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'Nazi Guard' Demjanjuk Charged 29,000 Times
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by Rachel Nixon | March 11, 2009 at 11:13 am
143 views | 19 Recommendations | 3 comments
Prosecutors in Munich have filed charges against John Demjanjuk, an alleged Nazi concentration camp guard, over his alleged involvement in the deaths of 29,000 Jews.
Mr Demjanjuk, a retired car factory worker who lives in Ohio in the US, is accused of being an accessory in the murder of thousands of Jews at the Sobibor camp between March and September 1943.
The move by the Munich court on Wednesday, March 11, could represent the first steps in paving the way for the extradition of Demjanjuk from the United States, where he has lived since the 1950s.
"The accused is currently still in the United States," a court official said in a statement released in Munich. "As soon as he arrives in Germany he will be questioned and tried."
Demjanjuk is on a Simon Wiesenthal Center list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals still alive.
Israel sentenced Mr Demjanjuk to death in the 1980s, but he was acquitted and returned to the US.
He says he was a prisoner of war of the Nazis, rather than a guard, and denies any involvement in the crimes.
However in November 2008, investigators found evidence which they said linked him to the atrocities.
investigators in Munich, where Mr Demjanjuk lived briefly after the war, said they had managed "to obtain hundreds 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", said Kurt Schrimm, who heads the special German office investigating Nazi crimes.
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Recommendations (19)
Swan
Hillsboro, Oregon, United States
Roy C
Vancouver, Washington, United States
harringtola
Town-send, Massachusetts, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 11:49 on March 11th, 2009
These investigations and the supporting documentation always result in controversy and open up interesting dialog. I expect this will be no different.
at 13:58 on March 11th, 2009
As in, "how did it take so long to find him"? Simple incompetence, bad luck or willful cover-up?
at 15:24 on March 11th, 2009
Hello Rachel,
Great story and I'm happy that you've brought it to our attention, thank you.
At the end of the war, most of the Nazis escaped to Argentina where they couldn't be touched. They would change their names and live quiet lives, not drawing any attention to themselves.
There was a time when someone lamented that the whole of Argentina was filled with Nazis. Simon Wiesenthal dedicated his life to finding these murderers, notifying the Israeli Defence Force who would covertly kidnap them and take them back to Israel for trials.
He eventually opened the Simon Wiesental Center where terrifying Holocaust photos and the movies of proud Commandants and soldiers of death camps were issuing orders for who was to live and who would die.
I've visited the Center in L.A. and you would have to be an automaton not to come out of there in shock and horror. Believe me, the photographs that are shown in news reports et al are little compared to what is held in the SWC.
Yad Vashem in Israel, which I've also visited, is a memorial and information repository on the holocaust. There you will find movies and photographs of the Holocaust found nowhere else in the world.
Simon Wiesental was a hero among men and although he is now dead, his work continues even today.
Never Again.
~ Swan