With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

US government's fight to deport alleged Nazi guard Demjanjuk spans three decades

The U.S. Justice Department began trying to deport former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk more than three decades ago, claiming that he was an armed guard at a Nazi death camp and helped murder Jewish prisoners in World War II.

Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986 and was under a death sentence until Israel's Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that Demjanjuk was not the sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp in German-occupied Poland whom prisoners called "Ivan the Terrible."

Since Demjanjuk's return to the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills, the Justice Department has continued its efforts to send him back to his native Ukraine — or Germany or Poland — saying it was sufficient that Demjanjuk falsified information on his applications to enter the U.S. in 1952 and to become a citizen in 1958.

His U.S. citizenship was revoked in 1981, restored in 1998 and revoked again in 2002. Now 87, Demjanjuk is facing what his lawyer says may be his last chance to stay in the U.S.
Read entire article at AP