John Demjanjuk, born
Ivan Nikolayevich Demjanjuk ' onMouseout='HidePop("3071")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Ukraine">Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
) is a retired auto worker and former United States citizen, who gained notoriety after being accused of
war crime.War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns...
s.
Born in the Ukraine during the Polish–Soviet War (when territories in Ukraine quickly changed hands), Demjanjuk migrated to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1951. He was
deportedDeportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The expulsion of natives is also called banishment, exile, or penal transportation. Deportation is an ancient practice: Khosrau I, Sassanid King of Persia, deported 292,000 citizens, slaves, and conquered people...
to
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
in 1986 and later sentenced to death there in 1988 for war crimes, based on his identification by
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i Holocaust survivors as "Ivan the Terrible," a notorious
SSThe , abbreviated SS- or - was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men ,...
guard at the
TreblinkaTreblinka II was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II. Around 850,000 people - more than 99.5 percent of whom were Jews, but also other victims - were killed there between July 1942 and October 1943; the camp was closed after a revolt during which a few Germans...
and
SobiborSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
extermination camps during the period 1942–1943 who committed murder and acts of extraordinarily savage violence against camp prisoners. His conviction for crimes against humanity was later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993 due to a finding of reasonable doubt based on evidence suggesting that Demjanjuk was not "Ivan the Terrible" and had, in fact, been a guard at camps besides the one at Treblinka. After the trial, he was returned to Cleveland,
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
. He eventually moved to nearby
Seven HillsSeven Hills is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 12,080 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Seven Hills is located at ....
,
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
.
Demjanjuk was put on trial again in 2001 on charges that he had served as a guard at the
SobibórSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
and
MajdanekMajdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
camps in occupied
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and at the
FlossenbürgFlossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the pre-war border with Czechoslovakia. Between 1938, when the camp was established, and liberation in April 1945,...
camp in Germany. His
deportationDeportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The expulsion of natives is also called banishment, exile, or penal transportation. Deportation is an ancient practice: Khosrau I, Sassanid King of Persia, deported 292,000 citizens, slaves, and conquered people...
was again ordered in 2005, but he remained in the United States as no country would agree to accept him. On April 2, 2009, it was announced that Demjanjuk would be deported to
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
and would face trial there on charges of accessory to 29,000 counts of murder. On April 3, 2009, a judge ordered that Demjanjuk be given a temporary stay, pending a judicial decision on his newly filed (April 2) motion to reopen his deportation order, on the ground that deporting him would amount to torture under the applicable international convention. The stay was overturned on April 6.
On April 14, 2009, immigration agents began Demjanjuk's deportation, removing him from his home in a wheelchair. He was scheduled to fly to Munich from Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, but the legal order was again reversed and another stay granted by the court. On May 7, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Demjanjuk's appeal and on May 8, 2009, he was ordered to surrender to U.S. Immigration agents for deportation to Germany. On May 11, Demjanjuk left his Cleveland home by
ambulanceAn ambulance is a vehicle for transporting sick or injured people, to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury. The term ambulance is used to describe a vehicle used to bring medical care to patients outside of the hospital or to transport the patient to hospital for follow-up...
, and was taken to the airport, where he was deported by plane to Germany. He arrived there the next morning on May 12. On July 13, 2009, Demjanjuk was formally charged with 27,900 counts of acting as an accessory to murder, one for each person who died at Sobibor during the time he is accused of serving as a guard at the Nazi death camp. The charges are one of the final steps before an expected trial.
Background to alleged Holocaust involvement
In 1942, Demjanjuk, who was a member of the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
, became a German
prisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
and was moved to a German camp. He survived the ordeal and was sent to the
Trawniki concentration campTrawniki concentration camp was an SS labour camp which provided forced labourers for a nearby industrial plant. The Trawniki camp was commanded by Hauptsturmführer Theodor von Eupen....
