U. S. Acts To Deport Accused WWII War Criminal “Ivan the Terrible” Demjanjuk

A Wednesday article in the Jerusalem Post says the US government said Tuesday it is asking German officials for travel documents needed to deport accused World War II Nazi guard John Demjanjuk, who is charged in Europe with 29,000 counts of accessory to murder.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provided an e-mail to The Associated Press showing that it has contacted the German government in its effort to deport Demjanjuk, once accused but ultimately cleared of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka concentration camp in occupied Poland.

The 88-year-old suburban Cleveland man was charged in Germany in March with crimes while working as a guard at Sobibor, a Nazi death camp in Poland. Critics say this prosecution is persecution of a sick old-man. Proponents argue that to do otherwise would be abandoning the memory, families, friends and principles of civilized society not to prosecute a man allegedly complicit in 29,000 savage deaths.

Sobibor was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and suffocated in gas chambers that were fed with the exhaust of gasoline engines. Up to 200,000 to 250,000 people were killed at Sobibor.

After a successful revolt in October 1943 about half of the 600 prisoners in Sobibor escaped; the camp was closed and planted with trees days afterwards. A memorial and museum are at the site today.

Beginning in 1940, the Nazis established 16 forced labor camps in the Lublin district of Poland. The Lublin district was intended to become an agricultural center. Except for Krychow forced labor camp, the camps used existing structures such as abandoned schools, factories, or farms to imprison the laborers. Krychow was the largest of the 16 camps and had been built before World War II as a detention camp for Polish prisoners. In 1942, Sobibor extermination camp was built near the forced labor camps.

In mid-April 1942 when the camp was nearly completed, experimental gassings took place. About 250 Jews from Krychow were brought there for this purpose. The commander of Belzec, arrived in Sobibor to witness these grizzly gassings.

In May 1942, Sobibor began mass gassing operations. Trains entered the railway station, and the Jews onboard were told they were in a transit camp, and were forced to undress and hand over their valuables. They were then led along the 100 meter long “Road to Heaven” (Himmelstrasse) which led to the gas chambers, where they were killed using carbon monoxide released from the exhaust pipes of tanks. SS-Oberscharführer Kurt Bolender described the way the gassing operations ran during his trial:

Before the Jews undressed, Oberscharführer Hermann Michel made a speech to them. On these occasions, he wore a white coat to give the impression he was a physician. Michel announced to the Jews that they would be sent to work. But before this they would have to take baths and undergo disinfection, so as to prevent the spread of diseases. After undressing, the Jews were taken through the “Tube”, by an SS man leading the way, with five or six guards at the back hastening the Jews along. After the Jews entered the gas chambers, the guards closed the doors. The motor was switched on by the former Soviet soldier Emil Kostenko and by the German driver Erich Bauer from Berlin. After the gassing, the doors were opened and the corpses were removed by Jewish prisoner workers (Sonderkommando).

Carbon monoxide ipoisoning results s a long agonizing death.

Prosecutors in Munich, Germany, said Demjanjuk will be formally charged in front of a judge once he is extradited. Bottom of Form

“In this capacity, he participated in the accessory to murder of at least 29,000 people of the Jewish faith,” the prosecutor’s office has said. It is handling the case because Demjanjuk spent time at a refugee camp in the area after the war.

Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based human rights organization, welcomed the development.

“We’re very pleased that these steps are being taken to facilitate Demjanjuk’s extradition to Germany so that he can be tried and can be given an appropriate punishment for his heinous crimes during World War II,” Zuroff told The Associated Press by phone from Jerusalem.

German Justice Ministry spokesman Ulrich Staudegle said he could not confirm that U.S. authorities had requested any specific documents, but reiterated that the German government was working closely with the U.S. to secure Demjanjuk’s extradition or deportation.

Demjanjuk was accused in 1977 of concealing a past as a notorious Nazi death camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” at Treblinka.

In 1986, Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel when the U.S. Justice Department believed he was the sadistic Nazi guard known as Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka death camp.

He spent seven years in custody before the Israeli high court freed him after receiving evidence in 1993 that another Ukrainian, not Demjanjuk, was that Nazi guard. Demjanjuk was allowed to return to the United States.

Demjanjuk, who emigrated to the United States in 1952, has said he served in the Soviet army and became a prisoner of war when he was captured by Germany in 1942.

The Justice Department sought in 1999 to revoke Demjanjuk’s restored citizenship, alleging he was a guard at Nazi camps of death and forced labor. The chief immigration judge ruled in 2005 that Demjanjuk could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine.

The U.S. Supreme Court in May declined to hear an appeal of the deportation ruling.