Demjanjuk Convicted for Role in Nazi Death Camp

[mookiemookie]

John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker embroiled in three decades of legal proceedings over his Nazi-era past, was freed pending an appeal on Thursday after a court sentenced him to five years in prison for helping to force some 28,000 Jews to their deaths during the Holocaust.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/world/europe/13nazi.html?_r=1

I'm not sure I agree with this. After 66 years and no real hard evidence against the guy other than he worked at the camp, how do you pin that on him? You could use that line of reasoning to indict anyone who did any sort of work at all in Nazi Germany. The guy is 91 years old. Any sort of jail time is a death sentence. What's really the point here?

How is this guy different than the Operation Paperclip scientists who developed the V2s that killed thousands of English people? There were no trials for them.

[MH]

How is this guy different than the Operation Paperclip scientists who developed the V2s that killed thousands of English people? There were no trials for them.

Is this philosophical question or for real?
Death Camp was a pionering startup company then?
Actually they where quite human gazing people saying its just a shower.
People got wounded in the war spilling their guts before dying.
So killing UBL was moral or not.

[razark]

How is this guy different than the Operation Paperclip scientists who developed the V2s that killed thousands of English people?
We don't have anything useful for him to do.

[Penguin]

May he rot in prison - I shed no tear for him. As I said before: his victims never had the chance to reach an old age in freedom.

Btw: the oldest man who was killed in Sobibor, while Demjanjuk was there, was 90 years old...

[mookiemookie]

Is this philosophical question or for real?
Death Camp was a pionering startup company then?I was making the point that we treat ex-Nazis with blood on their hands differently.

[the_tyrant]

the guys who created the v2 simply created a weapon.
but the death camp operators used poison gas created by others to murder

[razark]

the guys who created the v2 simply created a weapon.
but the death camp operators used poison gas created by others to murder
That implies that the folks building the weapons had no idea they'd be used, or what they'd be used for.

"'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department', says Wernher von Braun."
-Tom Lehrer

[MH]

I was making the point that we treat ex-Nazis with blood on their hands differently.

I was making a point that following your thinking we would have to hang every Wehrmacht solider or just forget that anything happened.
I have no sympathy for Von Braun as evidence showed he was aware of slave labor in Penemunde and was member of nazi party.
I can view him as a victim of circumstances and opportunist.
From what i red about him he was really a dreamer who wanted to put man in space(and did it)

Maybe he should had been trailed but then every factory owner in Germany.


There is still a common sense.

[the_tyrant]

That implies that the folks building the weapons had no idea they'd be used, or what they'd be used for.

so are you saying the Manhattan project people should be convicted too?

the countries were at war, creating weapons of war for your country is expected during a time of war

[Skybird]

the guys who created the v2 simply created a weapon.
but the death camp operators used poison gas created by others to murder
Have you really thought this to the end?

The makers of the V2 created it for serving Hitler. The poison gas was created for Hitler. The war and the KZs alike were run and maintained for serving Hitler. Both groups of people are guilty.

On Demjanjuk and mookie'S implication that because he is old he shall not be held responsible for his deeds he was found guilty of. The survivors of that horror have never had the option to live without the horrific experiences they had to go through. They all have gotten a life sentence. Not even mentioning the dead. Why should somebody who was found guilty to have helped the horror, getting anything less?

He is old, okay. But so are the surviving victims. If they had to grow old in victimhood, then he can bear penalty and responsibility while being old. What that means for him now, does not compare to what the horror has meant for the victims, suviors and killed ones alike.

BTW, he currently is free. He was released immediately after the sentence. A slap into the face of the victims.

[razark]

so are you saying the Manhattan project people should be convicted too?
Are you saying the people that dropped, or made the decision to drop, the bomb should be convicted?

[Skybird]

so are you saying the Manhattan project people should be convicted too?

the countries were at war, creating weapons of war for your country is expected during a time of war

Just that Hitler and Roosevelt were slightly different in their values and agendas. ;)

You get judged by the politics you help by your own deeds.

[mookiemookie]

On Demjanjuk and mookie'S implication that because he is old he shall not be held responsible for his deeds he was found guilty of. The survivors of that horror have never had the option to live without the horrific experiences they had to go through. They all have gotten a life sentence. Not even mentioning the dead. Why should somebody who was found guilty to have helped the horror, getting anything less?

