[98] In Ukraine, Demjanjuk was viewed as a national hero and received a personal invitation to return to Ukraine by then-president Leonid Kravchuk. Based primarily on the survivor identifications, the Israeli court convicted John Demjanjuk and, on April 25, 1988, sentenced him to death, only the second time that an Israeli court had imposed capital punishment upon a convicted defendant (the first being Eichmann). In a second photograph, researchers identify one man as Demjanjuk, but another man has a prominent left ear much like what is seen on Demjanjuks Nazi ID card. [22] His application stated that he had worked as a driver in the town of Sobibr in eastern Poland. meaning "Terrible" in Polish and Russian. [171], Demjanjuk's conviction for accessory to murder solely on the basis of having been a guard at a concentration camp set a new legal precedent in Germany. Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., dismissed the possible identification as "baseless," telling the Associated Press ' Kerstin Sopke and Geir Moulson that "the photos are not proof of my. As Chelm was Demjanjuk's alibi, he was questioned about this omission during the trial by both the prosecutors and the judges; Demjanjuk blamed the trauma of his POW experience and said he had simply forgotten. [127] On Thursday 7 May 2009, the United States Supreme Court, via Justice John Paul Stevens, declined to consider Demjanjuk's case for review, thereby denying Demjanjuk any further stay of deportation. 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 as part of Operation Reinhard. [112] On 3 April 2009, US Immigration Judge Wayne Iskra temporarily stayed Demjanjuk's deportation,[120] but reversed himself three days later, on 6 April. [140] Demjanjuk arrived in the courtroom in a wheelchair pushed by a German police officer. Vera, also from Ukraine, told Cleveland.com that she lived through World War II and famine. This was considered circumstantial corroboration of Hanusiak's claims, but its agents were unable to find witnesses in the US who could identify Demjanjuk. [11] Having died before a final judgment on his appeal could be issued, under German law, Demjanjuk remains technically innocent. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) began investigating John Demjanjuk in 1975 and filed denaturalization proceedings against him in 1977, alleging that he had falsified his immigration and citizenship papers in order to conceal World War II service at the Treblinka killing center. The blood group tattoo was applied by army medics and used by combat personnel in the Waffen-SS and its foreign volunteers and conscripts because they were likely to need blood or give transfusions. On 13 July 2009, prosecutors charged him with 27,900counts of accessory to murder for his time as a guard at Sobibor. Ukrainian guard at Nazi death camps (19202012), Loss of US citizenship and extradition to Israel, Verdict and Israeli Supreme Court reversal, Second loss of US citizenship and extradition to Germany, Death and posthumous efforts to restore US citizenship, Subsequent prosecutions of Nazi extermination camp guards in Germany, US Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, United Nations Convention against Torture, Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, List of denaturalized former citizens of the United States, "Seven Hills' John Demjanjuk, convicted Nazi guard, dies in Bavaria at 91", "Israeli judge: Demjanjuk was 'Ivan the Terrible', "Israel recommends that Demjanjuk be released", "John Demjanjuk, 91, dogged by charges of atrocities as Nazi camp guard, dies", "Convicted Nazi Criminal Demjanjuk Deemed Innocent in Germany Over Technicality", "John Demjanjuk: Things we are left to tend to think", "Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk dies aged 91", "Anger simmers in Demjanjuk's home village", " :: ", "Looking Back on the Demjanjuk Trial in Munich", "Sixty years later, alleged Nazi guard may stand trial", "Convicted Nazi criminal John Demjanjuk dies at 91", "Judge Rules Autoworker Must Lose Citizenship for Falsifying Past", "Nazi Deportation Trial Centers on Identity Card", "Defense Rests in Trial of Alleged Nazi Guard", "Ex-Nazi Suspect Loses Immigration Court Case", "Man Accused of Nazi Crimes to be Extradited to Israel", "John Demjanjuk: Prosecution of a Nazi collaborator", "Demjanjuk quoted: Guards only followed orders", "2nd witness calls Demjanjuk 'Ivan the Terrible', "Acquittal in Jerusalem; Israel court sets Demjanjuk free, but he is now without a country", "KGB evidence reopens the case of 'Ivan the Terrible': Holocaust: Recently released files bolster the appeal of the man convicted as a Nazi death camp monster", "Why Nazi trials must end: The story behind the likely acquittal of", "Decision of Israel Supreme Court on petition concerning John (Ivan) Demjanjuk", "Judge orders accused camp guard deported", "Accused Nazi guard Demjanjuk loses court appeal", "Germany seeks extradition