, later serving in Majdanek, Sobibor and Flossenbürg Nazi camps. In early 1945, Demjanjuk joined the
VlasovGeneral Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov or Wlassow was a Russian former Soviet Army general who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.
-Early career:...
Army, which was closely aligned with Nazi Germany against the Soviets.
Demjanjuk, his wife and their child arrived in New York aboard the
USS General W. G. Haan on February 9, 1952. On November 14, 1958, Demjanjuk became a naturalized citizen of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He and his wife, whom he met in a displaced persons camp, moved to
IndianaIndiana is a U.S. state, the 19
th admitted to the Union. It is located in the Great Lakes region, and with approximately 6.3 million residents, is ranked 16
th in population and 17
th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38
th in land area, and is the...
with their daughter (they later had two more children) and then to
Cleveland, OhioCleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately 60 miles west of the Pennsylvania border...
suburb
Seven HillsSeven Hills is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 12,080 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Seven Hills is located at ....
, where Demjanjuk became a diesel engine mechanic for the nearby Ford auto plant.
In August 1977, the Justice Department submitted a request to the
United States District Court for the Northern District of OhioThe U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio is the federal trial court for the northern half of Ohio...
that Demjanjuk's citizenship be revoked on the basis that he had allegedly concealed his involvement with Nazi death camps on his immigration application in 1951. The request followed a lengthy investigation by the
INSThe United States Immigration and Naturalization Service was a part of the United States Department of Justice and handled legal and illegal immigration and naturalization. It ceased to exist on March 1, 2003....
after Demjanjuk was identified by Holocaust survivors on a photo spread used in the investigation of
Feodor FedorenkoFeodor Fedorenko was a naturalized U.S. citizen, a former Soviet citizen, who was denaturalized, extradited to the USSR, sentenced there to death for treason and participation in the Holocaust and executed.-Biography:Federenko was born on the 17 September 1907 in the village of Sivash, in the...
, a Treblinka Concentration Camp guard. Fedorenko was later extradited to Ukraine on his admission that he was such a guard and that he lied on his US immigration applications.
On June 23, 1981,
District CourtThe 94 United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
Judge
Frank J. BattistiFrank James Battisti was an American jurist who served as the 21st district judge for the Northern District of Ohio, between 1961 and 1990. He spent 22 of his 31 years on the District Court as chief judge, replacing Judge Girard E...
ruled that Demjanjuk had lied on his application, that he had served as an SS guard at Treblinka and for a brief period at
SobibórSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
, and that he had undergone training at the Trawniki SS training camp. Demjanjuk's attorneys appealed this ruling.
Trial in Israel
In October 1983, Israel issued an
extraditionExtradition is the official process whereby one nation or state requests and obtains from another nation or state the surrender of a suspected or convicted criminal. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
request for Demjanjuk to stand trial on Israeli soil under the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950. Demjanjuk was deported to Israel on February 28, 1986. He was put on trial between November 26, 1986, and April 18, 1988, before a special tribunal comprising Supreme Court Judge Dov Levin, Jerusalem District Court Judges Zvi Tal, and
Dalia DornerDalia Dorner was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1993 to 2004.Dorner was born in Istanbul, Turkey. Her father, a wood merchant, immigrated there from Odessa. Her family immigrated once again in 1944, this time to Israel, where her father died shortly after...
.
The prosecution team consisting of Yonah Blatman, the State Attorney, Michael Shaked of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office, Dennis Goldman and Eli Gabay of the International Section of the State Attorney's Office, Michael Horowitz and Gabi Finder and others, claimed during the trial that Demjanjuk had been recruited into the Soviet army in 1940, and that he had fought until he was captured by German troops in the Eastern
CrimeaCrimea or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only autonomous republic of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name.The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times throughout its history...
in May 1942.
