In an Op-Ed today about the
deportation of Nazi John Demjanjuk, Patrick J. Buchanan wrote the title to his
autobiography, "The True Haters." Buchanan has long stood in defense of
Nazis, including the time I saw him applaud two of my friends being beat up and
thrown out of one of his presidential campaign speeches just for taking their
hats off and letting peoples see their Kippot, their Jewish religious head
coverings, when Buchanan spoke in Cleveland, Ohio, and not far from where Nazi
Demjanjuk called home. To this, I can only paraphrase President Bush in saying
"you either stand with the Nazis or against them". Buchanan has a history of
standing with Nazi's, and his article today was filled with fabrications which
stand on the verge of Holocaust denial.
Rather than
refuting Buchanan's fantasies one at a time, let's just examine the facts of
the case.
- Nazi Demjanjuk has been in the news as a Nazi for
more than twenty five years. What sets his case apart is that Nazi Demjanjuk
claimed mistaken identity as his defense.
- When he was charged in the U.S. with being Ivan
the Terrible of Treblinka, there were no laws on the books allowing him to be
tried for Nazi war crimes, so the U.S prosecutors could only try to have him
deported for lying on his immigration papers. In order to prove Nazi Demjanjuk
lied, prosecutors had to prove Nazi Demjanjuk was someone different, and they
proved Nazi Demjanjuk was, in fact, Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka.
- The evidence presented included Nazi Demjanjuk's ID
papers which were authenticated in the U.S. courts, photographic analysis, eye
witnesses who could never forget the face of the murderer of their parents and
children, an obvious removal of his SS tattoo, and other Nazi documentation.
This evidence has never been discredited in any court.
- After countless appeals, Nazi Demjanjuk was finally
deported to Israel to stand trial for the crimes of Ivan the Terrible of
Treblinka, a guard who so sadistic he earned that nickname by the Jewish
concentration camp victims because Nazi Demjanjuk took joy in the murder of his
victims.
- Nazi Demjanjuk's career did not start at Treblinka.
Nazi Demjanjuk volunteered to be trained at Trawniki, which was the Nazi
facility where they trained death camp guards, and the Nazi documentation
proved it. Summarizing Nazi Demjanjuk's service record, Nazi Demjanjuk was sent
to Sobibor where he worked as a "Motorman," a man who operated diesel engines
where the exhaust was pumped into a tightly packed room of Jews to suffocate
them with carbon monoxide. Nazi Demjanjuk was so good at his job that he was
promoted to Treblinka, a concentration camp dedicated to the murder of
children. Yes, it took a special breed of evil to commit the mass murder of
Children, and Nazi Demjanjuk was the man who operated the diesel engine to gas
children to death in mass.
- In Israel, Nazi Demjanjuk was convicted of in fact
being Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, after which, there were automatic
appeals, including a final automatic appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court which
reviewed the sentence only, not the conviction. This was used by the Demjanjuk
family to obfuscate the facts of Nazi Deamjanjuk's stance in Israel. First,
while the U.S. standard is guilt beyond reasonable doubt even in capital murder
cases, Israel's standard of guilt is beyond all doubt - a much tougher standard
than in the U.S. Still, Nazi Demjanjuk's lawyers submitted a letter by another
Nazi guard who worked with Nazi Demjanjuk at Sobibor, but that guard did not
move on to Treblinka as Nazi Demjanjuk did, so it could neither confirm nor
deny Nazi Demjanjuk's Treblinka service. Nazi Demjanjuk, through his lawyers in
order to save his life, made a proverbial Hail Mary pass admitting his guilt as
a Nazi, now claiming to be a different Nazi, but only because the new evidence
came from someone who just had no idea where Nazi Demjanjuk went after Sobibor,
but it did not negate Treblinka service for which he was specifically tried for
in Israel.
- Since there was now miniscule doubt if Nazi
Demjanjuk was in Treblika only because someone who split up with Nazi Demjanjuk
just did not know where Nazi Demjanjuk went after Sobibor, the ISC has to
overturn Nazi Demjanjuk's death penalty sentence - but not his conviction. For
the following two weeks, Israel had to reconcile the fact that there was no
alternative sentencing allowed under Israeli law for Nazi's other than hanging
- Israeli law simply did not allow jail for Nazi's. As a result, Israel had no
choice under its law but to return Nazi Demjanjuk to the U.S. while still
standing as a convicted Nazi in Israel.
- The Demjanjuk family then made the public claim
that Israel could not convict Nazi Demjanjuk, therefore Nazi Demjanjuk must be
innocent, but nothing could be further from the truth. Nazi Demjanjuk was
released from Israel on a technicality, not for a lack of guilt. Still,
Holocaust deniers used the case to say that since Israel could not convict Nazi
Demjanjuk, the Holocaust must be a lie.
- Demjanjuk returned back to U.S. courts where his
conviction of lying on his immigration papers was reaffirmed, and reaffirmed as
being Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka. The evidence in the U.S. courts has never
been negated in any way, shape or form.
In the mean time, Nazi Demjanjuk
has appealed and requested every delay possible, and now we have health claims
as the basis for more appeals and delays. Buchanan may like to live in a dream
world, but Nazi Demjanjuk has stood and still stands as a sadistic Nazi death
camp guard in both U.S. and Israeli courts.
There is
no statute of limitations on murder. Since we prosecuted Charles Manson and
Jeffrey Dahmer for the murder in the tens, how much more so we should
vigorously prosecute the murderer of hundreds of thousands at Treblinka, and
even the 29,000 murders Nazi Demjanjuk took part in at the Sobibor Nazi death
camp.
As for "The True Hater" Buchanan wins that
title for himself for defending Nazi Demjanjuk for crimes Nazi Demjanjuk
himself admitted to before the Israeli Supreme Court, namely being a Nazi mass
murderer. Yes, Nazi Demjanjuk has no defense and those who claim otherwise have
simply elevated themselves to the level of certified Holocaust denier since
they deny the guilt for crimes which Nazi Demjanjuk has already confessed to,
thus the only way Nazi Demjanjuk could be innocent is if the Holocaust never
happened, which Buchanan apparently openly believes. |
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