Ivan the Terrible - John Demjanjuk Extradited to Germany

Dr Strange

It's a disgrace in my view. One can only hope that this is really "the last Nazi trial" in Germany.

ejmaztec

It seems to be the practice in Germany that everyone has to bend over backwards to prove that they hate what the Nazis did, hence putting some old codger on trial with anecdotal evidence.

When you consider that Pinochet, for example, was let off the hook in view of his age, despite all of the evidence against him, it shows how ridiculous the situation has become.

I think that the post-war de-nazification of the German nation has had much to do with this "eternal" guilt complex, and groups like the Wiesenthal Organisation ramming it down the Germans' throats at every available opportunity. And then there's "Hollywood". There must be more holocaust productions now than any other genre since the silent movies. It's obviously still a money-spinner.

arnhem44

I think your right with that one,it seems they'll do everything in there power to prove to the world that they want to wipe the slate clean.I've always wondered though what happened to all the Nazi's after the war,there must of been countless numbers of belivers,considering the lent of time the Nazi Party was in power one would think people just wouldn't stop supporting a party they may of supported from the start,now I know after the war you wouldn't say you did still support the Nazi's but there must of been a considerable amount of people who never felt sorry

Mahatma coat

Bump

Trial started Yesterday.

Morlar

There was an interesting article on this in today's independent by Kevin Myers, highlighting as others here have mentioned the total lack of Communist war crimes trials post ww2 (also mentions the Holdomor for good measure).


http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-if-john-demjanjuk-had-butchered-people-for-the-soviets-red-army-he-would-be-a-free-man-1962292.html

Kevin Myers: If John Demjanjuk had butchered people for the Soviet's Red Army, he would be a free man



THE Ukrainian concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk is currently being tried in Munich for his part in the murder of thousands of prisoners in the Sobibor camp in 1943. How different his plight would have been if he had been a Ukrainian concentration camp guard called John Demjanjuk whose crimes were committed under the Soviet Union. Because there have been no trials of the criminals who murdered millions under Stalin.

John Demjanjuk, Ukrainian and Soviet murderer, today would be a free man. John Demjanjuk, Ukrainian and Nazi murderer, faces the rest of his life in jail. The fiasco is made more piquant by the fact that a John Demjanjuk has already been tried for these same offences, but in an Israeli court, and was found not to be John Demjanjuk at all.

There is an elegant symmetry to Demjanjuk's trial: it began just 64 years (almost to the day) after the opening of the Nuremberg trials, which set precedents in both international law and international humbug. It is almost grimly entertaining that the Soviet Union was given the task of prosecuting the Nazis for "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity", matters in which Stalin as co-conspirator with the Third Reich against Poland and the Baltic countries was well-versed. Stalin's legions of Demjanjuks murdered quite as many people as Hitler's Demjanjuks: only a victor's peace, and a victor's "justice", could have drawn a line between the two; and given to the former medals, pensions, and honour; and to the latter disgrace, imprisonment, and public trial.

But another jurisprudential event at the moment draws our attention back to the Nuremberg trials of December 1945: the Chilcot Inquiry into the start of the Iraq War. The two prime categories of war crime that the British and the Americans were prosecuting Nazi defendants for were 1) a secret conspiracy to levy war, and 2) crimes against peace. Many people are now saying that former British prime minister Tony Blair could, on the Nuremberg principles alone, be tried on the first ground, though perhaps not on the second since conditions under Saddam did not merit the term "peace".

I supported the US-led invasion of Iraq because I believed the allied claim that Saddam still had weapons of mass-destruction. The claim was known by Blair to have been a lie. I also thought that to do nothing about Saddam's repeated violations of endless UN resolutions was no longer an option. I still think so.

He was, after all, the only state leader who had used ballistic missiles on three of his neighbours, who had started wars that had cost over a million lives, and who had poison-gassed thousands of his citizens. Another reason for my support of the invasion -- and this was, intellectually, truly deplorable -- was the appearance in the ranks of the anti-war lobby of the standard anti-American, anti-Israeli usual suspects (though I accept that most of the anti-invasion demonstrators were not the usual suspects). However, it is a poor argument that is based on the identity of its opponents.