Demjanjuk was then, according to the prosecutors, brought to a German
prisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
camp in
ChelmnoChełmno is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 20,000 inhabitants and the historical capital of Chełmno Land . Situated in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, Chełmno was previously in Toruń Voivodeship .- Name :The name is derived from the Old Slavic word for hill...
in July 1942. Prosecutors claimed that Demjanjuk volunteered to collaborate with the Germans and was sent to the camp at Trawniki, where he was trained to guard prisoners and was given a firearm, a uniform, and an ID card with his photograph. The principal allegation was that Demjanjuk was "Ivan Grozny" or "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka, who operated the diesel engines sending gas to the death chamber. Prosecutors based part of these allegations on an ID card, but defense attorneys countered that the card was forged by Soviet authorities to discredit Demjanjuk. The card had Demjanjuk's photograph, which he identified as his picture at the time, as well as signatures of various Nazi officers who were deposed and confirmed the authenticity of their signatures. The paper and ink on the card were tested by internationally renowned experts who confirmed that the card was authentic. The original of the card was presented in court in Israel as supplied by the Soviets. Demjanjuk admitted that the scar under his armpit was an SS tattoo, which he removed after the war. During the trial, Demjanjuk was again identified on the photo spread by Otto Horn, a former Nazi guard at Treblinka.
Demjanjuk testified during the trial that he was imprisoned in a camp in
ChelmnoChełmno is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 20,000 inhabitants and the historical capital of Chełmno Land . Situated in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, Chełmno was previously in Toruń Voivodeship .- Name :The name is derived from the Old Slavic word for hill...
until 1944, when he was transferred to another camp in
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
, where he remained until he joined an anti-Soviet Russian military unit funded by the German government until the surrender of Germany to the
AlliesIn general, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose. In English usage, those who share a common goal and whose work toward that goal is complementary may be viewed as allies for various purposes even when...
in 1945.
On April 18, 1988, the court found Demjanjuk guilty of all charges. One week later it sentenced him to death by
hangingHanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. It hurts a lot. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", although it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would...
. Demjanjuk was placed in
solitary confinementSolitary confinement is a punishment or special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is denied contact with any other persons, excluding members of prison staff. Usually cited as an additional measure of protection from the criminal, it has also been called a form of torture...
during the appeals process.
On July 29, 1993, five Israeli Supreme Court judges overturned the guilty verdict on appeal. Their ruling was based on the written statements of former guards at Treblinka that identified Ivan the Terrible as "Ivan Marchenko." US officials had originally been aware, without informing Demjanjuk's attorneys, of the testimony of two of these German guards. However the Israeli justices mentioned how Demjanjuk had incorrectly listed his mother's maiden name as "Marchenko" in his 1951 application for U.S. visa. Demjanjuk says he just wrote a common Ukrainian
surnameA surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases a surname is a family name; the family-name meaning first appeared in 1375. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name". It is also known as a "last name". In some cultures, the surname may...
after he forgot his mother's real name. The former guards' statements were obtained after World War II by the Soviets, who prosecuted Ukrainians who assisted the Nazis as auxiliary forces during the War. Most of the guards were executed after the war by the Soviets, and their written statements were not obtained by Israeli authorities until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The Israeli Supreme Court's 405-page ruling read: "The main issue of the indictment sheet filed against the appellant was his identification as Ivan the Terrible, an operator of the gas chambers in the extermination camp at Treblinka ... By virtue of this gnawing [new evidence indicating mistaken identity] ... we restrained ourselves from convicting the appellant of the horrors of Treblinka. Ivan Demjanjuk has been acquitted by us, because of doubt, of the terrible charges attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka. This was the proper course for judges who cannot examine the heart and mind, but have only what their eyes see and read." They also added: "The facts proved the appellant's participation in the extermination process. The matter is closed — but not complete, the complete truth is not the prerogative of the human judge."
