Nov. 8

GERMANY:


Sixty Years Later, Alleged Nazi Guard May Stand Trial


John Demjanjuk has been living in the United States for more than 50
years. Now a German court is considering prosecuting him for his alleged
crimes as a Nazi prison guard. It would be a coup for Nazi hunters, but
legal details stand in the way of a trial.

In his first appearance before the global public, Ivan "John" Demjanjuk
chose to be provocative. After arriving in Tel Aviv on a flight from New
York, he tried to kneel down and kiss the ground of the Holy Land, but his
guards pulled him back.

In a Jerusalem courtroom Demjanjuk, accused of being a Holocaust henchman
of the SS, cheerfully greeted the participants in Hebrew, and during the
trial he irritated everyone by blowing kisses and doing stretching
exercises.

John Demjanjuk may soon be travelling to Germany.

That was then. Now, 15 years after being acquitted in Israel, Demjanjuk
could be flown to a foreign country once again to be put on trial, this
time in Germany. Last week the Central Office of the State Justice
Administration for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in the
southwestern German city of Ludwigsburg concluded its preliminary
investigation and submitted a 140-page final report to the public
prosecutor's office in Munich.

Demjanjuk, according to the report, can be charged with taking part in the
murders of at least 29,000 people. The Munich public prosecutor's office
is to request the extradition of Demjanjuk, an 88-year-old retiree who now
lives in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.

It could be the final act in a 30 year long international legal drama that
has been fraught with mishaps. Ivan Demjanjuk is, behind concentration
camp doctor Aribert Heim, number two on the list of Nazi war criminals
still alive today. He was born on April 3, 1920 in the Ukrainian village
of Dubovi Makarensy. A burly man, he spent most of his life working as a
tractor driver, truck driver and autoworker, first on a Ukrainian
collective farm, and then, after World War II, for various international
refugee organizations in southern Germany and, finally, from the 1950s
until his retirement, in a Ford auto plant in Ohio.

There was only one period, between 1942 and 1945, when Demjanjuk's work
had little to do with vehicles. According to the evidence gathered by the
Ludwigshafen agency, he was a member of a group known as the Trawniki, a
band of about 5,000 "foreign volunteers," including Balts, Ukrainians and
Volga Germans. They did the Nazis' dirty work in the occupied areas of
Eastern Europe, sometimes voluntarily, but often under duress. Stationed
at the SS's Trawniki training camp near Lublin in eastern Poland, they
were deployed for short-term assignments.

Determined Survivor

These henchmen of death participated in mass shootings and helped wipe out
Jewish ghettos. In the extermination camps, they drove the prisoners from
the trains to the areas where they were forced to undress and, finally, to
the gas chambers.

In 1942 Demjanjuk, a member of the Red Army, became a German prisoner of
war. "I would have given my soul for a loaf of bread," he later said in
court. Millions of Soviet prisoners of war died in German camps. Demjanjuk
survived and was sent to the Trawniki training camp, and later served in
the Nazi concentration camps at Majdanek, Sobibor and, finally, Flossenbrg
in Bavaria. In early 1945 he joined the Vlasov Army, a group of Russian
volunteers allied with Nazi Germany against the Soviets.

Demjanjuk also proved himself a determined survivor in the chaos of
postwar Germany. He found a job as a driver in a displaced persons camp in
the Bavarian city of Landshut, and was subsequently transferred to camps
in other southern German cities until he ended up in the town of Feldafing
near Munich in May of 1951. His SS past was never an issue.

Demjanjuk met his later wife Vera during his odyssey through southern
Germany, and the couple had a daughter, Lydia. The young family applied
for permission to immigrate to America. In January 1952 the Demjanjuks
sailed from Bremerhaven to New York on board the General Haan, a former
troop transporter.

After working on farms in Indiana, Demjanjuk later moved his family to
Ohio, where he began working for Ford. The couple had two other children,
Irene and John Jr., and the Demjanjuks moved to a small house in the
Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills, where they still live today.

In the late 1970s, American authorities received information suggesting
that Demjanjuk was involved in Nazi crimes. In 1986, he was extradited
from the United States to Israel, where he was sentenced to death in 1988.
Five Holocaust survivors identified him from a photograph, claiming that
he was "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at the Treblinka extermination camp
known for his brutality.

