Over the 21/2-month trial, there was testimony that Traficant had staffers shovel manure on his farm and strip and repaint the Washington, D.C., houseboat where he lived. After the war, Demjanjuk was sent to a displaced persons camp and worked briefly as a driver for the U.S. Army. Demjanjuk's widow looks to past, future with sadness These civilian recruits were primarily young ethnic Ukrainians from German-occupied Poland. But based on an old identity card that experts said proved he turned guard at the infamous Sobibor death camp, Demjanjuk was found guilty last May in a Munich court of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder. John Demjanjuk emerges from the courtroom with his lawyers after a judge sentenced him to five years in prison for charges related to 28,060 counts of accessory to murder in May 2011 in Munich, Germany. View of the Sobibor killing center, early summer 1943. Forensic experts confirmed as genuine the ID card, unearthed in Soviet archives, attesting to his service as a Nazi guard. Two of the 361 photographs from a collection of two photo albums, loose photos and papers belonging to Johann Niemann, the deputy commandant of the Sobibor camp may contain images of Demjanjuk. Despite his conviction, his family never gave up its battle to have his U.S. citizenship reinstated so that he could live out his final days nearby them in the Cleveland area. His supporters countered that the Munich proceedings were a show trial Germans put on to assuage a national sense of collective guilt. In 1950, he sought US citizenship, claiming to have been a farmer in Sobibor, Poland, during the war. Demjanjuk attorney John Gill says his client just wasn't the man they thought he was. But evidence continued to mount that Demjanjuk had served as a guard at the Nazis' Majdanek and Sobibor camps, among others, and that he had concealed the information when he moved to the United States. Then came accusations from several Holocaust survivors that he was a notorious guard at the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland during World War II. When Traficant was indicted again in 2002 on 10 counts including bribery and personal use of public funds, prosecutors charged that he made one employee hand over half his monthly salary and that the mob offered him services in exchange for government contracts. John Demjanjuk | The Economist Broadcast on Israeli radio and television, the proceedings stretched out over 18 months and featured emotional testimony from Holocaust survivors who identified Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible. Its not buildings, but you can see a path that the people took. A blue-collar middle class sent their children to Catholic schools and, eventually, universities. His conviction helped set new German legal precedent, being the first time someone was convicted solely on the basis of serving as a camp guard, with no evidence of being involved in a specific killing. Though Demjanjuk, 91, was convicted by a German court of. John Demjanjuk dies at 91; convicted Nazi death camp guard High 44F. "The court is convinced that the defendant served as a guard at Sobibor" from 27 March, 1943, until mid-September 1943, Alt said in his ruling. They did not say which photos they used for a comparison. Israeli Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer, who researches at the Yad Vashem memorial, said Demjanjuk's story showed an important moral lesson. And as soon as he entered, they must have hit him over the head was the end of Niemann. His American citizenship was revoked once again in 2002, and, in May 2009, despite his declining health and advanced age, he was deported to Germany to face charges there. Neela Banerjee is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. But in this case it is important to say that it was right to put him on trial and sentence him, said Dieter Graumann, the president of Germanys Central Council of Jews. Deployment in the operations of the "Final Solution" became a key function of these auxiliaries. His son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said in a telephone interview from Ohio that his father apparently died of natural causes. He was in his early 20s then, having been born on April 3, 1920, in the central Ukrainian village of Dubovi Makharintsi, before the country was absorbed into the Soviet Union and subjected to dictator Josef Stalin's brutal rule. The 1987 trial was the first of its kind since that of infamous Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1961. He grew up during a time when the country was wracked by famines that killed millions, and a wave of purges instituted by Stalin to eliminate any possible opposition. Low 38F. Cleared of serving at Treblinka, he stands accused of being an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews in 1943 at the Sobibor death camp in Poland during the Second World War. Convicted Nazi Camp Guard John Demjanjuk Dies : NPR He was 73. After the escape, they tore everything down, Raab said. Two Jewish prisoners can be seen on the left between the large wood piles. Demjanjuk was a farm worker before he was drafted into the Soviet Red Army. He was in his early 20s then, having been born on April 3, 1920, in the central Ukrainian village of Dubovi Makharintsi, before the country was absorbed into the Soviet Union and subjected to dictator Josef Stalins brutal rule. (Jim Hollander / EPA), Reporting from London -- John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker convicted of serving as a guard at a Nazi extermination camp and being complicit in the deaths of more than 28,000 people, died Saturday in Germany. Burly . Critics claimed Demjanjuk was acting the part of a sick, feeble old man to gain sympathy. Serena Williams reveals second pregnancy at Met Gala, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. But his requests were denied, most recently in January. When they overturned his conviction in Israel, the supreme court judges there said they still believed Demjanjuk had served the Nazis, probably at the Trawniki SS training camp and Sobibor. Demjanjuk was a farm worker before he was drafted into the Soviet Red Army. In a videotaped interview remembering her experience in the concentration camp, she said camp transports typically came in at night. So I dont want us to be distracted by a famous name and not forget that either way, it is someone who was central to genocide.. friends: They met 70 years ago at the Ashtabula County Children's Home, SPIRE official responds to availability issues, Two Democratic candidates face off Tuesday for Ashtabula's top job, Nursing home assault victim's autopsy still pending. He reiterated his contention that after he was captured in Crimea in 1942, he was held prisoner until joining the Vlasov Army a force of anti-communist Soviet POWs and others formed to fight with the Germans against the Soviets in the final months of the war.