The court judgment also addressed evidence against Demjanjuk that was not included in his indictment. The judges agreed that Demjanjuk most likely served as a Nazi
Wachmann (guard) in the Trawniki unit and had been posted at
Sobibor extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
and two other camps. Evidence to assist this claim included a certificate from Trawniki bearing Demjanjuk's picture and his exact personal information — allegedly found in the Soviet archives — in addition to German documents that mentioned Wachmann Demjanjuk and mentioned his date and place of birth. Statements of another Wachmann (Denilchenko), both in 1949 and again in 1979, identified Demjanjuk as the Wachmann who served with him at
Sobibor extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
. Demjanjuk's Trawniki certificate also implies that he served at Sobibor, as do the German orders of March 1943 posting the Trawniki unit to this area.
After Demjanjuk's acquittal, the Israeli Attorney General decided to release him rather than to pursue charges of committing crimes at Sobibor. Ten petitions against the decision were made to the Supreme Court. On August 18, 1993, the court rejected the petitions on the grounds that (1) the principle of
double jeopardyDouble jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried twice for the same crime on the same set of facts...
would be infringed, (2) that new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted, (3) that conviction on the new charges would be unlikely, and (4) that Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States specifically to stand trial for offenses attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, and not for other alternative charges.
Demjanjuk was released to return to the United States. In 1993, the
Sixth Circuit Court of AppealsThe United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Eastern District of Kentucky* Western District of Kentucky...
ruled that Demjanjuk was a victim of fraud on the court, as United States federal government trial lawyers with the Office of Special Investigations had recklessly failed to disclose
evidenceThe law of evidence governs the use of testimony and exhibits or other documentary material which is admissible in a judicial or administrative proceeding .-Relevance and social policy:Legal scholars of the...
, and his US citizenship was restored. In a report submitted to the Sixth Circuit prior to the Israeli acquittal, federal judge
Thomas Wiseman, Jr.Thomas Anderton Wiseman Jr. is a United States federal judge.Wiseman was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee. He received a B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1952. He received a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1954. He received an LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law in...
concluded that American federal officials had erred in asserting that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible, but that evidence instead pointed to Demjanjuk being a lesser SS agent.
Restoration and revocation of U.S. citizenship
On February 20, 1998, Federal District Court
JudgeA judge, or arbiter of justice, is a lead official who presides over a court of law, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is like an umpire in a game and...
Paul Matia ruled that Demjanjuk's citizenship could be restored.
On May 20, 1999, the
Justice DepartmentThe United States Department of Justice is a Cabinet department in the United States government designed to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans...
filed a new civil complaint against Demjanjuk. No mention was made in the new complaint of the previous allegations that Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible. Instead, the complaint alleged that Demjanjuk served as a guard at the
SobibórSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
and
MajdanekMajdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
camps in
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
under German occupation and at the
FlossenburgFlossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the pre-war border with Czechoslovakia. Between 1938, when the camp was established, and liberation in April 1945,...
camp in Germany. It additionally accused Demjanjuk of being a member of an SS-run unit that took part in capturing nearly two million Jews in the
General Government of PolandThe General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II and that were a separate part of "Greater Germany"...
.
Demjanjuk was put on trial again in 2001, and in February 2002, Matia ruled that Demjanjuk had not produced any credible evidence of his whereabouts during the war and that the Justice Department had proved its case against him.
On April 30, 2004, a three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Demjanjuk could be again stripped of his US citizenship because the Justice Department had presented "clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence" of Demjanjuk's service in Nazi death camps. Demjanjuk vowed to appeal the ruling.
New deportation (or removal) order
On December 28, 2005, an immigration judge ordered Demjanjuk deported to Germany, Poland, or Ukraine. In an attempt to avoid deportation, Demjanjuk sought protection under the United Nations Convention against Torture, claiming that he would be prosecuted and tortured if he were deported to Ukraine. Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ruled that there is no evidence to substantiate Demjanjuk's claim that he would be mistreated if sent to Ukraine.
