John Demjanjuk, 1920–2012
The Nazi camp guard who claimed innocence
The Ukrainian refugee arrived in Cleveland after World War II with his wife and daughter. He changed his name from Ivan to John, became a U.S. citizen, and lived a quiet, law-abiding life. But decades later, the past would come back to haunt John Demjanjuk. Prosecutors in Israel and Germany accused him of volunteering as a guard at Nazi death camps and willingly participating in the killing of Jews. Demjanjuk insisted that he was the victim of mistaken identity, and that he had spent most of the war as a prisoner in Germany and Poland. At the time of his death, Demjanjuk was still protesting his innocence.
Demjanjuk was born to a destitute peasant family in central Ukraine, said the London Telegraph. He was called up by the Soviet army in late 1940 and captured two years later by the Germans. “The question of what happened next would come to dominate the rest of his life.” Demjanjuk said he was eventually forced to join Germany’s Vlasov army, an anti-communist force made up of Soviet prisoners. At war’s end, he spent six years in a camp for displaced persons before immigrating to the U.S. in 1952.
In 1986, he was extradited to Israel for the first war-crimes trial since the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann a quarter-century earlier, said The Washington Post. Witnesses and prosecutors said he was “Ivan the Terrible,” a sadistic gas-chamber operator at the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland, where more than 800,000 prisoners were killed. Demjanjuk was convicted of genocide in 1988 and sentenced to hang. But five years later, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction after new evidence emerged that another Ukrainian, not Demjanjuk, was probably that Ivan.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
On returning to the U.S., Demjanjuk received a hero’s welcome from fellow Ukrainian expatriates. But in 2009 he was deported to Germany on charges that he had served as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Poland, and helped kill almost 30,000 Jews. No living witnesses placed him there, in a case “largely based on documentary evidence,” said The New York Times, including a Nazi order showing that Demjanjuk was posted to Sobibor. Demjanjuk was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison; his appeal was pending when he died in a nursing home.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Horror stories of women having to carry nonviable fetuses'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Haiti interim council, prime minister sworn in
Speed Read Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigns amid surging gang violence
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Today's political cartoons - April 26, 2024
Cartoons Friday's cartoons - teleprompter troubles, presidential immunity, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Benjamin Zephaniah: trailblazing writer who 'took poetry everywhere'
Why Everyone's Talking About Remembering the 'radical' wordsmith's 'wit and sense of mischief'
By The Week UK Published
-
Shane MacGowan: the unruly former punk with a literary soul
Why Everyone's Talking About The Pogues frontman died aged 65
By The Week UK Published
-
'Euphoria' star Angus Cloud dies at 25
Speed Read
By Catherine Garcia Published
-
Legendary jazz and pop singer Tony Bennett dies at 96
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
Martin Amis: literary wunderkind who ‘blazed like a rocket’
feature Famed author, essayist and screenwriter died this week aged 73
By The Week Staff Published
-
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folk legend, is dead at 84
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Barry Humphries obituary: cerebral satirist who created Dame Edna Everage
feature Actor and comedian was best known as the monstrous Melbourne housewife and Sir Les Patterson
By The Week Staff Published
-
Mary Quant obituary: pioneering designer who created the 1960s look
feature One of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century remembered as the mother of the miniskirt
By The Week Staff Published