John Demjanjuk is now eighty-nine-years. He has spent more than 20 years fighting the most heinous of allegations for his alleged role as “a terrible Ivan.” That is, as a Ukranian who served as a Nazi concentration guard allegedly responsible for the deaths of up to 29,000 Jews. Actually, after serving in an Israeli jail from 1986 to 1993, he was released when the Jewish state’s prosecutors failed to establish that he had served at Treblinka, as originally charged. It now seems clear that he in fact was a guard at Sobibor.

All along, plodding down the path of a legal labyrinth seemed destined to follow him to the grave, he continues to declare his innocence.

Now he’s finally back in Germany. A few weeks ago U.S. authorities delivered a notice to his Cleveland-area home that he must surrender for deportation this week.  The U.S. Supreme Court then rejected without comment an appeal to stop the deportation; the Demjanjuk’s had asked for it to be halted due to the old man’s frailty. But the record already shows that Mr. Demjanjuk has lost his U.S. citizenship as he lied about his Nazi past.

Why go after an ailing Nazi who cannot have many years left on this planet? The real question that must be asked is “Why would you not do so?” In fact, were Mr. Denjanjuk to die today, researchers must continue to look into his past and those of so many others who duped U.S. and other authorities. In doing so, the message will be passed down to another generation: Justice knows no time limits, nor does the suffering caused by its perpetrators.

Yes, it might all sound like a cliché and easy to offer from afar. However, I think of the other continuing historical explorations and how they have changed what we think about who we are and the flawed humanity of our great leaders – Thomas Jefferson’s illegitimate child, Franklin Roosevelt’s reluctance to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz, H.L. Mencken’s anti-Semitism and so much more.

All of this needs to be exposed if we are with a straight face to continue to teach our kids the values that we want them to emulate.

While I agree that the Demjanjuk case and those of all the accomplices in Nazi atrocities certainly deserve to face justice, I question whether a trial of a man so old and so infirm can achieve anything even approximating justice.  If anything, the spectacle of trying a man who is so ill and frail, and suffering from dementia to boot, is likely to generate more sympathy for this criminal than it will a sense that justice has finaly been done.  I think the time has come to relegate these cases to the court of historical analysis and recognize that any trials of defendants so old and feeble minded will look more like Stalinist show trials than a real attempt to see that justice is done.  That is particularly true in this case, because the US and Israel so badly botched the “Ivan the Terrible” case—this will look like nothing more than sour grapes piling on against an “innocent” man.

Neil… good item… I was so happy to read recently that Demjanjuk was finally deported. In fact I thought he had already been kicked out… not that it’s the justice he deserved, but at least he cannot go on living here. and he will perhaps face some justice in Germany…