of Nazi guard from US", "Court: 'Ivan the Terrible' can be tried in Germany", "Former Nazi camp guard charged 29,000times", "Former Nazi camp guard to be deported to Germany", "John Demjanjuk's trial in Germany to start 30 November", "U.S. judge allows deportation of accused Nazi guard", "Nazi suspect's deportation appeal rejected", "Demjanjuk removed from Ohio home on stretcher", "Nazi war crimes suspect granted emergency stay", "Alleged Nazi guard Demjanjuk hits legal brick wall", "Demjanjuk loses German court bid to block deportation", "Krankenwagen bringt Demjanjuk ins Untersuchungsgefngnis", "Germany files charges against alleged Nazi guard Demjanjuk", "Demjanjuk lawyer calls for case to be closed", "John Demjanjuk war crimes trial begins in Munich", "Man Tied to Death Camp Goes on Trial in Germany", "John Demjanjuk, 91, Dogged by Charges of Atrocities as Nazi Camp Guard, Dies", "Witness in alleged Nazi Demjanjuk trial under investigation for murder", "German court rejects Demjanjuk extradition request", "Demjanjuk convicted of helping Nazis to murder Jews during the Holocaust", "John Demjanjuk zu fnf Jahren Haft verurteilt", "Court finds Nazi camp guard guilty of assisting in Holocaust deaths", "Former US citizen convicted in Nazi camp deaths", "Convicted Nazi criminal Demjanjuk deemed innocent in Germany over technicality", "Demjanjuk family asks to bury Nazi war criminal in US", "Ukrainian political party leader says Demjanjuk was buried in US weeks after his March death", "John Demjanjuk's widow asks for hearing on citizenship of late husband, convicted Nazi war criminal", "US court: No posthumous US citizenship for Demjanjuk, convicted in war crimes probe", "Court rejects appeal for Demjanjuk citizenship", "Demjanjuk attorney files complaint against doctors", "Doctors Did Not Hasten Demjanjuk's Death", "Was John Demjanjuk Really 'Ivan the Terrible'? Meanwhile, despite having the legal option, Israeli authorities declined to prosecute Demjanjuk for his activities at Sobibor, and prepared to release him. Your Privacy Rights Their video showed him walking unaided to an appointment. [94] Central to the new evidence was a photograph of Ivan the Terrible and a description that did not match the 1942 appearance of Demjanjuk. [138], Doctors restricted the time Demjanjuk could be tried in court each day to two sessions of 90 minutes each, according to Munich State Prosecutor Anton Winkler. [86], Following closing statements, the defense also submitted the statement of Ignat Danilchenko, information which had been obtained through the US Freedom of Information but had not previously been made available to the defense by OSI. [143] The prosecution also produced orders to a man identified as Demjanjuk to go to Sobibor and other records to show that Demjanjuk had served as a guard there. He maintained his innocence, claiming that it was a case of mistaken identity. The prosecution called expert witnesses to testify on the authenticity of the card including its signatures by various Nazi officers, paper, and ink. Demjanjuk's US citizenship was reinstated and he returned to the States, where he went back to living his family life. [67] On 19 May 1999, the Justice Department filed a complaint against Demjanjuk to seek his denaturalization. On 9 December 2008, a German federal court declared that Demjanjuk could be tried for his role in the Holocaust. On May 19, 2008, the US Supreme Court declined to review his appeal. [59] Demjanjuk appealed his extradition; in a hearing on 8 July 1985, Demjanjuk's defense attorneys claimed that the evidence against him had been manufactured by the KGB,[60] that Demjanjuk was never at Treblinka, and that the court had no authority to consider Israel's request for extradition. | 19 News is not saying where for fear it could become a lightning rod for protests or vandalism. The German jurisdictional authority rested on the murder of people brought to Sobibor on 15 transport trains from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands between April and July 1943, among whom were individual German citizens who had fled to Holland in the 1930s. They also gained an additional identification of the visa photo as Demjanjuk by Otto Horn, a former SS guard at Treblinka. It was the first televised trial in Israeli history. The son of famed John Demjanjuk has dismissed the claim that newly emerged photos of the Sobibor death camp show his father performing duties as a guard. [20] OSI was unable to establish Demjanjuk's whereabouts from December 1944 to the end of the war. Now, a photo has emerged from the Nazi death camp at Sobibor, a camp where John Demjanjuk was accused of serving. One year later, in December 2005, a US Immigration Court ordered Demjanjuk deported to his native Ukraine. About 1.7 million Jews were murdered at Sobibor and two other camps in 1941-43. There is no evidence that POWs trained as police auxiliaries at Trawniki received such tattoos. This