We know now that the issue of weapons of mass destruction was irrelevant. The decision to go to war, for the purposes of regime change, had been secretly taken at George W Bush's ranch at Crawford in April 2002. This had echoes, not merely of the Hitler-Stalin accord of 1939, but also of another secret pact which led to war: that between the British, the French, and the Israelis to invade Egypt in 1956.

And the prime mover for that -- urged on behind the scenes by Winston Churchill -- was the British prime minister Anthony Eden. Eden, as British foreign secretary in 1943, had been present at the Moscow conference where it was decided to put the Nazis on trial for war crimes, including the secret conspiracy to levy war. If the attack on Poland in 1939 was a war crime, then the invasion of Suez -- in which the British were the prime movers -- was one also.

And had there subsequently been even a pretence of a trial of Eden, might that not have stood as a deterrent to Blair in his conspiracy to invade Iraq, come what may, in 2003? But that hypothesis is fanciful. Who was going to lead the campaign for a war trial of Eden? The USSR? But Soviet tanks were rolling into Budapest to crush Hungary's doomed bid for freedom even as British paratroopers were landing in Port Said.

John Demjanjuk is probably a war criminal and, even as an old man, deserves little of our pity. But his trial is not part of a broad programme of justice, for he has no political connections -- unlike the Soviet butchers of the Ukraine who twice-over tortured his country, before and after the war. More Ukrainians were killed in Stalin's artificial famines of 1932-33 than were Jews exterminated in the Final Solution. Soviet secret police murdered as many Ukrainians in 1941 as Jews were killed in Sobibor in 1943, the period for which Demjanjuk faces trial. No one has ever faced trial for these atrocities, and no one ever will. For history is never about justice; it is usually about power, as Tony Blair's contented old age will one day testify.

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers

Irish Independent

gizmo555

I'd read Myers's piece and found myself entirely in agreement with it, but in particular this:

John Demjanjuk is probably a war criminal and, even as an old man, deserves little of our pity.

Fuinseog

marcsignal wrote: »

It's Just been on the BBC that Ivan the Terrible - John Demjanjuk has been extradited to Germany from the U.S. to face trial relating to events at the Sobibor Concentration Camp.

There is no up to date link on the extradition yet, except these ones, some background history, and recent links to the blocking of his deportation last week.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/7998947.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7982829.stm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1173174/Revealed-The-pictures-accused-Nazi-war-criminal-Ivan-terrible-fit-stand-trial.html

I'm going to be watching this case carefully. I remember the original trial in the 80s, when he was aquitted by an Israeli Court, which was some achievement, considering the hysteria at the time.

In the 80's he was accused of operating the Gas Chambers in the Treblinka Camp. The claim now is that he has been connected to events in the Sobibor Camp.

For a minor player of low rank, he certainly appears to have gotten around. I also can't help wondering how much of this has got to do with timing, Pope Benedicts visit to Israel, and the Vaticans efforts to distance Pope Pius 12ths controversial position on the Holocaust.

the americans would not deport him until now because he was a US citizen. its not the first time they have acted in this way.

Fuinseog

the trial is a farce and old John must be laughing up his sleeve. he will dead in a year or two.
out of curiosity were the Jews who acted as Kapos and Ghetto police ever put on trial?

jam_mac_jam

I dont really get the reasoning here, he shouldnt be tried because the soviets commited war crimes also/ so did some jews/ he is old? There are political reasons why these trails happens however I dont think it completely invalidates the need for a trail. I dont care if it was 6 or 60 years ago.

Should the issue not be if he is inocent or not? Its completely irelevant to this how many Gulags there were, what Kapos did, the question is if he is the sadistic gaurd in question (which seems unlikely if the Isrealis have already released him). Yes the Soviets should also admit their crimes, all the war crimes were not commited by the Nazis, this is a completely differing issue and what ever any other Jewish person did its not relevant.

Agent Smith

Any Remaining War criminals Must be Put on trial if they are caught/found.