'Convinced that Charges Can Be Filed'

But it turned out that Demjanjuk and "Ivan the Terrible" were two
different people. The real Ivan was probably a man named Ivan Marchenko,
who was killed with a shovel during a prisoner revolt at Treblinka in
1943.

In 1993, Israel's supreme court was forced to lift the death sentence
because of "reasonable doubt" about his guilt. The survivors and their
families were outraged, but Demjanjuk, a free man, was flown back home in
business class, at taxpayer expense.

The German investigators now feel better equipped. After conducting
research in German, Israeli and American archives, they have accumulated
documents, witness testimony and deportation lists. The Ludwigsburg chief
investigator, Chief Prosecutor Kurt Schrimm, says he has "new evidence"
and insists: "We are convinced that charges can be filed."

Several months ago, Demjanjuk lost his remaining legal protection against
extradition. In May 2008, the US Supreme Court declined to hear the
presumed Nazi war criminal's appeal against a 2005 deportation order.

According to Demjanjuk's Nazi identity card, on March 27, 1943 he became a
guard at the Sobibor concentration camp in what is now eastern Poland. The
Ludwigsburg investigators believe that the identity card, once considered
a fake, is real and see it as their central piece of evidence. In
addition, one of Demjanjuk's former cronies has testified that the two men
drove the deported prisoners from the railway cars.

There is also evidence of Demjanjuk's service in other camps. According to
records from Majdanek, he was given a disciplinary beating in January 1943
for having left the camp in defiance of a typhus quarantine -- documents
show that he had gone off with three other guards to visit a nearby
brothel. Demjanjuk apparently worked at the Flossenbrg concentration camp
in Bavaria between the fall of 1943 and early 1945, according to records
showing that he was issued weapons there.

Participated in Murder

But the investigations center on Sobibor. Sobibor was purely an
extermination camp, and anyone who worked there as a guard participated in
murder.

The Ludwigsburg investigators compiled the names of 29,000 people,
including 1,900 Germans, who were deported from the Westerbork transit
camp to Sobibor, where they were murdered during Demjanjuk's time there as
a guard.

German prosecutors hope that a 1951 registration document they discovered
in the town hall at Feldafing near Munich will help bring the case before
a German court, because it proves that Demjanjuk's last place of residence
in Germany was in the Munich area and, therefore, that a Munich court can
file for his extradition. The Munich prosecutor's office also happens to
be one of three in Germany that specialize in Nazi war crimes cases.

Last week the Munich experts insisted that the case should not be rushed.
"We will not allow ourselves to be pressured," says Christian
Schmidt-Sommerfeld, the chief prosecutor in charge of the case. According
to Schmidt-Sommerfeld, his office must first determine, by carefully
reviewing the Feldafing registration documents, whether it even has
jurisdiction. "We have to feel completely confident," says
Schmidt-Sommerfeld, noting that an indictment can hardly be expected this
year.

It is quite possible that the Munich prosecutor's office will conclude
that the case does not fall within its jurisdiction. In that case, it
would be up to the German Federal Supreme Court to decide where the case
should be tried -- yet another time-consuming detour in this complicated
affair.

The case should have been decided in court long ago. But Demjanjuk has
benefited from bureaucratic snags in several countries. The American
Office for Special Investigations (OSI), the US authority charged with
investigating Nazi war crimes, initially held back important documents
because they did not fit into Israel's indictment structure.

And in Germany, no public prosecutor feels responsible, to this day, for
foreign Nazi criminals who committed murder in occupied countries on
behalf of the Germans. When the German Foreign Office in Berlin received a
letter from the OSI this summer indicating that Demjanjuk could be
extradited soon, the government officials discovered that there is no
active case against Demjanjuk in Germany.

Desire to Look Good in the Press

Now the German prosecutors are coming under growing international
pressure. "We are pleased about the new developments in the Demjanjuk
saga," says Jeffrey Sinensky of the American Jewish Committee.