removed any obstacles to federal agents seizing him for deportation to Germany. John Demjanjuk died in a German nursing home on March 17, 2012. Two of the images probably show Demjanjuk, said historian Martin Cueppers, as quoted by Reuters Madeline Chambers. In his third declaration Demjanjuk demanded access to a secret KGB file numbered 1627 and declared a hunger strike until he got it. The defense argued that Demjanjuk had never been a guard, but that if he had been that he had had no choice in the matter. [135], Demjanjuk was represented by German attorney Ulrich Busch and Gnther Maul. Demjanjuk returned to the United States, only for his citizenship to be revoked once again after the government accused him of working as a guard at several camps, including Sobibor. [88] The former guards' statements were obtained after World WarII by the Soviets, who prosecuted USSR citizens who had assisted the Nazis as auxiliary forces during the war. [45][46] Five Holocaust survivors from Treblinka identified Demjanjuk as having been at Treblinka and having been "Ivan the Terrible. Testimony by Holocaust Survivors John Demjanjuk. It is a card Demjanjuk disputed, but one a federal judge ruled was legitimate. On Tuesday, experts speaking at Berlins Topography of Terror museum presented a previously unseen collection of 361 photos that once belonged to Johann Niemann, deputy commander of Sobibor between September 1942 and October 1943. Main telephone: 202.488.0400 CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - John Demjanjuk is at rest in a cemetery near Cleveland. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [81] Additionally, Sheftel alleged that the trial was a show trial, and referred to the trial as "the Demjanjuk affair," alluding to the famous antisemitic Dreyfus Affair. [24] Historian Hans-Jrgen Bmelburg noted in regard to Demjanjuk that Nazi war criminals sometimes tried to evade prosecution after the war by presenting themselves as victims of Nazi persecution, rather than as the perpetrators. His first child was due in late October, just when this magazine will hit the newstands. Nevertheless, blood-type tattooing was never consistently implemented. Demjanjuk worked as a mechanic at Fords plant in Cleveland. Demjanjuks wife attended the same church listed in the obituary: St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral. But there has been no rest in the debate over Demjanjuks wartime role. John Demjanjuks Wife, Vera Demjanjuk: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. She hadnt seen him since 2009, when he was taken to Germany for another trial. These legal battles underscore the interdependence of the historical record and the long search for justice to redress crimes against humanity. [88] The court declined to find him guilty on this basis because the prosecution had built its entire case around Demjanjuk's identity with Ivan the Terrible, and Demjanjuk had not been given a chance to defend himself from charges of being a guard at Sobibor. The photographs were published on 28 January 2020 in the book Fotos aus Sobibor ("Photos from Sobibor"). [67], Demjanjuk was at first represented by attorney Mark J. O'Connor of New York State; Demjanjuk fired him in July 1987 just a week before he was scheduled to testify at his trial. [35], INS sent photographs to the Israeli government of the nine persons alleged by Hanusiak to have been involved in crimes against Jews: the government's agents asked survivors of Sobibor and Treblinka if they could identify Demjanjuk based on his visa application picture. We had a suspicion it was him and we were able to enlist the support of the state police, explained Cueppers, as reported by Erik Kirschbaum of the Los Angeles Times. [84] Demjanjuk also changed his testimony as to why he had listed Sobibor as his place of domicile from his earlier trials: he now claimed to have been advised to do so by an official of the United Nations Relief Administration to list a place in Poland or Czechoslovakia in order to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Union, after which another Soviet refugee waiting with him suggested Demjanjuk list Sobibor. In November 2009, he again sat in the defendant's dock. David van Huiden, whose parents and sister were murdered in Sobibor while Demjanjuk was there, said the verdict meant. However, Demjanjuk's family, who had always claimed he was a Ukrainian prisoner of war, and that the accusations were simply a case of mistaken identity, had fought vigorously to prevent his deportation to Germany, defended him, and stood by his side until his death. His. Because the Soviet Union generally refused to cooperate with the Israeli prosecutions, this IDcard was obtained from the USSR and provided to Israel by American industrialist Armand Hammer, a close associate of several Kremlin leaders, whose help had been requested by the personal appeal of Israeli president Shimon Peres. In late September 2019, a