Escaping Justice for 60 years doesnt mean that his debt to the world has been paid

marcsignal

Agent Smith wrote: »

Any Remaining War criminals Must be Put on trial if they are caught/found.


Escaping Justice for 60 years doesnt mean that his debt to the world has been paid

Cool, so when do you think we'll get to see this murdering bit of rough, take that long drop to the end of the rope ?

I have a mate in ticketmaster, and want to organise a ringside seat.

.

BlaasForRafa

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Ah LAds you should have learnt by now

You cant question Israel, if they say someone was somewhere then thats Gospel truth, even if they later come out and say he was somewhere else ath the same time, thats also Gospel Truth and cannot be disputed as fact

otherwise The'll say you were somewhere you shouldnt have been doing horrible AntiSemetic things.

also Its Anti Semetic to discuss the IDF and their carryin out of gods Glorious master Plan, if that involves criticism, the IDF are beyond reproach and always conduct themselves to the highest standards (sound like any other organisation being discused here;))

it is sickening tho what they are doing to this man, there was anotrher aulfella grabbed in Perth a few months back, again hs 'crime' was the same as demjanjuk, he outlived all the others from the camps when the Zionists need someone to wheel out as a distraction form the Holocaust in Gaza.

if these men were guilty of these charges, well it was 60 years ago. there are no witnesses to their acts, and there are mitigating circumstances if they did it.

That is a stupid and cretinous post. The man was tried in Israel, convicted but then that conviction was overturned and he was set free or did you not read that part.

This trial in Germany has NOTHING to do with Israel or the IDF so your post is entirely without merit and is typical of those who want to drag Israel into any rant despite getting the facts wrong.

Mahatma coat

Yeah I read that bit, I Read about how the man was wrongfully imprisoned for 7 years and then after he starts to get whats left his life back together he is accused of being someone else at some other camp on the Very sketchiest of evidence.

If the Rabid Zionists really want to try some war criminals they dont have far to look to fimd something a lot more recent.

ejmaztec

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Yeah I read that bit, I Read about how the man was wrongfully imprisoned for 7 years and then after he starts to get whats left his life back together he is accused of being someone else at some other camp on the Very sketchiest of evidence.

If the Rabid Zionists really want to try some war criminals they dont have far to look to fimd something a lot more recent.

I would imagine that Israel, after gathering this additional evidence, would liked to have had another go, but perhaps they're not allowed to under a double jeopardy law, or whatever.

Perhaps the Germans got lumbered with it. I don't know who's applied pressure for a prosecution, but it would be interesting to find out.

Mahatma coat

Heres a Totally unbiased:rolleyes: Report from AP

Nazi guard breaks silence

* From correspondents in Berlin
* From: AFP
* April 14, 2010 5:24AM

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o What are these?

JOHN Demjanjuk, a 90-year-old accused of helping to murder 27,900 Jews as a guard at a Nazi death camp, denied the charges today in the first statement since his trial began in November.

Mr Demjanjuk said he was "forcibly deported to Germany" where "false charges" were pressed on him, in a statement read out to a court in Munich by his lawyer, Ulrich Busch.

"I find it an unbearable injustice that Germany is trying to make me, a prisoner of war, into a war criminal with this trial," he said.

Mr Demjanjuk is standing trial on 27,900 counts of being an accessary to murder on allegations he was a guard at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland.

He denies ever being at any camp, claiming he is the victim of mistaken identity.

Mr Demjanjuk told the court that, as a Soviet prisoner of war, the Nazis used him as a slave labourer, while killing millions of his fellow Ukrainians.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related Coverage

* Alleged former Nazi guard raided NEWS.com.au, 21 Jan 2010
* Holocaust's last reckoning The Australian, 2 Dec 2009
* 'Nazi death camp guard faking illness' NEWS.com.au, 1 Dec 2009
* Nazi death camp guard goes on trial NEWS.com.au, 30 Nov 2009
* The last Nazi war crimes trial The Australian, 30 Nov 2009

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

Since his extradition from the US last May, Mr Demjanjuk has been in a prison near Munich, again "as a German prisoner of war", he said.