Not implying that he should get off free only because of his age. I was saying that if you're going to sentence someone to a jail term that will likely kill them - essentially sentencing them to death - then you had better have something that shows he was directly responsible for deaths at the camp...something better than flimsy 66 year old evidence of dubious origin, anyways.

[MH]

Not implying that he should get off free only because of his age. I was saying that if you're going to sentence someone to a jail term that will likely kill them - essentially sentencing them to death - then you had better have something that shows he was directly responsible for deaths at the camp...something better than flimsy 66 year old evidence of dubious origin, anyways.

For me the fact that he volunteered to serve at death camp to save his arse from being POW is enough.
He was supporting systematic killing of whole peoples
They had been brought in animal carriages and put to death.
So really w#$#$%
.....at list he had a trail.

[Penguin]

dubious evidence? As they could not prove that he killed someone himself, the whole trial was about assistance to murder in 28060 cases.


In the absence of specific evidence against him, the case against Mr. Demjanjuk rested on the prosecution’s charge that anyone working at the camp at the time he was there shared responsibility for its function of systematic murder.

And this is what the prosecution did prove in the trial.

And no, a prison sentence for an old man is not a death penalty. He could likely die in prison but he won't be killed by the prison - but by his age.
Prison is not worse than an old people's home for him - 3 meals a day, no labour, medical assistance, visitation hours, etc.
He already survided 2 years in custody - longer than most people in Sobibor.

[CCIP]

dubious evidence? As they could not prove that he killed someone himself, the whole trial was about assistance to murder in 28060 cases.


And this is what the prosecution did prove in the trial.

And no, a prison sentence for an old man is not a death penalty. He could likely die in prison but he won't be killed by the prison - but by his age.
Prison is not worse than an old people's home for him - 3 meals a day, no labour, medical assistance, visitation hours, etc.
He already survided 2 years in custody - longer than most people in Sobibor.

He was also imprisoned in Israel for 8 years previously.

[Penguin]

He was also imprisoned in Israel for 8 years previously.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean, if it is just an addition of fact or if you think that the 8 years were enough.
Given, one could argue to settle this with the 5 years that he got now. But it was a different charge back then.
I'm not happy with Israel's decision to release him, but they forbid double jeopardy. It's also forbidden here, but the german basic law says that it is forbidden to punish someone for the same crime twice. He was not punished in Israel, but released of the charges against a person who goes by the name "Iwan Martschenko" - as he most likely was not this person. He was not charged for his own role in the camp, so it was perfectly legal to charge him here.

[Penguin]

For people with black humour - I have the opinion laughter helps to cope with the most terrible things:
The Dancing Demjanjuks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC2MaMV7D3w)
Non german speakers can click at 1:40.
This is from the time when the trial in Munich began and many people believed that he exaggerated his illness.

I'm curious about your opinions of this video.

[AVGWarhawk]

What's the difference? He is guilty whether ill or not. He needs to start serving his time.

[Seth8530]

You guys are all sick. He was a guard for crying out loud. If he was abritrarly shooting prisoners it would be a diferent story. Prove to me that he killed prisoners and im all for giving him jail time if he in fact has not already served that time under a different countries hands..

Prison guards are members of a military and therefore should be treated as any soldier folowing orders would be. .

What would be the consequences if he had not followed orders and went awol instead?

[MH]

You guys are all sick. He was a guard for crying out loud. If he was abritrarly shooting prisoners it would be a diferent story. Prove to me that he killed prisoners and im all for giving him jail time if he in fact has not already served that time under a different countries hands..

Prison guards are members of a military and therefore should be treated as any soldier folowing orders would be. .

What would be the consequences if he had not followed orders and went awol instead?

So what prison did he VOLUNTIERED to serve at?
He could go to fight Russians on eastern front instead as such voluntary units existed but it wasn't so cozy there.

[Skybird]

You guys are all sick. He was a guard for crying out loud. If he was abritrarly shooting prisoners it would be a diferent story. Prove to me that he killed prisoners and im all for giving him jail time if he in fact has not already served that time under a different countries hands..

Prison guards are members of a military and therefore should be treated as any soldier folowing orders would be. .

What would be the consequences if he had not followed orders and went awol instead?

