29,000 Problems But a Bitch Ain’t One

And the wacky misadventures of John Demjanjuk keep on going. Drafted into the Red Army, taken prisoner by the Germans, recruited as an SS auxilliary to work in a death camp, came here after the war under false pretenses, deported to Israel and sentenced to death for being a notorious guard at Treblinka, then given a reprieve by newly released evidence from Soviet archives that he couldn’t have been "Ivan the Terrible" because he was a guard at the Sobibor death camp at the time, he was allowed to come back to the Cleveland. Except now the US knew he’d been in the SS (he’d testified to that effect at his trial) and began deportation proceedings based on that. And just when it seemed he was about to be stripped of his US citizenship and residence, Germany pops in to add insult to injury, announcing today that they were prepared to try him on 29,000 counts of accessory to murder. And no, that number is not a typo. Demjanjuk supporters will doubtlessly argue about the impropriety of trying an almost nonagenarian for crimes allegedly committed over 60 years ago. While we get their point, we still feel that if they think that what’s being done to Demjanjuk is overkill….