"I am again and again an innocent victim of the Germans," he told the court.

The two-page statement signed by Mr Demjanjuk was the first comment of length the retired Ohio carworker has made in court since his trial began November 30.

As in previous sessions, Mr Demjanjuk lay motionless on a hospital bed in the courtroom.

Mr Demjanjuk's family say he is suffering from a litany of health complaints and will likely not survive the trial.

Doctors have judged him fit to stand trial but limited the time he is in court. Several sessions have been postponed after Mr Demjanjuk complained of pain or dizziness.

Mr Demjanjuk is accused of spending six months in 1943 at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, pushing thousands of Jews into gas chambers. He has always denied the charges.

He was previously found guilty in Israel of being Ivan the Terrible, a particularly sadistic death camp guard at Treblinka, but released after the Israeli Supreme Court established they had the wrong man.

After today's session, a lawyer representing the families of victims of the Holocaust who have joined the trial as co-plaintiffs, as allowed under the German system, said the statement shows Mr Demjanjuk is still showing no remorse and lacks understanding.

"The defendant did not say a word about the Nazis' victims," lawyer Rolf Kleidermann said.

Mr Demjanjuk could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted for his alleged activities training as a guard in the SS camp Trawniki, then serving at Sobibor.

The prosecution argues that after Mr Demjanjuk, a Soviet Red Army soldier, was captured by the Germans in 1942, he volunteered to serve under the SS as a guard.

Mr Demjanjuk denies ever having served as a guard, saying that he spent most of the rest of the war in Nazi POW camps before joining the so-called Vlasov Army of anti-communist Soviet POWs and others. That army was formed to fight with the Germans against the encroaching Soviets in the final months of the war.

The trial is scheduled to continue tomorrow.

With AP.

Morlar

I just did a few google searches to see about the NKVD Katyn executioners and where they are now.

There is no single official authorative documentary style site that I could find just a lot of forums and so on. The search also throws up some amateurish looking revisionist style ones too.

Though there does seem to be a common thread among most of them, that is that the NKVD executioners responsible for Katyn were at least partly composed of communist jews working in Stalin's NKVD.

These men later moved to Israel where they were subsequently interviewed on television about the execution methods they employed at Katyn.

If anyone can find any youtube links of that I'd be interested in seeing what they have to say for themselves.

The same results come up when looking for information about the NKVD executioners at Vinnitsa.

As an example here is one from a russian forum

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?282279-JEWS-MURDERED-POLES-at-KATYN-%28UKRAINIANS-at-VINNITSA%29-Believe-it-or-not!&p=3101155&viewfull=1

Whether or not that site and the information in it is correct the pattern there is clear - that there is zero political will or effort made in tracking down any nkvd war criminals whatsoever. So it seems to me that not all victims are equal, especially when talking about those of Katyn and Vinnitsa where the perpetrators were at least partly made up of communist jews.

gizmo555

Morlar wrote: »

I just did a few google searches to see about the NKVD Katyn executioners and where they are now.

There is no single official authorative documentary style site that I could find just a lot of forums and so on. The search also throws up some amateurish looking revisionist style ones too.

Though there does seem to be a common thread among most of them, that is that the NKVD executioners responsible for Katyn were at least partly composed of communist jews working in Stalin's NKVD.

....

Whether or not that site and the information in it is correct the pattern there is clear - that there is zero political will or effort made in tracking down any nkvd war criminals whatsoever. So it seems to me that not all victims are equal, especially when talking about those of Katyn and Vinnitsa where the perpetrators were at least partly made up of communist jews.

A significant proportion of the wartime Soviet population was Jewish, so it is unsurprising that there were Jewish commnuists and Jewish NKVD members. It's a bit of a leap from that fact to conclude that this is a major factor in the lack of any prosecutions for the Katyn massacre.

The much more obvious reason for the lack of any prosecutions is that the order for the massacre came from the very top of the Soviet state - it was planned by Beria and approved by Stalin and the full Soviet Poliburo. If there were prosecutions, they would inevitably lead right to these men, who remained in charge of the USSR for decades after the war.

