John Demjanjuk
John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demianiuk; Ukrainian: Іван Миколайович Дем'янюк; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a Ukrainian-American auto worker, a former soldier in the Soviet Red Army, and a POW during the Second World War.[2]
John Demjanjuk | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ivan Mykolaiovych Demianiuk 3 April 1920 |
| Died | 17 March 2012 (aged 91) Bad Feilnbach, Bavaria, Germany |
| Occupation | Retired auto worker |
| Known for | Alleged war crimes |
| Spouse(s) | Vera[1] |
| Children | John Demjanjuk Jr. Lydia Irene |
Early life
Demjanjuk was born in Ukraine. During World War II was drafted into the Soviet Red Army, where he was captured as a German prisoner of war.
World War II
Although he was a survivor of the notorious Nazi concentration camps system, he was convicted in 2011 in Germany for alleged war crimes as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews while acting as a guard named Ivan Demjanjuk at the Nazi extermination camp near Sobibór in occupied Poland.[2][3] Since his conviction was pending appeal at the time of his death,[2][4][5] Demjanjuk remains innocent under German law, and his earlier conviction is invalidated. According to the Munich state court, Demjanjuk does not have a criminal record.[6]
Life in the United States
In 1952 he emigrated from West Germany to the United States, and was granted citizenship in 1958 whereupon he formally anglicized his name from "Ivan" to "John".[7][8]
Deportation
In 1986 he was deported to Israel to stand trial for war crimes, after being identified by eleven Holocaust survivors,[9] many from Israel, as "Ivan the Terrible",[10] a notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp in Nazi occupied Poland. Demjanjuk was accused of committing murder and acts of extraordinarily savage violence against camp prisoners during 1942–43. He was convicted of having committed crimes against humanity and sentenced to death there in 1988.
The verdict was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1993, based on new evidence that "Ivan the Terrible" was probably another man, Ivan Marchenko.[11] After the trial, in September 1993, he returned to his home in Ohio. In 1998 his citizenship was restored after a United States federal appeals court ruled that prosecutors had suppressed exculpatory evidence concerning his identity.[12]
Later charges
In 2001 Demjanjuk was charged again, this time on the grounds that he had, instead, served as a guard named Ivan Demjanjuk at the Sobibor and Majdanek camps in Nazi occupied Poland and at the Flossenbürg camp in Germany. Demjanjuk became again a stateless person in 2002 (until his death in 2012).[5][13][14] His deportation was again ordered in 2005, but after exhausting his appeals in 2008 he still remained in the United States, as no country would agree to accept him at that time.
On 2 April 2009, it was announced that Demjanjuk would be deported to Germany, where he would stand trial, since in a bid to disassociate from the nation's past, Germany began the policy of prosecuting prisoners of war from other nations whom the German Nazis made the accessories to their crimes. On 11 May, Demjanjuk left his Cleveland home by ambulance, and was taken to the airport, where he was deported by plane, arriving in Germany the next morning.[15][16] On 13 July, he 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 was alleged to have served as a guard. On 30 November, Demjanjuk's trial began in Munich.[17]
Convictions
On 12 May 2011, Demjanjuk was convicted pending appeal by an ordinary German criminal court as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews at Sobibor and sentenced to five years in prison. The interim conviction was later annulled, because Demjanjuk died before his appeal could be heard.[18][19][20][21][22] He was later released pending trial and final verdict by the German Appellate Court.
Death
He lived at a German nursing home in Bad Feilnbach,[13] where he died on 17 March 2012.[23] Despite decades of legal wrangling and controversy, Demjanjuk died a free man and legally innocent.[24][25]
John Demjanjuk Media
Sobibor "Road to Death" in 2007
Photograph of Trawniki guards at Sobibor, taken in 1943. This was not seen publicly until January 2020, when it was one of numerous photos from Sobibor newly exhibited in Berlin. The originals have been donated to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Demjanjuk was "inconclusively identified" as the guard in the middle of the front row.
References
- ↑ Cleveland
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Demjanjuk family asks to bury Nazi war criminal in US". BBC News. 20 March 2012. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17448458.
- ↑ "Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk dies aged 91" Daily Telegraph (17 March 2012)
- ↑ "Former Nazi guard John Demjanjuk to be buried in the United States", Haaretz (22 March 2012)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "John Demjanjuk's body's burial site sparks fears of Nazi shrine in Cleveland suburb", Daily News (New York) (20 March 2012)
- ↑ "Convicted Nazi criminal Demjanjuk deemed innocent in Germany over technicality", Haaretz. Retrieved 23 March 2012, viz. statement by Munich state court spokeswoman Margarete Noetzel.
