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Demjanjuk--AP photo credit Mark Duncan
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With this week’s announcements that two men accused of Nazi war crimes, John Demjanjuk and Heinrich Boere Germany comes one step closer to closing this chapter on its National Socialist past. The possibility exists that Demjanjuk and Boere will be some of the last Nazi war criminals to stand trial for crimes during the Holocaust. That these two rulings fall within a week of one another seems appropriate given the long road to justice that many victims’ families have experienced over the last 70 some years since the beginning of World War II.
by Buffy Naillon
On July 3rd, CNN reported that 89 year old Demjanjuk, a former Nazi guard, was deemed fit to stand trial by a German court in Munich. In March, Demjanjuk was charged with being an accessory to 29,000 murders in his duties as an SS prison guard in Sobibor in the Lublin, a region in Poland occupied by Germany during World War II. Demjanjuk, a former US auto worker, arrived in the US and obtained citizenship after living in Bavaria for a time following the war.
In the late 70s, strong evidence of Demjanjuk’s Nazi past began to emerge. According to a report in Time in 1986 an Israeli court convicted Demjanjuk of war crimes at Treblinka—also in occupied Poland—and sentenced him to death, but the decision was overturned when other evidence surfaced exonerating him of crimes at Treblinka. However, the US Supreme Court later re-opened the case against him when evidence began to mount that he had been involved in other war crimes. Since then Demjanjuk has been involved in an ongoing battle to avoid US extradition and conviction of his crimes.
Because of his failing health, Demjanjuk has been limited by doctors to two ninety minute sessions a day when he stands trial.
The story is similar in Boere’s case. According to The Local, the Court of Appeals in Cologne has ruled that 88-year old Boere was fit to stand trial, despite the fact that he, like Demjanjuk, faces issues of failing health. This decision reversed a January ruling made by a judge in Aachen that Boere was not able to stand trial.
Boere has been accused of killing three people in the Netherlands during World War II. He admitted to killing the three at a one-day trial in October of 1949 in Amsterdam.
It is reported that he said of the crime during an interview with Focus magazine, “It was not difficult. It was just a matter of pulling the trigger.”
He was given the death penalty, but his sentence was later reduced to life in prison. However, he fled custody and lived as a miner in Germany during the 50s.
The latest decision marks the closing chapters on Boere’s case. The Dutch authorities have requested Boere’s extradition over the years, but to no avail. The Dutch government also requested that German authorities carry out Boere’s life sentence as laid down by the earlier conviction. A German court ruled that the triple shooting was murder, but also said that “the sentence violated basic norms for a fair trial.”
The loose ends of the case were finally tied together when a court in Dortmund ruled that Boere’s case could be retried.
The particulars of Demjanjuk’s and Boere cases read like those of many former National Socialists accused of war crimes. Illness and old age are common themes amongst the accused. These challenges bring difficulties to old cases; trials require more than just documentary evidence. They require witnesses, who like the people they are accusing of war crimes, are also afflicted with illness and old age.
But all is not lost in the Halls of Justice. According to Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, justice comes in two forms—the kind that involves handcuffs and trials. The other kind involves a kind of psychological fear. It’s the kind of fear a Nazi war criminal feels every night of his life knowing that the possibility exists that there could yet be a knock at the door.
Comments
Good to bring attention to this, many are pleased to see these men be put on trial again.
For accuracy, it should be pointed out that in relation to Demjanjuk, the statement that he was "a former Nazi guard known as ‘Ivan the Terrible’" is most likely incorrect, as pointed out in the CNN article linked and various court findings over the years.
Thanks, Karl for reading and bringing this to my attention. I had meant to make that correction before going live, but must have missed it. The correction has been made.
He's obviously fit as a fiddle!
My mother taught me "two wrongs don't make a right." There was more wisdom and compassion in my little suburban house than in all the courts of germany, israel, and the U.S. put together.
Demjanjuk is to be tried as an accessory to 29,000 murders as a prison guard in Sobibor, but of course, no investigation whatsoever on the purported 29,000 murders, since this would be against the law...
Whay about the atrocities perpetrated by the Jewish State this year in Gaza?
Akangaroo court similair to the Soviet courts will be the venue for determining who will be guilty or innocent of a fictional crime !
Why was President Ahmadinejad and his team of scientists refused entry into the Auschwitz complex ?
When are the Communist perpetrators responsible for the Ukrainian Holocaust and the Soviet death camps going to be held to account? Oh I forgot most of these criminals belonged to the chosen race.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty? The tone of this article regarding John Demjanjuk is ‘let’s have a lynching’.
What about the daily"What button do I push ,Sarge?" war criminals killing hundreds in Pakistan,Iraq and Afghanistan via remote control drones? Ah, Vae Victis,the only real war crime,losing one.
Enogh is enough, allready.
"According to Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, justice comes in two forms—the kind that involves handcuffs and trials. The other kind involves a kind of psychological fear. It’s the kind of fear a Nazi war criminal feels every night of his life knowing that the possibility exists that there could yet be a knock at the door."
Don't forget the eyewitnesses who swore previously that Demjanjuk was the so-called Ivan the Terrible. It's getting to the point where everybody must fear the knock at the door that so tickles the rabbi's fancy.
Will they be using the same eyewitnesses who IDed Demjanjuk in Israel? They're probably available. By the time the trial is over, maybe the sentence will be able to be carried out just by removing life support.
Why hasn't germany pursued thge former GDR Guards who machine guned fellow germans at the berlin Wall? Wnhy has there been indictments against Red Army troops for rape and murder of 2.5 million german Wormen, Girls, and Old Women?
Whay has Stalin not been tried nor any other Soviet for Katyeen?
Why has no Jew-Israeliu been tried for genocide in gaza and the West Bank? We can drag Sharon out of his bed, like Demyanuk to stand trial for Israili genocide in Beruit? Why has the Holocaust vs native Americas, which was far more vast not been accounted for?
The depths of Anti-Semitism in many of these comments are breathtaking. What, in the name of All That Is Holy does the passage of time have to do with the question of guilt? If a man breaks into your house, rapes and murders your wife and daughter is he any less guilty of this 50 years down the road, simply because many years have passed? What is the MATTER with so many of you people? Or, perhaps is it because, "Oh well, they were only Jews."..."???
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