(Incidentally, the page linked to above - a CIA research paper - notes that about 700 to 900 of the Katyn victims, or about 4% of the total, were themselves Jews. As the paper puts it: "the Germans knew this, and it complicated Goebbels' effort to portray the atrocity as a 'Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy' -- a mainstay of the Nazi regime's anti-Semitic propaganda.")

Morlar

gizmo555 wrote: »

A significant proportion of the wartime Soviet population was Jewish, so it is unsurprising that there were Jewish commnuists and Jewish NKVD members.

That works on the assumption that jewish involvement with the bolsheviks was proportional which it is widely debated was not.

gizmo555 wrote: »

It's a bit of a leap from that fact to conclude that this is a major factor in the lack of any prosecutions for the Katyn massacre.

I would not call it a leap of faith. Nor did I say it was 'THE ONLY REASON' which is what your response seems to assume.

It is a factor however & if nkvd war criminals are resident in israel that would explain the lack of political will to resolve them. The fact that the nkvd victims were non jewish is another factor. There certainly is more of an appetite for pursuing warcriminals who are not jewish than those who were. Who the victims were is another factor in my view.

gizmo555 wrote: »

The much more obvious reason for the lack of any prosecutions is that the order for the massacre came from the very top of the Soviet state - it was planned by Beria and approved by Stalin and the full Soviet Poliburo. If there were prosecutions, they would inevitably lead right to these men, who remained in charge of the USSR for decades after the war.

Stalin did not remain in power for decades after the war. In fact there were purges of Stalinists from within about 10 yrs after the war. Considering both he and beria were dead 8 yrs after the war that is not a factor. Also we are not living in 1953 at the moment, however at the moment there are war criminal trials and not so much as a peep about the nkvd from the international community about those. Given the recent high profile of Katyn and by extension Vinnitsa this is a puzzle. No one is saying that the current 2010 russian leadership should be on charges so I don't give too much credence to this as being the reason for why there is no political will to pursue this in 2010 when compared to the one this thread is about.

Consider also that there is no direct evidence that J.D personally did anything to anybody. He was charged with 'being a guard' at a facility throughout a period when x people died. The NKVD ones who had literally blood on their hands from pulling triggers would surely be a far greater prize if the only and pure goal of all of this was apolitical humanitarianism in it's intent.

gizmo555

Morlar wrote: »

That works on the assumption that jewish involvement with the bolsheviks was proportional which it is widely debated was not.

I would not call it a leap of faith. Nor did I say it was 'THE ONLY REASON' which is what your response seems to assume.

It is a factor however & if nkvd war criminals are resident in israel that would explain the lack of political will to resolve them. The fact that the nkvd victims were non jewish is another factor. There certainly is more of an appetite for pursuing warcriminals who are not jewish than those who were. Who the victims were is another factor in my view.

You're obviously entitled to your view. My opinion is the simplest explanation is the most likely, that is that Katyn was covered up by the Soviets because to investigate it would have proved the approval at the very highest level of this massacre. The participation of Jews in the massacre is a complete side issue.

Morlar wrote: »

Stalin did not remain in power for decades after the war. In fact there were purges of Stalinists from within about 10 yrs after the war. Considering both he and beria were dead 8 yrs after the war that is not a factor.

Other signatories of the order for the massacre lived on well beyond the 50s, e.g., Voroshilov, who died in 1969; Mikoyan who died in 1978; Molotov who died in 1986; and Kaganovich, who died in 1991.

Morlar wrote: »

Consider also that there is no direct evidence that J.D personally did anything to anybody. He was charged with 'being a guard' at a facility throughout a period when x people died. The NKVD ones who had literally blood on their hands from pulling triggers would surely be a far greater prize if the only and pure goal of all of this was apolitical humanitarianism in it's intent.

I don't know much about the Demjanjuk case. I will say that two wrongs don't make a right and if he has a case to answer (and I stress I've no particular view on that one way or another) he should answer it. The failure to prosecute those responsible for Katyn is irrelevant.

Morlar

gizmo555 wrote: »

My opinion is the simplest explanation is the most likely, that is that Katyn was covered up by the Soviets because to investigate it would have proved the approval at the very highest level of this massacre. The participation of Jews in the massacre is a complete side issue.

