Demjanjuk - guilty or not guilty?

[Dennis S]

I can't come to a conclusion in my mind on this one. Maybe someone has a convincing argument.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/world/....html?_r=1

[Chakravartin]

Dennis S wrote:
I can't come to a conclusion in my mind on this one. Maybe someone has a convincing argument.

What part are you stuck on?

There doesn't seem to be anyone alleging that there is a factual error at his latest trial. He originally stated that he did not work at the Sobibor slaughterhouses, but dropped that after the prosecution produced an ID card for him that placed him there.

Are you saying that you are confused as to why someone who personally took part in the slaughter of nearly 30,000 people (out of some 250,000 murdered in that camp) has committed a crime?

[Chakravartin]

Here's some background info on that place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobibor

[Dennis S]

What became of the claim of mistaken identity? I have read all I have the capacity for and thought someone could point me to the facts.

[cbelt3]

A teenaged boy is drafted. And is brought into an elite military unit, and 'broken' to their creed and philosophy. And then assigned to participate (under military orders... penalty of death, etc.) in what became the second most horrendous slaughter of human beings (Stalin won the prize) in the 20th century.

After some time, the war ends, he escapes the end of the war Gotterdammerung, and registers as a Displaced Person, and ends up in Cleveland, Ohio.

Where he, as a young man (early 20's, mind you) meets a girl, gets married, gets a job, settles down, and raises a family. And tries to forget.

And then in his 80's is "Found". Dragged all over the world. Imprisoned in many countries. Sentenced to death. In Israel. The Sentence and verdict is then set aside as he is not guilty of the offenses, and he is released. In his 90's. And then deported from the country where he made his new life, sent to Germany. Not his native land- that country no longer exists. Where he is imprisoned. Tried, found guilty. And sentenced to prison. Where he will die of old age.

Actually it's all very sad.

I personally knew two men who were 'Hiterjugend' during WWII. Why ? It was that or be sent to the Russian front. They were then put into the army, and sent to the Russian front any way. At age 16 and 14 respectively. Also sad. And they survived, and moved to Cleveland, also as displaced persons. And many years later I married their niece.

[rjmacs]

cbelt3 wrote:
Actually it's all very sad.

I concur. We should be more willing to hear his story, and bear witness to what it was like when the Nazi regime morally destroyed Demjanjuk the same way it physically destroyed millions of innocent civilians. Upon hearing his account and reflections on this, a court would be in a better position to decide his fate.

[Gutenberg]

He was not a teenaged draftee. He was an adult Ukrainian POW who flipped to the other side. And while many of his Ukrainian compatriots escaped from the camp rather than participate in the slaughter, Demjaniuk stayed. We don't know whether his participation was enthusiastic, but he did indeed participate.

[Chakravartin]

rjmacs wrote: Upon hearing his account and reflections on this, a court would be in a better position to decide his fate.

Gutenberg wrote:
He was not a teenaged draftee. He was an adult Ukrainian POW who flipped to the other side. And while many of his Ukrainian compatriots escaped from the camp rather than participate in the slaughter, Demjaniuk stayed. We don't know whether his participation was enthusiastic, but he did indeed participate.

Maybe it was a tough choice for him: Slaughter tens of thousands of innocents, go into a POW camp or try to escape.

But it shouldn't have been a tough choice. Even if he made the initial decision under duress, he had plenty of time to think about it and to change his mind. Instead, he chose to kill people. To herd men, women and children into gas chambers where they were put to death like stray dogs.

Where's the morally ambiguous aspect of that? Should the justice system go easy on him because he could have ended up in a POW camp had he refused to slaughter people?

I'm sure that the court knows his story quite well. I think the court was very lenient upon him.

[$tevie]

We can't let the fact that these people are old and/or frail override international law. In the beginning I felt like it was vindictive to hunt down ancient men and punish them for their crimes, but I realize now that if we are going to make the Nuremberg trials stick we can't get emotionally soft at this late date.

[rjmacs]

Chakravartin wrote:
Maybe it was a tough choice for him: Slaughter tens of thousands of innocents, go into a POW camp or try to escape.

But it shouldn't have been a tough choice. Even if he made the initial decision under duress, he had plenty of time to think about it and to change his mind. Instead, he chose to kill people. To herd men, women and children into gas chambers where they were put to death like stray dogs.

Where's the morally ambiguous aspect of that? Should the justice system go easy on him because he could have ended up in a POW camp had he refused to slaughter people?

Chakravartin,

I went out of my way not to comment on his state of mind, because i have no idea what it was. I also don't think there's anything morally ambiguous about genocide or mass slaughter. However, our legal system is adept at holding individuals responsible but remarkably poor at bearing witness to systems that twist people into executioners. Totalitarian states aren't open, forgiving systems in which people handed a list of options and invited to reflect on the possibilities, deliberate the consequences, and make moral choices. They are conscience-destroying machines that literally deprive people (victims and perpetrators alike) of the capacity to know and do good, leaving only wickedness. Courts aren't designed to illustrate this point; i think we'd all be better off not pretending that these abominations are simple matters of individual conscience. It's overly simplistic and it makes scapegoats of the people we happen to find and decide to prosecute. I'm not saying that Demjanjuk doesn't deserve to be before the court; i'm saying convicting war criminals isn't enough, and the way we convict them largely distracts from an underlying and far more frightening evil. Nazism didn't (and couldn't) operate because Germans and their allies were just bad people who had no trouble slaughtering innocents. It took a lot of work to make that happen, and much of the work was put into destroying people's capacity to distinguish good and evil.