Gone in the Treblinka of an Eye

John Demjanjuk, either a cold-blooded mass murderer or the unluckiest man in history, has died at the age of 91. Demjanjuk claimed to have been born Ivan, been drafted by the Soviet Army, been wounded and imprisoned by the Germans, then changed his name to John when he emigrated to Cleveland. Which was exactly what the U.S. Justice Department, the Nation of Israel and a German court thought. Except in between being born Ivan and emigrating to Cleveland, they said that he added a nickname – “the Terrible” – and murdered thousands of Jews at the concentration camps in Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor. He was deported to Israel, where witnesses and a 40-year old ID card that bore a striking resemblance to him led to his conviction and sentencing to being hanged, but his conviction was overturned when new evidence pointed to another Ukrainian. His citizenship was reinstated because prosecutors had withheld information during the trial, then revoked again when new allegations arose in Germany that led to a second conviction based on another S.S. ID card alleged to be his, testimony of relatives of victims killed at the Sobibor camp and a flurry of legal vagaries. His pleas of innocence were tainted when he made a very public display of being slack-jawed and immobile with a vacant stare in a wheelchair when being taken to Germany for the trial, only to have prosecutors show surveillance footage of him walking unaided while alert and engaged in conversation. Figuring that the second time was the charm, in 2009 the Simon Wiesenthal Center named him the most wanted war criminal on its list. His son claimed that under German law, convictions are not official until all appeals are completed, meaning that his death had vindicated him. Well played Ivan.