Vera Demjanjuk of Ohio passed away. They did, however, consistently refer to an Ivan Marchenko, who had served as a gas motor operator at Treblinka from the summer of 1942 until the prisoner uprising in 1943, and who had stood out as a particularly cruel police auxiliary, perpetrating acts that were consistent with the memory of the Jewish Treblinka survivors. However, his family has concerns over how his story is portrayed,they spoke with 3news. [129] The German Administrative Court rejected Demjanjuk's claim on 6 May. Jewish organizations have opposed this, claiming that his burial site would become a center for neo-Nazi activity. The accounts of 21 guards who were tried in the Soviet Union on war crimes gave details that differentiate Demjanjuk from Ivan the Terrible in particular that 'Ivan the Terrible's surname was Marchenko, not Demjanjuk. [28], Demjanjuk, his wife and daughter arrived in New York City aboard the USSGeneral W. G. Haan on 9 February 1952. Niemann was killed there on 14 October 1943, during a prisoner revolt.[174]. A new show on Netlfix, "Devil Next Door" is about John Demjanjuk. He was married to Vera Demjanjuk and they had three children while he lived in the United States: John Jr., Irene, and Lydia. [20] These documents were found in former Soviet archives in Moscow and in Lithuania, which placed Demjanjuk at Sobibor on 26 March 1943, at Flossenbrg on 1 October 1943, and at Majdanek from November 1942 through early March 1943; administrative documents from Flossenbrg referencing Demjanjuk's name and Trawniki card number were also uncovered. GettyPicture taken on May 11, 2009 shows police and media waiting in front of the home of John Demjanjuk before he was carried out on a stretcher in Seven Hills, Ohio. [7][8] On 12 May 2011, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Grant testified that the document had been forged. His return was met by protests and counter-protests, with supporters including members of the Ku Klux Klan. Demjanjuk was only the second person to be tried for these charges in Israel. While living in the United States, he was married to Vera Demjanjuk and they had three children. Most of the guards were executed after the war by the Soviets,[93] and their written statements were not obtained by Israeli authorities until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. [163] On 28 June 2012, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that Demjanjuk could not regain his citizenship posthumously. [137] Busch also alleged that the trial violated the principle of double jeopardy due to the previous trial in Israel. [21], After the end of the war, Demjanjuk spent time in several displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany. [170], In 2019, Netflix released The Devil Next Door, a documentary by Israeli filmmakers Daniel Sivan and Yossi Bloch that focuses on Demjanjuk's trial in Israel. In 1952 they emigrated to the United States. Even the Makers of 'The Devil Next Door' Can't Agree", "Historians: Sobibor death camp photos may feature Demjanjuk", "Sobibor perpetrator collection Collections Search United States Holocaust Memorial Museum", "John Demjanjuk: NS-Verbrecher auf Fotos nicht eindeutig identifizierbar", " : ", "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Acquires Sobibor Perpetrator Collection", List of Sobibor extermination camp personnel, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Demjanjuk&oldid=1151393809, Soviet military personnel of World War II from Ukraine, Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government, Loss of United States citizenship by prior Nazi affiliation, Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi Germany, People convicted of crimes against humanity, World War II prisoners of war held by Germany, Pages using cite court with unknown parameters, Articles with dead external links from December 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages, Pages using infobox military person with embed, Articles containing Ukrainian-language text, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from January 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted, conviction on the new charges would be unlikely, and. [30] 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. While interviews with Demjanjuk's family portray him as an innocent family man unfairly maligned, the evidence against him is haunting. She wasnt able to go to Germany because of her heart problems. [107], In February 2002, Judge Matia revoked Demjanjuk's US citizenship. The Niemann collection includes 49 images from Sobibor, among them photographs that show Nazi camp leaders drinking on a terrace and Niemann, perched on horseback, gazing at the tracks where deportation trains arrived. "I say it unhesitatingly, without the slightest shadow of a doubt. Demjanjuk also said, "Your Honors, if I had really been in that terrible place, would I have been stupid enough to say so? As Demjanjuk's