My mother used to work with this (Nazi) at Ford

[Dr.Phool]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8295647/

The Associated Press
Updated: 7:40 a.m. ET June 21, 2005

CLEVELAND - The nation’s chief immigration judge has ruled that an Ohio man who lost his citizenship because he allegedly served as a Nazi guard can be removed from the United States.

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But the judge made clear that John Demjanjuk has the right to fight any possible deportation order against him.

Chief Immigration Judge Michael J. Creppy’s ruling is one step in a process to determine whether Demjanjuk, 85, will be deported, immigration court spokeswoman Elaine Komis said Monday.

Demjanjuk has until a June 30 hearing to file motions arguing why he should be allowed to stay.

The United States first tried to deport Demjanjuk in 1977, accusing him of being a notorious guard, Ivan the Terrible, at the Treblinka death camp. He was extradited to Israel, convicted and sentenced to hang, but the Israeli Supreme Court found that someone else was apparently that guard.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Ford liked Nazis...

and other anti-Semites...Whadda guy! :puke:

[Ravenseye]

2. What's the evidence this time?

I remember the old case and that he was Ivan the terrible, then all of a sudden he wasn't. How could he be mistaken for a completely different guard. That just seems odd. I haven't been following this at all. Anyone know what the new evidence is?

[Dr.Phool]

3. It's not new evidence

But old evidence that was introduced as a defense that he was at a totally different death camp (Sobibor) when Ivan was terrorizing Treblinka.

[Ravenseye]

5. Just seems funny.

What is the actual evidence. I mean...I'm not saying he wasn't, I have absolutely no clue...I'm just saying that you tell me a story about a guy and all this "evidence" points at him being a certain guard at a certain death camp, then it all folds in on itself, and it's proven he wasn't that guard, and he's set free.

Then a little later new evidence comes up that he was a different guard at a different camp.

What the heck is this new evidence? I mean...Just seems fishy, like a DA or investigator out of control who just KNOWS he's a nazi death camp guard, and even if he wasn't Ivan the terrible, he must have been somewhere. Though maybe there is evidence of that. I just don't know. I did a little googling, and I can't find any specifics.

[Lexingtonian]

6. .

HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime.

-Ambrose Bierce, 'The Devil's Dictionary'

[Ravenseye]

7. Not sure I understand

I'm just asking what the actual evidence is. I've read stories about how people protested outside his house regularly after he came back to cleveland saying they knew he was a nazi etc.

As far as I know the evidence basically was there was a photo that kinda sorta looked like it may have been him and people who looked at this guy and 50 years after the fact said "yeah officer that's the man". Then other people came forward and said "Nah that wasn't him, and the guy had a different last name too." So the Israeli Supreme Court cleared him.

Then shortly after a court tries to reinstate his U.S. citizenship more new charges, and witnesses, etc that he's a completely different guy at a different camp, while other people are saying he actually still is Ivan the terrible at Treblinka like the inital story.

There's too many people saying too many different things, all bad, about this guy. Just seems like it could easily be a horrific deal for a guy who just maybe actually wasn't a death camp guard.

[Lexingtonian]

9. The KGB archives

showed the Russians investigated the matter of Ivan The Terrible and a variety of camp survivors testified that Ivan had been killed toward the end of the war.

The Russians more or less summarily executed all people from Eastern European countries who took part in the war on the German side. Even the Russian p.o.w.s the Germans made during the war were shipped off to the gulags after the war.

Demjanjuk somehow raised flags around the time he retired and he was investigated by the 'Nazi hunters'. It emerged that he was in some way associated with the death camps and his age and education level and ethnic background suggested a job on the level of camp guard. Of course he wasn't going to cop to being one of the notorious and not solidly accounted for people voluntarily. There are practically no camp guards or officers left- there weren't very many to begin with, most were killed at the end of the war, most of the rest have died, the German paperwork was mostly destroyed. So they got some elderly camp survivors to try to identify him from photos where he was a lot older than the time he worked in the camps. I think Elizabeth Loftus pointed out that relatively few of these survivors identified Demjanjuk with Ivan the Terrible, but those that did were adamant.

Basically the problem is that there is too little hard evidence and too much soft evidence; the prosecution can't walk away and on the other hand they can't prove their case. It's literally Limbo. It's hard to know what constitutes justice in the matter, the most just possible outcome to Demjanjuk, his children, the people of the U.S., the murdered, and the camp survivors. As it is, it's simply a political balancing act and drama. The way it ends is that Demjanjuk dies of natural causes, which I'm sure he and a lot of people wished had happened some time ago but Nature hasn't been generous in providing, and the legal case against him remains in some state of generally suspended animation.

[AllyCat]

4. Help me out here...deportation amounts to torture...he is a Nazi...

...so who is going to get busted for using the Nazi word and what is torture if not what happens at Gitmo?

[Melynn]

8. I'm curious

Did mother know Demjanjuk? If so, what did she say about him?