Nazi War Criminal May be Deported from the U.S.
Federal Judge Removes Legal Barriers to Demjanjuk Extradition
Apr 7, 2009
German authorities recently issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Demjanjuk, 89, based on evidence that was presented by local prosecutors in Munich. This evidence appears to confirm that he had served as a guard at the Sobibor concentration camp in German-occupied Poland in 1943. An estimated 29,000 Jews were killed in the months that Mr. Demjanjuk allegedly served at the camp.
Originally, U.S. Federal Judge Wayne R. Iskra had blocked Mr. Demjanjuk´s deportation to Germany with a stay of deportation issued on April 4, 2009. Then, on April 6, 2009, Judge Iskra formally reversed the very same stay of deportation; a move that opens the door for Mr. Demjanjuk´s eventual extradition to Germany.
Strange History of the Demjanjuk Case
Mr. Demjanjuk was born in the Ukraine, and eventually emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1952, and became an American citizen. He is alleged to have been a member of an infamous guard unit that was trained by the Nazis in the village of Trawniki, Poland, to run several concentration camps. The “Trawniki Unit” was composed mainly of Ukrainian volunteers who were soldiers from the Soviet Army that had been captured by the Germans.
In 1975, his name appeared on a Soviet list of Ukrainian war criminals living in the United States. American Immigration authorities investigated, and concluded, based on the testimony of survivors in Israel, that Mr. Demjanjuk used to be “Ivan the Terrible”, a brutal guard at the concentration camp in Treblinka, Poland. In 1986 his U.S. citizenship was revoked and he was extradited to Israel in order to stand trial there.
Israel´s war crimes tribunal found him guilty and handed down a death sentence two years later. In an odd twist to the case, with the collapse of the Soviet Union evidence emerged that another guard at Treblinka might be “Ivan the Terrible”, and the Israeli Supreme Court eventually overturned Mr. Demjanjuk's conviction. He then regained his U.S. citizenship and returned to the United States, specifically to Cleveland, Ohio.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed another case against Mr. Demjanjuk in 1999 on the basis of evidence produced by Israeli prosecutors that he had been a guard at Sobibor and other camps. In 2002, Mr. Demjanjuk was stripped of his American citizenship, for a second time, for lying about his role at the concentration camps on his original immigration documents. Afterwards, U.S. authorities were unable to actually deport Mr. Demjanjuk because no country was willing to take him; until now.
Holocaust Survivors Waiting for Justice
Many international observers are certain that Mr. Demjanjuk is guilty and should be extradited to Germany immediately. Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, recently commented to reporters that: “Demjanjuk may be old and frail, but so are many Holocaust survivors whose lives were destroyed by the likes of him. They rightly demand justice from those who murdered their loved ones 65 years ago…There are no excuses for any further delay in this case. No Nazi war criminal still alive should feel safe anywhere in the world”.
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