Berlin – John Demjanjuk, who was convicted last year of serving as a Nazi death camp guard, is asking for German state financial help to sue the country’s biggest-selling newspaper for alleged defamation, a court said Thursday.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Duesseldorf state court spokesman Ulrich Egger told The Associated Press that Demjanjuk is complaining Bild newspaper’s website labeled him a “war criminal” and a “Nazi henchman” before he was convicted last May of 28,060 counts of accessory to murder.
A lower court granted Demjanjuk financial help to sue, but for a maximum of euro5,000 ($6,400) in damages, ruling more could not reasonably be expected.
The 91-year-old is now appealing that decision, saying that he needs funding to sue for euro25,000. Egger says it is unclear when a ruling will be issued.
Bild maintains that its reporting didn’t go beyond the permitted limits, according to the court.
Demjanjuk’s family says the retired Ohio autoworker he has no financial resources. He cannot leave Germany because he has no passport after being stripped of his U.S. citizenship ahead of his deportation in 2009.
At his trial in Munich, judges found that evidence showed Demjanjuk was a guard during the war at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland. They sentenced him to five years in prison.
Demjanjuk was released pending an appeal. It isn’t clear when a federal court might rule on that.
The case was the first time someone was convicted in Germany on the basis only of having been a guard, without evidence of a specific killing.
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was a Soviet Red Army soldier captured by the Germans in Crimea in 1942.
The Munich court found that he had agreed to serve the Nazis as a guard at Sobibor. Demjanjuk has consistently rejected the allegation, insisting he never served as a guard anywhere and was held in German camps himself for much of World War II.
Defamation?
If some raging psychopath creeps up alongside his bed… just when he feels safest… and slowly skins him alive… even then, I wouldn’t have even the slightest bit of sympathy in the world for this dog. In fact, I might even pour myself a celebratory cocktail.
In What world are we living in!!
John; I got some good advice, drop dead and rot in Hell
Has Hashem granted him long life so that his suffering in this world would continue? He’s 91 and will be gone from our midst soon enough.
I can’t understand some of the bad language which is prevalent, regarding Demjanjuk. Halacha teaches us that we should not gloat over our enemies’ misfortunes. Demjanjuk was tried, convicted, and sentenced. Further, he will not be allowed to reenter the USA, since his was denaturalized. I would not permit his family to have him buried here, as his grave would only become a shrine for anti-semites.
This clown and his son the clown jr. have no shame.