Demjanjuk Farce Is a Funny Kind of Justice

Accused Nazi death-camp guard, 89, is officially stateless

(NEWSER) - John Demjanjuk is physically able to stand trial for his alleged role as an accessory to murder in a Nazi death camp, German officials ruled today. The family of the retired Ohio autoworker, 89, had said ill health made him unfit, but the only condition doctors imposed was a limit of two 90-minute court sessions per day. Demjanjuk, who was deported from the US in May and stripped of his citizenship, is officially stateless, Deutsche Welle reports. More»

Names of Sobibor victims read aloud in court

(NEWSER) - Survivors of Nazi concentration camps and relatives of victims shed tears today at the trial of accused guard John Demjanjuk. The plaintiffs heard a partial list of the 27,900 victims of the Sobibor death camp, where the prosecution alleges Demjanjuk worked. The defendant, strapped to a stretcher, held firm to his vow to not participate in the trial, opening his mouth only to pray to himself. More»

Defense accuses court of 'double-standard' in prosecution

(NEWSER) - Accused Nazi guard John Demjanjuk started his trial for complicity in 27,900 Holocaust murders in Munich today first in a wheelchair, and then on a stretcher. The Red Army POW/Ohio autoworker even forced a halt to proceedings when he flailed and gasped for breath in the courtroom. “It’s a pathetic attempt to appear more crippled than he is,” a Nazi-hunter tells the Telegraph . “He belongs in Hollywood.” More»

(AP) - German prosecutors formally charged John Demjanjuk today with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp during World War II, reports the AP. The 89-year-old retired auto worker, who was deported from the US in May, faces 15 years for every count. Prosecutors accuse Demjanjuk of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943, but he insists he spent the war in prison. More»

He may be deported to Germany for war crimes trial

(AP) - An American resident with a reputed Nazi past is asking the US to block his deportation to Germany, citing humanitarian reasons. John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian immigrant who turns 89 this week, is charged in an arrest warrant in Germany with 29,000 counts of acting as an accessory to murder while working as a guard at a Nazi death camp during World War II. More»