On December 22, 2006, the
Board of Immigration AppealsThe Board of Immigration Appeals is the part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review that reviews the decisions of the Immigration Courts and some decisions of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It is an administrative appellate body that is part of the United States Department...
(the Board or BIA) upheld the deportation order. On January 30, 2008, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied Demjanjuk's request for review. On May 19, 2008, the
U. S. Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
denied Demjanjuk's petition for
certiorariCertiorari is a legal term in Roman, English, and American law referring to a type of writ seeking judicial review. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of Latin certiorare,...
, declining to hear his case against the deportation order. The Supreme Court's denial of review meant that the order of removal was final; no other appeal was possible.
Deportation proceedings and actions
One month after the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear Demjanjuk's case, on June 19, 2008 Germany announced it would seek the extradition of Demjanjuk to Germany. The file on Demjanjuk was compiled by the special German office investigating Nazi crimes. Kurt Schrimm, who heads the office, said that investigators "have managed to obtain hundred of documents and have also found a number of witnesses who spoke out against Demjanjuk". "For the first time we have even found lists of names of the people who Demjanjuk personally led into the gas chambers. We have no doubt that he is responsible for the death of over 29,000 Jews" at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp, he said. Kurt Schrimm said that Demjanjuk could be brought to Germany by the end of 2008; however, this did not occur
On November 10, 2008, German federal prosecutor Kurt Schrimm directed prosecutors to file in Munich for extradition, since Demjanjuk once lived there. On December 9, 2008, a German federal court declared that Demjanjuk could be tried for his alleged role in the Holocaust. Some three months later, on March 11, 2009, Demjanjuk was charged with more than 29,000 counts of accessory to murder of Jewish prisoners at the
Sobibor extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
. The
German foreign ministryThe Foreign Office is the foreign ministry of Germany, and is responsible for both its foreign politics and its relationship with the European Union...
announced on 2 April 2009 that Demjanjuk would be transferred to Germany the following week, and will face trial beginning November 30, 2009.
Demjanjuk sued Germany on April 30, 2009, to try to block the German government's agreement to accept Demjanjuk from the US. His filing with the German Administrative Court in Berlin claims the procedure by which he is to be moved from the US to Germany is illegal, and asks the Court to suspend the declaration by the German government that allows Demjanjuk to enter the country pursuant to US deportation, until a court determination is made. The German Administrative Court rejected Demjanjuk's claim on May 6; Demjanjuk's German attorney stated that he would appeal the decision.
Filing of Motion
On that same day — April 2, 2009 — Demjanjuk filed a motion in an immigration trial court in Virginia. The motion sought to reopen the matter of the removal order against him; that order of removal had been originally issued by an immigration court in 2005, had been upheld by the BIA on administrative appeal in late 2006, and was further upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals; after these two appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court had, as noted above, denied any review. In connection with the motion to reopen, Demjanjuk also asked the immigration court to stay the removal order, pending the decision on whether or not to reopen the matter.
On April 3, 2009, U.S. Immigration Judge Wayne Iskra temporarily stayed Demjanjuk's deportation, but reversed himself on April 6. As the Government noted, a motion to reopen, such as Demjanjuk's, could only properly be filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals in Washington D.C., and not an immigration trial court. The issuance of the stay by the immigration trial court was therefore improper, as that court had no jurisdiction over the matter. Accordingly, Demjanjuk re-filed his motion to reopen, and for an attendant stay, with the Board of Appeals.
Demjanjuk's motion to reopen argued that, under the circumstances, his deportation to Germany would constitute torture. His attorney stated that his health had deteriorated seriously in the last four years. Demjanjuk argued that his request was supported by the past actions of the very same Office of Special Investigations where in the Tannenbaum case the DOJ allowed another sick old man to remain in the United States who had admitted to mistreatment of prisoners in a Nazi camp. On April 10, the Board of Appeals found that "there is little likelihood of success that [Demjanjuk's] pending motion to re-open the case will be granted," and accordingly denied his motion for a stay pending the dispositon of his motion to reopen. This removed any obstacles to federal agents seizing him at any time for deportation to Germany.
