablebodied.

[acmavm]

4. I wonder if he sees those people he helped kill in his sleep? Does he

hear them cry for their children? Can he see them urinate themselves in fear and dread? Can he smell the death?

I hope so.

[Xithras]

6. It's not clear how close he was to them.

One of the more interesting things about the Demjanjuk case is that he's pretty much the least senior person ever charged with participating in the Holocaust. He was a Soviet soldier captured by the Germans who was given the option to serve as a low level death camp guard in exchange for being freed from a POW camp himself. As a former Soviet POW, it's not clear exactly how much authority or how free he was in the camp. He claims (readily admits) that he was given a sidearm and was tasked with patrolling the outer fences, far from the other prisoners. Prosecutors claim that he played a much more active role in actually rounding Jews up.

The truth is probably in the middle somewhere. I'm sure he's downplaying his own role, but it's a reasonable thing to question exactly how much authority the Nazi's would have instilled in a former Soviet POW. The people who could answer that definitively are pretty much all dead.

Lot's of us history buffs have followed the case simply because it's the first that really addresses the question of how far down the chain of authority prosecutions should be pursued.

[acmavm]

8. I know that he was only accused of being a 'guard'. That isn't a news

flash. Did you think thought he was the camp commandant? This is not the first article I've read on this guy, he's been fighting extradition for YEARS!

He still collaborated. He still took the opposing side against human decency, against his own people. He had a gun. He had a gun to make sure that these people he was 'guarding' behaved up until it was time for them to die. And the Nazis generally are not known for their compassion, so you can bet the dying, as short a time as it took, was full of a lifetime's terror and pain.

[Xithras]

10. I was responding to your question in your first post.

You asked whether he sees the faces of the people he helped to kill. I was just pointing out that it's an interesting question as to whether he saw them close enough for their humanity to penetrate the Nazi dehumanization propaganda. If he still hasn't come to accept the fact that his actions aided the deaths of thousands of people, then he probably sleeps quite well.

As for your second point, that's where things get interesting. After WW2 there was a conscious decision to NOT put every collaborator on trial, because that would have involved more than a million people. Everyone from town mayors to police officers in occupied lands probably contributed to the holocaust in some small way, and the sheer numbers of people who could have been indicted was mind-boggling. The Allied powers solved this problem by deciding to only try those who materially contributed to Nazi war crimes or who held leadership positions, and to NOT try those who were merely present or who stood by while these things happened. We decided to try those who committed the crimes, and ignore those who enabled them. The interesting historical question with Demjanjuk is which side of the fence he really falls on, and whether or not that same enabler line should apply there. I know that Israeli and American Jew's generally say that everyone involved in the camps should be prosecuted, right down to the guy in the PX licking stamps, but this case is the first where a court outside of Israel has actually indicted someone at this low level of authority. It's an interesting case simply because of the precedent it sets (which, to be clear, is a GOOD thing).

[IndianaGreen]

5. Tragic that this Nazi POS has still to face justice!

Sorry about his family, but I don't feel sorry for a man that lied about being in the SS and serving as a concentration camp guard. The Germans have solid evidence of his war crimes.

[annabanana]

7. I doubt he showed much concern for the aged & infirm when he

was doing his work for Hitler. I have no sympathy for him.

[MsKandice01]

9. I don't have any sympathy for him either...

I just don't understand why it took so long. In the pictures, he doesn't even look lucid.

[deathrind]

11. Hmmm

Xithras, has a very valid point.
How far down the chain do you go? Do you also prosecute any other living POW's who "collaborated" by being told help us or you die, build these building, dig these caves and operate these furnaces? There were plenty of POW’s who were given that very choice… and they chose to help in order to live. Camp POW collaboration helped us beat the Soviets to the Moon. You think Wernher von Braun did all that rocket development and rocket building on his own. Yet we here in America treated him pretty well and he was an SS officer…

If he is telling the truth and it was either help or die… ask yourself what would you do in order to live. There is not much a person will not do in order to survive. If he is lying may he suffer like those he made suffer. Another poster posted that Germany has "solid evidence" of his crimes. If you could post a link to that evidence that would be very helpful.

[cosmicone]

13. I am not condoning what the Nazis did and they did a lot of

really horrible things.

However, how far down the ladder should the hatred reach? This guy was at the lowest level of the Nazi machine with no authority to change the course of history.

Granted that the believers and authority figures responsible for the holocaust should be pursued and punished. He was a lowly pawn in the scheme of things and is being singled out only because he was proven not to be the dreaded "Ivan the Terrible."

If he is to be punished, let's catch all 80 and 90 year olds who served at the level of his rank back then. Why just him?