appeal made its way to the Israeli Supreme Court, the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. [66] According to prosecutors, Demjanjuk had been recruited into the Soviet army in 1940, and had fought until he was captured by German troops in Eastern Crimea in May 1942. By Robert D. McFadden. Several Jewish survivors of Treblinka identified Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible, key evidence placing him at the killing center. Investigations of Demjanjuk's Holocaust-era past began in 1975. View the list of all donors. After returning to Trawniki in August 1943, Marchenko transferred to Trieste, Italy, and disappeared towards the end of the war. In the summer of 1991, an OSI investigator searching in the Lithuanian National Archives in Vilnius for documentation related to a Lithuanian police battalion found by chance a document that placed Demjanjuk as a member of a Trawniki-trained guard detachment stationed at the Majdanek concentration camp between November 1942 and early March 1943. Newly released picture may prove John Demjanjuk, who lived in Seven Hills, was a Nazi death camp guard, US Marshals find 14-year-old Cleveland girl missing since July in Columbus with 41-year-old man, 3 men shot at Hookah Lounge in Summit County, US Marshals: 31-year-old Cleveland man wanted for raping child over 2-year span, Netflix has docu-series on John Demjanjuk, the accused Nazi guard who lived in Northeast Ohio, Closed Captioning/Audio Description Problems. There he became a United Auto Workers (UAW) diesel engine mechanic at the nearby Ford automobile factory,[30] where a friend from Regensburg had found work. In Israel, he was convicted of being Ivan the Terrible, a conviction that was later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court. He was recruited by the Germans and trained at Trawniki concentration camp, going on to serve at Sobibor extermination camp and at least two concentration camps. [56] Writer Lawrence Douglas has called the case "the most highly publicized denaturalization proceeding in American history. His fate remains unknown. [62], Demjanjuk's trial took place in the Jerusalem District Court between 26 November 1986 and 18 April 1988, before a special tribunal comprising Israeli Supreme Court Judge Dov Levin and Jerusalem District Court Judges Zvi Tal and Dalia Dorner. [79] Most significantly, Sheftel called Dr. Julius Grant, who had proven that the Hitler diaries were forged. [80] He also called Dutch psychologist Willem Albert Wagenaar, who testified to flaws in the method by which Treblinka survivors had identified Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible. [121] As the Government noted, a motion to reopen, such as Demjanjuk's, could only properly be filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) in Washington, D.C., and not an immigration trial court. Sheftel focused the defense largely on the claim that Demjanjuk's Trawniki card was a KGB forgery. They believe the collection includes two photos showing Demjanjuk with fellow guards at the camp, which would be the first documentary evidence to conclusively establish he had served there. It is Ivan from Treblinka, from the gas chambers, the man I am looking at now." Demjanjuks citizenship was ultimately rescinded, and in 1986, he was extradited to Israel to stand trial. Working as a mechanic at a Ford plant, he lived a quiet, suburban lifeat least until 1977, when the Justice Department sued to revoke his citizenship, claiming he had lied on his immigration papers to conceal war crimes committed at another Nazi extermination camp, Treblinka. [26][27] There he met Vera Kowlowa, another DP, and they married. A critical piece of evidence was John Demjanjuk's Trawniki camp identification card, located in a Soviet archive. Demjanjuk immigrated to the United States in 1952 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1958. "[4] Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986 for trial. [161] On 31 March 2012, it was reported that John Demjanjuk was buried at an undisclosed US location. Conscripted into the Soviet army, he was captured by German troops at the battle of Kerch in May 1942. At the trial, prosecutors said Demjanjuks job at Sobibor was to lead Jews to the gas chambers to be killed, writes Mahita Gajanan for Time. [158], John Demjanjuk died at a home for the elderly in Bad Feilnbach, Germany on 17 March 2012, aged 91. Advertising Notice [63] The prosecution conceived of the trial as a didactic trial on the Holocaust in the manner of the earlier trial of Adolf Eichmann. " It's all been lies from beginning to end," his daughter, Irene Nishnic, said through tears during his trial in Jerusalem in. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death. Demjanjuk was an autoworker in Cleveland who was accused of being Ivan the Terrible, a Nazi concentration camp guard who committed terrible crimes.
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