The Government has responded to Demjanjuk's "torture" claim as a basis for reopening the deportation order — a case that was decided against Demjanjuk in 2005 and that has been thrice affirmed against him on appeal — by stating that his claim is "patently frivolous" and
[is an] ...incredible and unsupported surmise. . . . This is . . . a grotesque debasement of the word "torture," a characterization that makes a mockery of the terrible suffering inflicted on genuine victims of torture at places like the Sobibor extermination center. Ironically, [Demjanjuk]. . . has been confirmed by U.S. courts — including this Court — to have contributed to the mass-asphyxiation of thousands of civilians at a human extermination center [as part of] . . . the largest-scale tortures and murders in history.
Sixth Circuit Stay
On April 14, 2009 immigration agents removed Demjanjuk from his home in preparation for deportation. The same day, Demjanjuk's son filed a motion in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asking that the deportation be stayed, which was subsequently granted. The Government argued that the Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction to review the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, which denied the stay. Demjajuk later won a last-minute stay of deportation, shortly after US immigration agents carried him from his home in a wheelchair to face trial in Germany. The BIA denied Demjanjuk's motion to reopen his deportation case. The Sixth Circuit, whose stay of the deportation order remained in effect, asked lawyers for both parties to provide it with more information from the government, physicians and Demjanjuk himself. On April 20, the government filed a motion with the Sixth Circuit asking for the stay against deportation to be lifted, arguing that Demjanjuk had sought the stay in order to provide an opportunity for the BIA to rule upon his motion to reopen the deportation order. Since the BIA denied the motion, the government argued, the basis for the Sixth Circuit's stay was no longer valid, and the stay should accordingly be dismissed. The
Jerusalem PostThe Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post...
also reported that the Simon Wiesenthal Center had declared Demjanjuk to be the most wanted Nazi war criminal on its list, displacing SS doctor
Aribert HeimAribert Ferdinand Heim was a former Austrian doctor, also known as Dr. Death. As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates by various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims...
. According to a spokesman for the Center, the revised ranking was intended to reflect the importance attributed to the US efforts to deport Demjanjuk to Germany to stand trial.
Sixth Circuit's Lifting Stay
On May 1, 2009, the Sixth Circuit lifted the
stayA preliminary injunction, in equity, is an injunction entered by a court prior to a determination of the merits of a legal case, in order to restrain a party from going forward with a course of conduct until the case has been decided. If the case is decided against the party that has been...
that it had imposed against Demjanjuk's deportation order. The Court stated in its opinion that
Based on the medical information before the court and the government's representations about the conditions under which it will transport the petitioner, which include an aircraft equipped as a medical air ambulance and attendance by medical personnel, the court cannot find that the petitioner's removal to Germany is likely to cause irreparable harm sufficient to warrant a stay of removal.
The Court also ruled that it was unlikely that Demjanjuk could demonstrate that he would be "tortured" in Germany and that this claim did not sufficiently support his request for a stay. Although the stay was lifted, and the government free of legal constraints that prevented it from deporting Demjanjuk, his appeal for the substantive review of the BIA decision on the merits (wherein the BIA effectively upheld the deportation order itself, by refusing to reopen the case on the ground that "torture" in Germany was more likely than not) was still pending before the Court of Appeals. However, the Court stated in its opinion denying the stay (in the process of addressing the question of the extent to which Demjanjuk was likely to succeed on the merits of his motion to reopen) that:
...the petitioner has not shown a strong or substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his challenge to... the [BIA's] denial of his motion to reopen. At most, he has offered speculation that German authorities may not adequately attend to his medical needs while he is in ... custody.
