Demjanjuk Facing Jail Time for Holocaust Role

It’s taken several decades and a couple of different judicial systems, but Thursday, John Demjanjuk, an American who helped the Nazis murder about 28,000 Jews at a prison camp in Poland during the Holocaust, was finally sentenced to prison. However, the 91-year-old former autoworker and death camp guard was promptly out on bail with plans to appeal his five-year sentence, according to The New York Times.  —KA

The New York Times:

Prosecutors had charged that Mr. Demjanjuk worked as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. His trial in Munich, beginning in December 2009, was the second time that he had been prosecuted — he was sentenced to death in Israel in 1988 only to have his conviction overturned five years later as a case of mistaken identity.

When the trial opened, Mr. Demjanjuk was listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as its most wanted Nazi war criminal.

Mr. Demjanjuk (pronounced dem-ahn-YUKE) declined to make a final statement to the court on Thursday.

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AP / Matthias Schrader

John Demjanjuk leaves a courtroom in Munich, Germany, on Thursday.