Serge Klarsfeld, a Paris Nazi hunter whose organization has collected
extensive evidence against Demjanjuk, also welcomes the initiative, but
hopes that a potential trial does not end in another acquittal. "That
would be the worst thing, because an acquittal would make it seem as if
the crimes for which he was being tried never happened."

Even if Munich does declare that the Demjanjuk case falls within its
jurisdiction, political actors will soon have their say. A request to take
Demjanjuk into custody would first have to be submitted to the Bavarian
justice ministry, which would then forward it to Federal Ministry of
Justice (BMJ). The BMJ decides in such cases whether to forward the
request to the United States. In cases of special political relevance, the
Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of the Interior would also be
consulted.

Whether this legal drama will ever come to a close remains questionable.
The biggest problem will likely be the suspect's ability to stand trial.
In a letter to a news agency, John Demjanjuk Jr. wrote that his father
won't be capable of defending himself in further foreign trials. Demjanjuk
and his family have consistently denied the crimes. The case hasn't been
about justice for a long time, says Demjanjuk's son, who believes that the
German investigators are merely motivated by a desire to look good in the
press.

(source: Spiegel Online)






AUSTRALIA:

Australian clergyman blasted for Holocaust claim


Australian Jewish community leaders blasted an American-born minister for
suggesting that a fate worse than the Holocaust awaits Jews and others who
have not embraced Jesus.

Pastor Kevin Harris made the remarks last week while meeting with Jewish
leaders on a tour of regional areas south of Sydney to consult with
religious leaders, including Anglican and Catholic bishops.

Harris in a published report said his comments were made in a private
meeting "in my lounge room" and admitted using the word "holocaust," but
said it was biblical language.

New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff
claimed that Harris, originally from Virginia, also said that the Jews are
a cancer and are going to hell, but Harris denied making those remarks.

Harris, a Baptist clergyman who leads the Illawarra Community Baptist
Church, told JTA he was quoting Matthew 24:21, a New Testament verse that
reads, At that time there will be great suffering, the kind that has not
happened from the beginning of the world until now and certainly will
never happen again.

I am not wishing anything bad on the Jewish people, Harris said. I was
quoting Jesus words.

Harris, who visited Israel in 2005, added that I very much love Jews. We
bear them no ill will.

But Alhadeff described the private encounter with the pastor as
"chilling."

His brazen approach and the fact that he is influencing others on a daily
basis are the issues of real concern, he said.

Bnai Briths Anti-Defamation Commission chair Tony Levy also slammed the
Holocaust comment.

They are a grotesque affront to our community," he said, "and particularly
distressing for Holocaust survivors who suffered so brutally at the hands
of the Nazis.

The more than 800 Baptist churches in Australia have some 60,000 members.

(source: JTA)





POLAND:

Poland awards dozens for saving Jews during WWII



Dozens of Poles were awarded medals Monday for risking their lives during
World War II to save Jews from the Holocaust.

President Lech Kaczynski awarded state medals - many posthumously - to
around 70 people from across Poland. First lady Maria Kaczynska presented
them to the people or their relatives in a gala ceremony at Warsaw's
National Theater.

Among those awarded was Zofia Brusikiewicz, 81, whose parents hid 13 Jews
in an apartment in Warsaw and Irena Gut-Opdyke, whose dramatic story is
narrated in a one-act play, "Irena's Vow," that opened Off Broadway in
September.

Gut-Opdyke hid 12 Jews in the basement of an SS officer's house, where she
served as a housekeeper. She died, aged 85, in 2003 in New York, where her
family recently received her medal.

Poland was the only country under Nazi occupation where helping Jews was
punished with summary execution of the entire family.

Most of the recipients are already among the 6,000 Poles holding the title
of the Righteous Among the Nations from Israel's Yad Vashem. They were
largely found thanks to testimony deposited with the institute.

About 3.5 million Jews, or 10 percent of the country's population, lived
in Poland before World War II. Most were killed in death camps, like
Auschwitz-Birkenau, that the Nazis built when they occupied Poland between
1939 and 1945.

Around 200,000 survived, but many left for Israel or other countries amid
anti-Semitic purges of the 1960s. Jewish life is being slowly rekindled
since Poland shed communism in 1989.

On the Net: http://www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl

(source: Associated Press)