Bring In The Clowns

By Bozhena Olshaniwsky

The ongoing John Demjanjuk fiasco resembles a circus with clowns as actors. In the beginning - the Seventies - there were “clowns” from the United States, Israel and the Soviet Union shamelessly acting sometimes in unison and sometimes as adversaries. They jumped at the chance to play “goody-goody roles” and show the world their magnanimity and generosity of spirit. They were ready to sacrifice an innocuous innocent human being on the world-wide altar of justice during a show trial in Israel in which they tried him as “Ivan the Terrible” for killing 800,000 Jews during World War II in the Treblinka death camp in Poland. The story gets entangled in a mesh of kangaroo courts, false witnesses, inferior judges and attorneys, lies and falsifications. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict of the lower court and returned Demjanjuk to the U.S. where his U.S. Citizenship and social security pension were restored to him.

To everyone’s relief, everything appeared as if the Demjanjuk circus might finally be over and Demjanjuk’s “terrible defence of Ivan the Terrible” finalized. However, it was too good to be true. In 2009, another tent is being erected in Germany for another revival of the Demjanjuk circus. Is it Germany this time that wants to have a piece of the action and depiction of being “thorough and vigilant” about prosecuting Nazi War Crimes? This time, Demjanjuk is allegedly being prepared for a trial in Germany for being as accessory to 29,000 deaths during World War II at the Sobibor Camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The German Nazi war criminals are protected against further trials by the statute of limitations in Germany, but Demjanjuk is not.

Responding to this turn of events, Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine (AHRlJ), a defender of John Demjanjuk since 1985, has written close to 100 letters to officials in several governments (United States, Ukraine and Germany) appealing for understanding, mercy and a resolution of this inhumane cause celebre. More than a month has gone by with no replies. Could it be that members of these governments are so busy that they cannot find time to answer? Or perhaps they are not fully informed about this case. What about the members of the Ukrainian Caucus and others in the U.S. Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate? They find the time to issue non-binding and non-controversial resolutions but when it comes to this bizarre case of injustice, their silence is deafening.

Bozhena Olshaniwsky is President of Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine and lives in Newark, N.J., USA.

 NP – As reported earlier, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals on April 16 denied John Demjanjuk’s bid to live out his days in Ohio. Mr. Demjanjuk got a reprieve on April 14 when a federal appeals court temporarily blocked his deportation to Germany where he faces trial. On May 1, U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rejected Mr. Demjanjuk’s motion to block his deportation to Germany and his argument that travel and transfer would pose an undue health risk. Mr. Demjanjuk has been fighting to remain in the U.S. since