There are two types of people who
have stood in defense of Nazi John "Ivan the Terrible" Demjanjuk, people who
have fallen for the lies of the Demjanjuk family, and anti-Semites. The latter
includes Holocaust deniers, most of whom mask their anti-Semitism under the
guise of freedom for the Nazi on humanitarian grounds, the same freedoms
Demjanjuk denied the Jews he murdered.
First, let's
remember that in U.S. federal courts, Demjanjuk's past was
proven to be the sadist Nazi death camp guard who took so
much pleasure murdering Jews at the Sobibor death camp, that he was promoted to
murdering children in Treblinka, the Nazi death camp built specifically to
murder children. As of today, all of the evidence, including his Nazi ID card
which states he volunteered to serve as a Nazi guard, stands affirmed as
authentic is both U.S. and Israeli courts. Also, in direct contradiction to the
claims of his family, Demjanjuk was not
acquitted in Israel, but rather released from his sentence,
not the conviction, due to a technicality in Israeli law. In Israel,
Demjanjuk's sentence was overturned after he threw a last-minute wrench into
the proceedings by admitting to being a Nazi, but a different Nazi. Germany
wants to put Demjanjuk on trial for exactly what he admitted to in Israel,
which should not be difficult at all.
I can
understand the Demjanjuk family standing up for their patriarch, but what I
cannot understand are those who defend Nazi Demjanjuk despite knowing he lied.
Take for instance Pat Buchanan who recently wrote an article claiming Demjanjuk
is not guilty, yet that can only be possible if, according to
Buchanan, the Holocaust never happened, which we all know
is a lie propagated by people what to see another Holocaust. The fact is that
knowingly propagating a lie in order to defend a Nazi is anti-Semitic. While
not all anti-Semites are Holocaust deniers, all Holocaust deniers are
anti-Semites - Buchanan is both.
I can understand
the Cleveland media wanting to stand up for their home town underdog battling
governments, yet the Cleveland media did not stand up for pornographer Ruben
Sturman when he was on trial. In Demjanjuk's case, after the Nazi was exposed
by the U.S. Department of Justice for faking an illness to avoid being deported
for health reasons, Cleveland's Fox affiliate continually showed Demjanjuk
faking that illness while the local NBC affiliate showed Demjanjuk faking being
ill, despite knowing that illness was faked.
Then
there are the national media reporters such as Philip Terzian
http://www.weeklystandard.com/aboutus/bio_terzian.asp, the
Literary Editor of The Weekly Standard, who, in a
Facebook blog with columnist Debbie Schlussel said "Wasn't
he a Ukrainian who was impressed into the German army and served as a
concentration camp guard? And didn't the Israelis decide he wasn't 'Ivan the
Terrible'?"
After being pressed on the fact that he
was 100% wrong on about the Demjanjuk case, Terzian then showed his true colors
when he responded "I'm not 'defending' John Demjanjuk but suggesting that his
case seems ambiguous and that, in 2009, it seems like a tremendous waste of
resources to pursue a half-dead nonagenarian when there are more pressing human
rights problems in the world."
Terzian went from
falling from propaganda from the Demjanjuk family to defending a Nazi, despite
claiming the exact opposite. Terzian was not only defending Nazi Demjanjuk, but
stated he felt prosecuting the single biggest mass murderer of our day is a
"waste of resource." If we are going to prosecute people like Jeffrey Dahmer or
Charles Manson, then we surely need to prosecute Demjanjuk who took pride in
murdering thousands of times more people than Mason, but Terzian apparently
does not agree. Defending a Nazi is anti-Semitic, yet Terzian did not even feel
the need to retract his hate.
There is no statute of
limitations on murder, and the reason we need to prosecute Demjanjuk is not
only to pursue justice, but also to send a message to future generations that
there is no hiding from the law, as well as to teach the world that we will
never allow a Holocaust to happen again.
Just like
defending the KKK is racist, Knowingly defending a Nazi is anti-Semitic. When
people want to excuse Nazis for their murders by passing on their prosecution,
they are not doing it out of love for anyone. Rather, they are extending wishes
of a long and comfortable life to Nazi murderers, and here Demjanjuk
specifically, a volunteer Nazi who took an oath unto death to Hitler. Terzian
is anti-Semitic at the very least, and when cornered, he responded with name
calling by insulting Schlussel, a technique used by weak people who still want
to defend their own words despite being cornered with their lies.
The prosecution of Nazi Demjanjuk is testimony that
the world will never forget, and that we all must stand tall against those
would find justification for hate or even worse, act on that hate to murder, be
it one, six, or six million. We live in a very scary world and I, for one, will
never be silent. Will you? |
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