- ↑ AP file (21 July 2011). "John Demjanjuk's lawyers seek his return to the US". Cleveland.com. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
- ↑ James Sturcke (12 May 2009). "Timeline: John Demjanjuk". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
- ↑ Boaz Fyler (2012-03-17). "Israeli judge: Demjanjuk was 'Ivan the Terrible'". News. Ynetnews Magazine. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- ↑ Wagenaar 1989.
- ↑ Hedges, Chris (12 August 1993). "Israel Recommends that Demjanjuk Be Released". The New York Times
- ↑ Chu, Henry (18 March 2012). "John Demjanjuk dies at 91; convicted Nazi death camp guard." Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Ewing, Jack; Cowell, Alan (13 May 2011). "Demjanjuk Taken to Nursing Home". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/world/europe/14nazi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss.
- ↑ "Demjanjuk Lands in Munich", Der Spiegel (5 December 2009)
- ↑ Demjanjuk en route to Germany. United Press International. 11 May 2009
- ↑ Kulish, Nicholas (12 May 2009) Accused Nazi Arrives in Munich. The New York Times
- ↑ "John Demjanjuk war crimes trial begins in Munich". News. UK: BBC. 30 November 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
- ↑ Aderet, Ofert. News Article. HAARETZ. Convicted Nazi criminal Demjanjuk deemed innocent in Germany over technicality. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/convicted-nazi-criminal-demjanjuk-deemed-innocent-in-germany-over-technicality-1.420280
- ↑ Matussek, Karin (12 May 2011). Demjanjuk Convicted of Helping Nazis to Murder Jews During the Holocaust. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/demjanjuk-convicted-of-helping-nazis-to-murder-jews-during-the-holocaust.html. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
- ↑ John Demjanjuk zu fünf Jahren Haft verurteilt. 12 May 2011. https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article13367603/John-Demjanjuk-zu-fuenf-Jahren-Haft-verurteilt.html. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
- ↑ Connor, Richard (12 May 2011). Court finds Nazi camp guard guilty of assisting in Holocaust deaths. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15068941,00.html. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
- ↑ Kraemer, Christian (12 May 2011). Demjanjuk convicted of Nazi war crimes. http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/12/demjanjuk-convicted-of-nazi-war-crimes. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
- ↑ McFadden Robert. News Article in New York Times. 17 March 2012. John Demjanjuk, 91, Dogged by Charges of Atrocities as Nazi Camp Guard, Dies. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/world/europe/john-demjanjuk-nazi-guard-dies-at-91.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
- ↑ Aderet, Ofer. Haartz Israeli News. News article 23 March 2012. Convicted Nazi criminal Demjanjuk deemed innocent in Germany over technicality. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/convicted-nazi-criminal-demjanjuk-deemed-innocent-in-germany-over-technicality-1.420280
- ↑ The Times of Israel. News article. Court rejects appeal for Demjanjuk citizens. 13 September 2012. http://www.timesofisrael.com/court-rejects-appeal-for-demjanjuk-citizenship/
Bibliography
- Kudryashov, Sergei (2004), "Ordinary Collaborators: The Case of the Travniki Guards", in Erickson, Mark; Erickson, Ljubica (eds.), Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy Essays in Honour of John Erickson, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 226–39
- Sheftel, Yoram (1994). The Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall of a Show-Trial (Hardcover) (Revised ed.). London: Victor Gollancz. ISBN 0575057955. ISBN 9780575057951
- Sheftel, Yoram (1 May 1996). Defending 'Ivan the Terrible': The Conspiracy to Convict John Demjanjuk (Hardcover). Translated by Haim Watzman (1st ed.). Washington, D.C., Lanham, MD: Regnery Publishing Distributed to the trade by National Book Network. p. 445. ISBN 0895264587. ISBN 978-0895264589
- Wagenaar, Willem Albert (1988). Identifying Ivan: A Case Study in Legal Psychology (Google Books snippet view). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-44285-6.
Other websites
- Demjanjuk Archived 2009-05-10 at the Wayback Machine—Compilation of The Plain Dealer articles at Cleveland.com
- Buchanan, Patrick J. (13 May 2011). "The Persecution of John Demjanjuk". Human Events. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 30 September 2012.