A normal prison guard, you imply? Your lack of historic understanding is scaring. Have schools become this bad in our times?

KZs were not "prisons", but death factories, their purpose was not to imprison people but to annihilate them without traces or remains, sometimes making their remains available as a ressoruce for industrial production processes (body fats were tried as grease surrogates for machinery, hair was used like horse hair is used to tighten pipe threads, and skin was experimentally tried to be used for lamp screens); and the deputy guards recruited from the prisoners there were no guards like in a prison.

So-called "Hilfskräfte" in the KZs were no members of the military, nor the police like oyu imply (not that it matters, you can be member of a military and still become guilty by what you do in a KZ). They were prisoners who volunteered to guard and terrorise the other prisoners, carry out commands by the SS staff, they forced victims into the showers after a German senior had selected them, they carried out penalties, restrengthened the regulasr German camp guards and SS, and elped as deputies wherever needed, and as spies. Sometimes, civilians of conquered areas also volunteered to become as deputy guard, although they were no prisoners themselves. They were both hated and feared very much by the inmates, because they tended to be very brutal in order to win sympathy by their SS masters to protect their priviliges, and so they easily behaved even more brutal than the German guards themselves. The numerical relation between SS staff and such "Hilfskräfte" ranged from 1:5 to 1:8, which means, so a historian's agument, that without them the KZs in their known shape would have been unable to be operated with the given German guard numbers.

Demjanjuk, so is my understanding is not proven guilty of being Iwan the Terrible, a feared mass sdlaughterer in one of these camps. The Israelis released him because they had doubts he is. However, the German court, as I understand it, has not sentenced him for being Iwan the Terrible and being a mass murder, but for his general role as being a deputy guard. That is the reason why he was just given 5 years.

That's what I have understood from the news snippets I came about regarding this story.

[Penguin]

You guys are all sick. He was a guard for crying out loud. If he was abritrarly shooting prisoners it would be a diferent story. Prove to me that he killed prisoners and im all for giving him jail time if he in fact has not already served that time under a different countries hands..

Prison guards are members of a military and therefore should be treated as any soldier folowing orders would be. .

What would be the consequences if he had not followed orders and went awol instead?

Oh jesus ----ing christ. He just followed orders - I see that you are an adolescent and an American, not a real excuse, but if you grew up in Germany and actually talked with people who lived during the 3d Reich you would be sick of these "I only did my duty" excuses. And: It was not always an excuse, sometimes also the bitter truth - many shades of grey involved.
However, what MH already wrote: people had options. A man of honour would prefer to be in a penalty unit and die by a bullet at the Eastern Front over helping to exterminate civilians.
And if you would have read the article or this thread you would know that this whole ---- is not about a trial about direct murder but the very support to commit this extermination.

But I am not here to help you with your failed education, when you do not know the difference between a prison and an extermination camp (Vernichtungslager), your local library can be your friend.
A good start to read would be Eugen Kogan's "Der SS-Staat", which goes in english by the dumb title of: "The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them"

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Slightly off-topic but where letters "KZ" come from? I assume it means concentration camp but that abbreviation is not familiar to me.

[Penguin]

Slightly off-topic but where letters "KZ" come from? I assume it means concentration camp but that abbreviation is not familiar to me.

The term used during the 3rd Reich was KL - the abbreviation for Konzentrationslager. KZ was used later, afaik only because this sounds more sharp in German, so this is also political, to make the word sound more evil.
Personally, I use KL when I discuss with people who are historical interested.
Don't know when the use of KZ started, the literature after the war used KL - like Kogen's standard work that I recommended in my previous post, which is from 1947.

[Skybird]

Wikipedia:
The Random House Dictionary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_House_Dictionary) defines the term "concentration camp" as: "a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.", and, the American Heritage Dictionary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Heritage_Dictionary) defines it as: "A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions."
[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internment&action=edit&section=3)] Earliest usage of concentration camps and origins of the term

Polish historian W---322;adys---322;aw Konopczy---324;ski has suggested the first concentration camps were created in Poland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland) in the 18th century, during the Bar Confederation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Confederation) rebellion, when the Russian Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire) established three concentration camps for Polish rebel captives awaiting deportation to Siberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia).[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#cite_note-4)
The earliest of these camps may have been those set up in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) for Cherokee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_removal) and other Native Americans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) in the 1830s; however, the term originated in the reconcentrados (reconcentration camps) set up by the Spanish military (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_under_the_Restoration) in Cuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba) during the Ten Years' War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years%27_War) (1868---8211;1878) and by the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) during the Philippine---8211;American War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War) (1899---8211;1902).[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#cite_note-columbia-5)
The English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language) term "concentration camp" grew in prominence during the Second Boer War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War) (1899---8211;1902), when they were operated by the British in South Africa.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#cite_note-columbia-5)[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#cite_note-6)
There were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children.