No one has said that Katyn was covered up for any reason other than to protect those who committed the crimes or authorised them and were in power at the time of the coverup.

Except we are not talking about the coverup here. We are talking about the politicised & selective pursuit of WW2 warcrimes in 2010.

gizmo555 wrote: »

Other signatories of the order for the massacre lived on well beyond the 50s, e.g., Voroshilov, who died in 1969; Mikoyan who died in 1978; Molotov who died in 1986; and Kaganovich, who died in 1991.

Again - no one has said that there is a need to put the current 2010 Russian administration on trial so this is an irrelevant point to make.

gizmo555 wrote: »

I don't know much about the Demjanjuk case. I will say that two wrongs don't make a right and if he has a case to answer (and I stress I've no particular view on that one way or another) he should answer it.

Would you equally have no problem if other laws were selectively enforced ? How about only charging black people with street crimes ? So long as they commited the crime then they have a case to answer so by your logic this would be acceptable ? Who cares if we never charge white people ?

The same principle applies here except to a far greater extent than domestic crime.

gizmo555 wrote: »

The failure to prosecute those responsible for Katyn is irrelevant.

You couldn't be more wrong on that. For these trials (JD one being the current example) to be correctly judged to be apolitical they should be pursued in an apolitical manner, there should be no order of preference given on the basis of who the perpetrator is or what ethnicity the victims were.

Only pursuing cases where non jews were perpetrators while ignoring cases where jews were perpetrators makes a mockery of entire process. Likewise only pursuing cases where jews were victims as opposed to those where non jews were the victims further undermines the entire process. To first of all say - thats not a factor, then to say - ok even if that is a factor it's irrelevant is a nonsense in my view.

gizmo555

Morlar wrote: »

Only pursuing cases where non jews were perpetrators while ignoring cases where jews were perpetrators makes a mockery of entire process. Likewise only pursuing cases where jews were victims as opposed to those where non jews were the victims further undermines the entire process. To first of all say - thats not a factor, then to say - ok even if that is a factor it's irrelevant is a nonsense in my view.

This has nothing to do with pursuing non-Jews. It's just another instance of the losers being punished and the winners getting away with it. Not fair, but that's life. Demjanjuk's problem is not that he's not a Jew, it's that he backed the losing side. For rather obvious reasons, there was a scarcity of Jewish Nazis to prosecute at the end of the war. If the Allies had lost the war, some of them would - deservedly - faced war crimes trials. Curtis Le May, for example, is on record as saying he would have expected it, had the US lost the war.

On the specific assertion you've made that the involvement of Jews in perpretrating the Katyn massacre is a factor in there being no prosecutions - you haven't presented an iota of plausible evidence. Also, as I have pointed out, contrary to your claims a small but significant proportion of the "NKVD victims" at Katyn were Jews.

Morlar

Here is one you might find useful - this is from a jewish publication Ynet

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html

Stalin's Jews

We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish

Published: 12.21.06, 23:35 / Israel Opinion

Here's a particularly forlorn historical date: Almost 90 years ago, between the 19th and 20th of December 1917, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution and civil war, Lenin signed a decree calling for the establishment of The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, also known as Cheka.



Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to KGB.

We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags.

Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals, artists, labor movement activists, "opposition members" who were defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party itself.



In his new, highly praised book "The War of the World, "Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution. In his book on the Stalinist purges, Tel Aviv University's Dr. Igal Halfin writes that Stalinist violence was unique in that it was directed internally.



Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined "terror officials," cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges, perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with a kosher certificate.



All these things are well-known to some extent or another, even though the former Soviet Union's archives have not yet been fully opened
to the public. But who knows about this? Within Russia itself, very few people have been brought to justice for their crimes in the NKVD's and KGB's service. The Russian public discourse today completely ignores the question of "How could it have happened to us?" As opposed to Eastern European nations, the Russians did not settle the score with their Stalinist past.



And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf."



Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women.



Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the "first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine, an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich.



Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist.



In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history.