Petition to Supreme Court
On Tuesday May 5, 2009 Demjanjuk announced through counsel that he was filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking review of the adverse decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that had denied his stay. His counsel expected the filing to be made on Wednesday May 6. The filing characterized the unanimous decision of the three-judge Sixth Circuit panel as "incomprehensible."
On Thursday May 7, 2009, the United States Supreme Court, acting through Justice
John Paul StevensJohn Paul Stevens is the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He joined the Supreme Court in 1975 and is the oldest member of the Court. He was appointed to the Court by Republican President Gerald Ford. Stevens is widely considered to be on the liberal side of the...
, declined to consider Demjanjuk's case for review, thereby denying Demjanjuk any further stay of deportation. Justice Stevens issued his decision without comment. Demjanjuk's counsel thereafter stated that his client would not seek to have the entire Court consider Justice Stevens' decision and that accordingly all legal avenues in the United States to halt the deportation had been exhausted. The suit filed by Demjanjuk in Germany is not affected by the US decision and as of May 7, that case is still pending on Demjanjuk's appeal from an adverse decision by the Administrative Court in Berlin.
"Torture" as basis for reopening the case
Demjanjuk's motion to reopen is based on the claim that he will be tortured as a result of being deported. Demjanjuk claims that, because he is old and sick, transferring him to Germany will constitute "torture" within the meaning of the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or PunishmentThe United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is an international human rights instrument, under the review of the United Nations, that aims to prevent torture around the world....
(the Convention), and that this circumstance is sufficient to reopen consideration of his case. His attorney, John Broadley, argued before the BIA that deporting Demjanjuk would constitute torture because of his health problems, including pre-leukemia, kidney problems, spinal problems and "a couple of types of gout." There is no allegation that the German authorities intend to subject him to unusual treatment or to deny him medical attention, as a method aimed at getting him to confess or to divulge information about others. To summarize the foregoing, his essential contention in his legal pleadings and public statements is, that it would be very hard on him, and perhaps life-threatening, to be taken away from his home in his present condition. He claims that this circumstance constitutes "torture."
While Demjanjuk was removed from his house in a wheelchair and appeared to be "slack-jawed and unmoving," on April 23, 2009, federal prosecutors submitted surveillance video evidence taken after the removal of Demjanjuk; the footage showed Demjanjuk walking with no assistance to a car in a parking lot while "alert and engaged in conversation." They also provided the Court of Appeals with a medical report that supported their claim that Demjanjuk is medically fit to be moved to Germany; a flight surgeon who examined Demjanjuk while in government custody for alleged back pain later noticed that Demjanjuk "moved his back with apparent ease." The government lawyers stated that even if the court lifts the stay, they would defer deportation until at least May 1, to allow Demjanjuk time to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. On April 23, 2009, a group of students from The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway petitioned the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the deportation order.
Deportation to Germany
Demjanjuk was deported to Germany, leaving Cleveland (USA) on 11 May 2009 to arrive in
MunichMunich is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg...
(Germany) on May 12. Upon his arrival, he was arrested in Munich's
Stadelheim prisonStadelheim Prison, in Munich's Giesing district, is one of the largest prisons in Germany.Founded in 1894 it was the site of many executions, particularly by fallbeil during the Nazi period.-Notable inmates:*Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley...
.
Demjanjuk deemed fit to stand trial
On July 3, 2009, prosecutors deemed Demjanjuk fit to stand trial. On July 13, 2009, prosecutors charged him with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder. Doctors have restricted the time Demjanjuk can be tried in court each day to two sessions of 90 minutes each, said Munich State Prosecutor Anton Winkler. Demnjanjuk's attorney said that due to the complexity of the evidence, the mandated short sessions could cause the trial to last three to five years. Due to this and what he called Demjanjuk's ill health, Demjanjuk's attorney called for the case to be closed.