Note that this meaning of the term does not have much in common with what the efficient German tyranny turned KZs into. In German, they are often referred to as "Todesfabriken" (death factories), meanming both that the prionsers worked and suffered themselves to death, and produced death, with the context of the gas chambers not needing further explanation, I think.

So the traditional meaning of the Anglosaxon term "concentration camp" is somewhat misleading as a dewscription for the German camps.

The German concentration camps were no concentrated prisons, they were nothing like any of the camps listed in that article. They were designed to kill in masses, not to keep people as prisoners.

Let's cut it short. KZs were the closest imitation of hell man has ever created. While wars and revolutions, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung killed in even bigger scores, I think nothing comes close to the qualitative perfidity and cynism of the Nazi death factories.

[AVGWarhawk]

I would take what Sky has to say concerning this and run with it!

[August]

I would take what Sky has to say concerning this and run with it!

+ 1

[CCIP]

Another important thing to point out is that being a "regular prison guard" or "military prison guard" is grossly inaccurate for camps which, even when not designed to exterminate, contained thousands upon thousands of civilians who did not commit any crimes nor participated in any combat. So even if deaths were not a factor, I would consider being accessory to their imprisonment to be a very severe crime indeed.

And when I brought up the "8 years in Israel", I didn't really mean anything. Just stating an additional qualifier to your 'he's been in prison already'.

For myself, I think that as long as an opportunity exists to find any perpetrators, regardless of their age or the danger they present to society, it's worthwhile. Better they be held to responsibility directly than having people who weren't alive at the time debate which country is more guilty....

[Seth8530]

guys, im not saying the SS was good at all. Im just more in favor of holding the officers and administrators guilty instead of the people carrying out orders.

Ive also heard that this person was originally captured by the Germans and he is in fact Ukrainian. and then became a part of the prison system. Not saying what the man did is right.. but looking at thigns from more than one point of view can be helpfull ya kno?

[Tribesman]

Prison guards are members of a military and therefore should be treated as any soldier folowing orders would be.
Bloody hell:doh:
Then again Seth, you did just say without realising it that you supported the conviction which you were trying to condemn

[MH]

Bloody hell:doh:
Then again Seth, you did just say without realising it that you supported the conviction which you were trying to condemn

Not sure it applies to WW2 standards.
Certainly there is a law of illegal orders which is based partly on principles and partly on common sense.

[Tribesman]

Not sure it applies to WW2 standards.

The best arguement would be that due to the nature of the crimes the declarations in 1915 would come in even without the war crimes rules of the British tribunal.

[CCIP]

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else. A mild prison sentence handed to you at the end of your life is a far cry from what he might've faced if he actually was caught on the spot, and would've still deserved.

Complaints about the supposed inhumanity of the sentence from his family here ring about as empty as Bin Laden's sons' complaints about supposed "disrespect" caused to their family by the treatment of his body.

[MH]

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else. A mild prison sentence handed to you at the end of your life is a far cry from what he might've faced if he actually was caught on the spot, and would've still deserved.

That sums it up:salute:

[Skybird]

guys, im not saying the SS was good at all. Im just more in favor of holding the officers and administrators guilty instead of the people carrying out orders.
He who orders murder is as guilty as the one carrying out the murder. It's even in modern criminal law codes like thjis. Surely in Germany, and I guess it is not different in the US.

That you are given an order to commit injustice or even barbaric acts, is no excuse at all. War tribunals also repeatedly said that and sentenced people on basis of this.

Ive also heard that this person was originally captured by the Germans and he is in fact Ukrainian. and then became a part of the prison system. Not saying what the man did is right.. but looking at thigns from more than one point of view can be helpfull ya kno?
Means what? In what regard is that precious different perspective relativising his guilt?