The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things.



Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.

---

I think 40% NKVD being jewish is a bit more than proportional don't you ? On the point of the specific NKVD Katyn executioners - as mentioned above I was quoting secondary sources. I would be interested in seeing the footage from israeli TV but have not found it online (not that I have been looking too hard either). If I find anything more specific to jewish nkvd participation at katyn I will post it back here. In the meantime I would hold to everything I have said, both about the utter total disproportionate participation of jews within the nkvd - and the so-called 'hirearchy of victimhood' which places more importance on pursuing a (in the case of John Demjanjuk) a lowest of the low guard at a camp where x amount of jews died as opposed to the actual jewish executioners of non jews (as is the case for the VAST majority of those at Katyn, Vinnitsa, the Holdomor and prisoner executions by the red army and so on).

ejmaztec

A comparison here to consider:

At the time of the massacre, the Russians were in cahoots with the Germans, so it was a war-crime. The Russians blamed it on the Germans and didn't accept responsibility until 1990, by which time all of the war criminals were dead.

The Polish communist government had no reason to bring up the subject, because its owed its very existence to the actions of the Russians. The NKVD interrogated the Polish officers and NCOs, picked out the ones who they felt wouldn't support Moscow or a communist Poland, and executed them. As well as the 15000 soldiers, 7 or 8000 influential civilians were also killed.

I think that the only situation where the Russians would ever have admitted responsibility, would have been in the hypothetical situation of a successful right-wing overthrow of the communist regime within a few years of the war's end. The new regime would have strung up members of the NKVD as a matter of course, and cite Katyn as one of the reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

The Italians under Mussolini were involved in various war-crimes when they were in cahoots with the Germans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_war_crimes

I expected to find that a few Italians had been strung up as a result, but according to the Wiki-link, although there was a long list of offenders, not one was tried for war-crimes. It seems that the British government was pro-active in the prevention of such trials.

So, both got away with it for different reasons.

gizmo555

Morlar wrote: »

Here is one you might find useful.

It is interesting, but goes no further to proving your assertion that a factor in the lack of prosecutions for the Katyn massacre now, in 2010 as you put it, is the particpation of Jews as perpetrators. Correlation does not equal causation.

As Conor O'Clery describes in today's Irish Times (15/04/10), it was only nine years ago that the Russians formally admitted to the Polish government its responsibility. Who could be left in 2010, 70 years after the event, to prosecute? People like Blokhin, chief NKVD executioner (and incidentally a Jew) who was reputed to personally have murdered as many as 7,000 of the Katyn victims, as well as those who authorised the masascre, are long since dead.

marcsignal

Some interesting points all round, certainly a thread worthy of contributing to, but is there any point in spending the time, energy, and effort?? when, in discussing Holocaust related topics, Trolls with a hidden adgenda, who don't like the subject matter, can register with a new account, freely act the 'dickhead' from their very first, and subsequent posts, and mysteriously avoid a banning?

It's a shame really, It takes away from the overall worth of some of the serious discussions I've had on here, and the fun of more generally 'enjoyable' threads like the WW2 Trivia thread, through which I have learnt much about WW2 from other SERIOUS contributers. For that, I am grateful, but when the 'tail is allowed to wag the dog', and as a person who has been interested in, and studied WW2 for 25 years or more, I just can't take the forum seriously at the moment.

It's also such a pity, that the hard work of dedicated posters like 'Kickoutthejams' for example, who did so much to get this forum up and running, is now in danger of being undermined.



:(

Mahatma coat

Finding the Truth is Never a waste of time Marc.

old_aussie

If found guilty I hope they hang him using the low drop.
A favourite method of the Nazi's.

marcsignal

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Finding the Truth is Never a waste of time Marc.

Quite true I suppose, and to be honest, I think I probably underestimated the dedication of the mods on the issue of trolling.
Apologies Mods

old_aussie wrote: »

If found guilty I hope they hang him using the low drop.
A favourite method of the Nazi's.

True, but so was stringing people up at the drop of a hat.