Displaced person claim
On April 21, 2009,
The AustralianThe Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia on Monday to Saturday each week since 1964. The editor is Chris Mitchell and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
reported that Demjanjuk registered in 1948 as a displaced person. This category was reserved mainly for former concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers. The
International Tracing ServiceThe International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany, is one of the world’s largest Nazi archives. It documents the fate of millions of civilian victims of the National Socialist regime. The documents in the ITS archives include original records from concentration camps, details of forced...
, a German agency that maintains data on Nazi victims, provided a copy of Demjanjuk's March 3, 1948, application to the
Australian.
In that application, Demjanjuk claimed to be a refugee, sought assistance, and asked for transfer to
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
. His application stated that he worked as a driver at the Sobibor concentration camp; it did not mention any work as a guard at that camp. When interviewed in connection with the story,
historianAn historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time...
Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg (
University of GiessenThe University of Gießen is officially called Justus Liebig-Universität Gießen after its most famous faculty member, Justus von Liebig, the founder of modern agricultural chemistry and inventor of artificial fertiliser.The University of Gießen was founded in 1607 as a Lutheran university in the...
) stated that war criminals sometimes tried to escape justice after 1945 by presenting themselves victims of Nazi persecution, rather than as perpetrators.
According to
Gitta SerenyGitta Sereny is an Austrian-born British biographer, historian and journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and child abuse. She is a stepdaughter of the economist Ludwig von Mises.-Biography:...
's
The German Trauma (2000, ISBN 978-0-140-29263-3) there was a strong reason why Demjanjuk could have put down
Sobibor extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
as the place where he worked from 1937 to 1943 as a farmhand (according to Sereny) in the application he made on the March 3, 1948. Applicants for
displaced personA displaced person is a person who has been forced to leave his or her native place, a phenomenon known as forced migration.- Origin of term :...
status had to fill in a form that required them to say where they had been for the previous twelve years. Unless they could show that they had been living outside the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
on September 1, 1939, they could not, under the terms of the Yalta agreement, be accepted as displaced persons and would be returned to the Soviet Union. Officials of the International Refugee Organisation, which operated the
LandshutLandshut is a city in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany, belonging to both Eastern and Southern Bavaria. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut acts is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria. It is also the seat of the...
office, therefore encouraged applicants to select places outside the Soviet Union. Sobibor was such a place. Sereny further relates that at Demjanjuk's trial in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
on the Treblinka charges, Judge Dov Levin had asked Demjanjuk, "Why did you put Sobibor?" Demjanjuk had replied that he had no idea what to put on the form and that another applicant had had an atlas and told him to put down Sobibor as there had been many Ukrainians there.
Evidence that Demjanjuk might have been at Sobibor rather than Treblinka contributed to his successful appeal against his conviction in Israel on the Treblinka charges. He was not prosecuted in Israel on any charges relating to Sobibor as,
inter alia, his extradition from the USA had been obtained on the basis of the Treblinka charges.
See also
- Algimantas Dailidė
Algimantas Mykolas Dailidė is a former Lithuanian Security Police official. After the war, Dailidė sought refuge in the United States, saying he had been a "forester." While in the United States, Dailidė was a real estate agent until he retired to Gulfport, Florida...
- Fydor Fedorenko
- Bohdan Koziy
Bohdan Koziy was a Ukrainian war criminal, member of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police....
- Karl Linnas
Karl Linnas was an Estonian who was sentenced to capital punishment during the Holocaust trials in Soviet Estonia in 1961...
- Arthur Rudolph
Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph was a German rocket engineer who helped develop and produce the V-2 rocket. After World War II he was brought to the United States and worked for the U.S. Army and NASA where he managed the development of several important systems including the Pershing missile and the...
External links
- Demjanjuk - Compilation of The Plain Dealer
The Plain Dealer is the major daily newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio. It has the largest circulation of any Ohio newspaper, and is a top 20 newspaper for circulation in the United States. , The Plain Dealer had more than 785,000 readers on weekdays and 1 million readers on Sunday...
articles at Cleveland.com