I think in this case its just an empty phrase, this different perspective thing. Mass murder remains to be mass murder, no matter how you turn it. Torture and sadism remain to be torture and sadism, no matter how you turn it.

P.S. I told this story before, and I tell it again here. Early in the war, the brother of my mum'S father waqs in the army, like her father himself was, too. My grandpa spoke of this only once, and indicated, that his brother - both were servinbf in the Wehrmacht - was approached by the SS for one of those special service jobs the SS did behind the front once a territory was conquered. The SS was picky about personnel for these dirty jobs, they did not want the news to become known to the poublic. Catching Jews, and all that. My grandfather indicated that his brother refused to follow that order or request or approach or whatever it was, and that for that he got shot.

Cowards and courageous guys alike: we always have a choice, even when being confronted with the choice between death and evil only.

A simple but demanding motto from maybe my most favourite book series of my teen years, by Nikolay von Michalewski, in those books the hero of the stories got told by his wife:

Woran Du glaubst, dafür sollst du leben und sterben.

[mookiemookie]

Another important thing to point out is that being a "regular prison guard" or "military prison guard" is grossly inaccurate for camps which, even when not designed to exterminate, contained thousands upon thousands of civilians who did not commit any crimes nor participated in any combat. So even if deaths were not a factor, I would consider being accessory to their imprisonment to be a very severe crime indeed.



I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else. A mild prison sentence handed to you at the end of your life is a far cry from what he might've faced if he actually was caught on the spot, and would've still deserved.



Very good points. I was kind of wishy washy on my feelings on this when I first heard about this event. You've convinced me.

[Sledgehammer427]

Woran Du glaubst, dafür sollst du leben und sterben.

"What do you think, but you shall live and die."

I hope my translation is up to par :-?

I really have nothing to add that hasn't already been, said, disproved, reproved, or otherwise.

[Skybird]

"What do you think, but you shall live and die."

Sorry, no, way off target. :haha:

For what you believe in, for that you shall live, and die.

[Bakkels]

"For that which you believe in, you must be prepared to live or die"

Is that more close? :03:
Oh I just see you already put a translation there. Well I got close.

[Penguin]

I don't doubt that circumstances may well have weighed heavily on Demjanjuk's choice to enlist rather than share the fate of millions of Soviet POWs executed in the very camps. However no matter how hard, it was still a choice, and one doesn't simply end up in that very specific type of SS unit by circumstances alone. So the fact is, there are repercussions to any choice one consciously makes. And he has to face up to them just like everyone else.


Well said.
The extraordinary circumstances weighted certainly into the judge's decision as they were the main argument of the defence.
One should not forget that these guards were also victims to a certain degree - following the same logic like many rapists were often previously raped before.
For example, after the beginning of Barbarossa, this official doctrine was ordered: "Nichtarbeitende Kriegsgefangene in den Gefangenenlagern haben zu verhungern." (Non working prisoners of war in the prison camps have to starve.) Ordered by General Eduard Wagner, general quartermaster of the army in October 1941.
An inhumane system creates inhumane people. So often the guards or kapos were even more gruesome and brutal than their German Herrenmenschen superiours. The best known example of victims who victimize their own is certainly the jewish police in the ghettos.

And here comes the part of everybody's own conscience into.
It is your own decision to look sometimes the other way, to hand over a cigarette or just some informations about the outside world. Nobody expects them to be gun-waving Arnolds who free the prisoners on their own. Just these little signs of humanity which I mentioned could make a difference. That's what I mean with the thousands of shades of gray.
Sadly, in reality, it was in most cases more successfull for the prisoners to bribe a guard than to appeal to his conscience. The tales of brutal behaviour of the guards are much frequent than reports of humanity.

Just from a legal point of view, it was officially forbidden to do harm to civilians and POWs for German soldiers, so atrocities would have also been theoretically punishable under the laws of Nazi Germany. However I doubt that the so called "Trawnikis", of which Dumjanjek was a part of, ever got issued any codes of conduct.

Very good points. I was kind of wishy washy on my feelings on this when I first heard about this event. You've convinced me.
:up: It's the sign of a thinking mind to be able to rethink his own positions and not stick to a prefab opinion!