Is the trial going to be about justice, or revenge ? That is the question.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for war criminals facing justice, but I think it's important to have a little consistancy. In my opinion the object of the exercise, is to show the world that war crimes will not go unpunished.

It has already been mentioned, that there are issues to be addressed with regard to British mistreatment of the Mau Mau's in Kenya in the 50's, for example, as well as war crimes being committed on our TV screens today.

Are the perpetrators of these crimes also going to be as vigorously pursued, and be made answer for what they have done. In fairness some effort has been made with regard to crimes committed during the Balkans War in the 90's and in other more recent cases in Africa, and rightfully so, but I say again, I believe consistancy is very importand in this regard.

Mahatma coat

old_aussie wrote: »

If found guilty I hope they hang him using the low drop.
A favourite method of the Nazi's.

Low drop aint a problem, just push him off his Hospital Trolley.

What has this man done to deserve this wrath, TWICE.

if there was any justice in this world Tzipi Livnit would be doing the same Short drop for her Crimes against humanity

marcsignal

Just been on the news from Munich.

MUNICH — Retired U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk was convicted of thousands of counts of acting as an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp and sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison — closing one chapter in a decades-long legal battle.

Demjanjuk was charged with 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder, one for each person who died during the time he was accused of being a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. There was no evidence he committed a specific crime. The prosecution was based on the theory that if Demjanjuk was at the camp, he was a participant in the killing — the first time such a legal argument has been made in German courts.

Presiding Judge Ralph Alt said the 91-year-old was a piece of the Nazis’ ”machinery of destruction.”

“The court is convinced that the defendant ... served as a guard at Sobibor from 27 March 1943 to mid September 1943,” Alt said, closing a trial that has lasted nearly 18 months.

Demjanjuk sat in a wheelchair in front of the judges as they announced their verdict, but showed no reaction. Earlier Thursday, he had declined the opportunity to make a final statement to the court.

It was not immediately how much credit the native of Ukraine he would get for time already served.

The verdict will not entirely end more than 30 years of legal wrangling. The defense has pledged to appeal any German conviction, and legal proceedings continue in the United States.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s chief Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, called the conviction “a very important victory for justice.”

“The verdict sends a very powerful message that, even many years after the crimes of the Holocaust the perpetrators can be brought to justice,” he said by telephone from Jerusalem. “We’re hopeful that this verdict will pave the way for additional prosecutions in Germany.”

In the 1980s, Demjanjuk stood trial in Israel after he was accused of being the notoriously brutal guard “Ivan the Terrible” at the Treblinka extermination camp. He was convicted, sentenced to death — then freed when an Israeli court overturned the ruling, saying the evidence showed he was the victim of mistaken identity.

Demjanjuk maintains he was a victim of the Nazis — first wounded as a Soviet soldier fighting German forces, then captured and held as a prisoner of war under brutal conditions before joining the Vlasov Army, a force of anti-communist Soviet POWs and others was formed to fight with the Germans against the Soviets in the final months of the war.

But prosecutors said that after his capture, the evidence shows Demjanjuk agreed to serve the German SS and was posted to Sobibor in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Demjanjuk was accused of having served as a “Wachmann,” a guard, the lowest rank of the “Hilfswillige” volunteers who were subordinate to German SS men.

Integral to the prosecution’s case was an SS identity card that allegedly shows a picture of a young Demjanjuk, and indicates he trained at the SS Trawniki camp and was posted to Sobibor.

Though court experts said the card appears genuine, the defense maintains it is a fake produced by the Soviet KGB.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations also has said the card is genuine, but documents unearthed by The Associated Press indicate that the FBI at one time had doubts similar to those aired by Demjanjuk’s defense about the evidence — though the material was never turned over to them.

In a 1985 report, the FBI’s Cleveland, Ohio, field office concluded that: “Justice is ill-served in the prosecution of an American citizen on evidence which is not only normally inadmissible in a court of law, but based on evidence and allegations quite likely fabricated by the KGB.”

The revelation has led to new court action in the U.S., with a District Court judge in Cleveland on Tuesday agreeing to appoint a public defender to represent Demjanjuk there, raising the prospect of renewing the decades-old case.

Article

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