'Nazi guard' Demjanjuk charged for killing 28K Jews

Could justice prevail in this case?

German prosecutors have formally charged John Demjanjuk (right) with 27,900 counts of being an accessory to the murder of Jews during World War II.

Demjanjuk, who was deported from the U.S. in May, is accused of serving as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during the war.

The 89-year-old auto worker says he never hurt anyone, claiming he was a Red Army soldier captured by Germans in his native Ukraine and kept as a prisoner of war.

Here's what frustrates me about a case such as this one: if he's guilty of assisting in the murder of thousands of Jews, then no charges, no trial, no bad press, no poverty, no prison time could ever settle the score. No amount of pain inflicted on him could compare to what the Jews were subjected to during the Holocaust.

So other than to serve justice and set the record straight, his arrest and imprisonment (if convicted) couldn't possibly offer much comfort to the victims. Long-term torture, might, but that's out of the question within the present judicial system.

The charges were filed Monday, but no details about a trial were released.

Doctors say he's fit to stand trial, but Demjanjuk's family say he is too frail to stand trial because he suffers from kidney disease, cancer and arthritis. In May, he was admitted to hospital for three days after developing gout, the BBC reported.

Demjanjuk arrived in the U.S. in 1952 as a refugee, settling in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in the car industry, according to the report. In 1988 he was sentenced to death in Israel for crimes against humanity after Holocaust survivors identified him as the notorious "Ivan the Terrible," a guard at the Treblinka death camp, but Israel's highest court later overturned his sentence after former Soviet Union documents showed "Ivan the Terrible" was another man.

Demjanjuk returned to the U.S. but lost his U.S. citizenship in 2002 because he had not disclosed his work at Nazi camps when he first arrived as a refugee. Three years later a U.S. immigration judge ruled that he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. (Three years...it took them three years to arrive to this ruling, and meanwhile he was living happily in the U.S.).

In March 2009, Munich prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of being an accessory in the deaths of Jews based on documents proving his Nazi background, including an SS identity card that showed he had been a guard at Sobibor between March and September 1943, and on witness testimonies.

If Demjanjuk is innocent, he should be very scared because prosecutors evidently have enough evidence to convict him.

If he's guilty, he--and his family--should be celebrating that he got a 65-year get-out-of-jail-free card after murdering nearly 28,000 innocent people and that he got to live and prosper in the U.S. as a refugee, with U.S. citizenship handed to him on a silver platter in an act of generosity and compassion. No need for long faces...he got away with it all up until now, when he's about to die anyway.

Where's the justice in that?

Sobibor Extermination Camp (Photo: Holocaust Research Project)

Sources: AP, BBC, Al Jazeera
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved

Israeli PM accepts limited Palestinian state

Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP photo)

Who knows where this is going...but I'm sure we'll be hearing about it all week. So here it goes:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for creation of a limited Palestinian state for the first time, saying it would have to be disarmed, AP reported Sunday.

Netanyahu made the call during a major policy speech about his Mideast peacemaking intentions.

"In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel," he said.

"If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state," he said.

Up to now Netanyahu has resisted endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a Mideast peace settlement, drawing intense pressure from the administration of President Barack Obama.

Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and he declared that the solution of the Palestinian refugee problem must be "outside Israel."

Palestinians claim that refugees from the 1948-49 war that followed Israel's creation and their millions of descendants have the right to reclaim their original homes.

"I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions," he said. "Israel is committed to international agreements and expects all the other parties to fulfill their obligations as well."

Netanyahu also called for Arab leaders to meet him and contribute to Palestinian economic development.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the speech as "sabotaging" peace efforts, Reuters reported.

A senior Palestinian negotiator called on U.S. President Barack Obama to intervene to force Israel to abide by previous interim agreements that include freezing settlement activity in the West Bank. The alternative, he said, was violence.

"The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise," negotiator Saeb Erekat said. (Above: Mahmoud Abbas)

"Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its back."

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said: "Netanyahu's remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions."

He noted Netanyahu's demand that Jerusalem be the undivided capital of Israel and that Palestinian refugees not be allowed into Israel: "This will not lead to complete and just peace," Abu Rdainah said. "His remarks are not enough and will not lead to a solution."

"President Obama, the ball is in your court tonight," Erekat said. "You have the choice tonight. You can treat Netanyahu as a prime minister above the law and...close off the path of peace tonight and set the whole region on the path of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodletting."

Just what we need from every side--more rhetoric...although something is better than nothing.

Source: The Associated Press, Reuters
Copyright © 2009