The Case of John Demianiuk – A Test of Our Commitment to Basic Values

The Case of John Demianiuk – A Test of Our Commitment to Basic Values

 Any American accused of being an accessory to murder, that is to say accused of being an accessory to one of the most heinous crimes known to mankind, should be tried in U.S. courts under U.S. criminal law, or if the crime occurred in another jurisdiction, be extradited according to internationalcriminal procedure to that state to be tried there. Until tried and convicted, according to our precepts of law, such a person must be presumed innocent. From the very outset of the case against John Demianiuk, however, these fundamental precepts have not been followed.

 In fact, the Demianiuk case has involved criminal allegations advanced against him through civil law procedures - a criminal case prosecuted as an immigration matter.  There was a reason for this.

 Prosecuting Demianiuk in this way enabled those who seek his demise to deport him from the United Statesby meeting a lower test applied in immigration cases of showing that on a balance of probabilities he misrepresented his background when he immigrated to the United States. Otherwise, they would have had to show his guilt in committing a crime beyond reasonable doubt. However, now that the deed is done they alleged that he was found guilty of being a “Nazi war criminal” when in fact all that has been found is that he misrepresented his past when he entered theUnited States as an immigrant.  

 Anyone who knows the history of Operation Keelhaulfollowing World War II when refugees from displaced persons camps were forcibly repatriated to the former Soviet Union where some were killed, others exiled and still others committed suicide, will understand why Demianiuk’s misrepresentations were not necessarily so black and white and directly connected to Nazi atrocities as some would have us believe.  

 In short, the employment of this immigration procedure alone should have set off alarm bells about what this case may mean for the principle of the rule of law and a fair and balanced judicial system in theUnited States. But to really grasp the significance of what happened in the Demianiuk case we need to touch on some other basics. 

 John Demianiuk was never a Nazi. Nazis were Germans and they believed in the purity of the Aryan race. They had no time for mere Slavs like Demianiuk or other races that were either to be liquidated or driven into submission and used as servants for the Third Reich. As a prisoner of war captured by the Germans from the Red Army and allegedly put to work in the death camps, it can hardly be said that John Demianiuk  "volunteered" to be such a guard.

 The more troubling aspect of this case is, however, that for over a decade those who sought to bring John Demianiuk to "justice" maintained that he was in fact Ivan Grozny, also known as Ivan the Terrible - a grizzly figure who was indeed involved in the persecution of inmates in the Treblinka Naziconcentration camp. These accusations led to Demianiuk's deportation to Israel where witness after witness identified Demianiuk as Ivan the Terrible admitting no doubt that it was him. Following his conviction in the Israeli court, however, and during the process of Demianiuk's appeal, the defense team located witnesses who knew the real Ivan the Terrible and who signed sworn statements attesting to the fact that John Demianiuk was not Ivan the Terrible. Included among these statements, according to those who worked on the defense team, was a statement by the real Ivan the Terrible's girlfriend who definitively swore Demianiuk was innocent of these charges. 

 The power of this evidence, as well as the reopening of the Demianiuk case in the United States by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals while the Israeli appeal was pending, forced the Israeli appellate court to conclude that a mistrial had taken place, that Demianiuk was innocent of the charges and allow him to return to the United States. Demianiuk’s U.S. citizenship was restored after the U.S. Federal court found the Office of Special Investigations had been guilty ofprosecutorial misconduct for not revealing exculpatory evidence to the defense team that would have initially blocked the deportation of Demianiuk toIsrael. 

 After more than a decade of maintaining that Demianiuk was at one camp and was Ivan the Terrible, the prosecutorial team now maintains that Demianiuk was not there, but in another Nazi death camp where he was an accomplice to the murder of not just a few, but of no less than 29,000 victims! Where was the evidence of the 29,000 victims when he was being tried in Israel on the first round? As if it was possible for him to hide from his role in helping to murder 29,000 camp inmates since the end of World War II, that is to say for almost 65 years, including hiding for the last 30 years when he was the target of a day-by-day campaign to convict him of any kind of Nazi atrocity. 

 Ironically a few years ago Germany passed a law setting a time limitation on the prosecution of Germanwar criminals. Thus Germans, who were primarily the ones responsible for the death camps, cannot be prosecuted, but individuals from other countries like Demianiuk, can!

 What troubles me the most about this case is the silence of individuals and organizations ostensibly dedicated to human rights and their failure to speak up in support of Demianiuk. For example, I was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization dedicated to the protection of the civil liberties of Americans, including protecting the due process rights of individuals. I asked them specifically to speak up in the Demianiuk case and was met with silence.

I understand very well that defending someone accused of being a Nazi is a difficult challenge in our society, but isn’t it in precisely such circumstances that your true dedication to your beliefs is revealed?

 John Demianiuk may not have been a saint. However we are not measuring him against the standard of perfection. Let us remember that there are very few of us who have nothing to hide about their conduct in World War II. Let us remember the Allied blanket fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg that many consider war crimes. Let us remember the roles played by Italy and Japan as allies of Nazi Germany. Let us not forget that the Soviet Union signed the Molotov Ribbentrop pact to enable Hitler to invadePoland and carve it up with Stalin. Let us remember the collaboration of Vichy France. Let us consider the role of some 150,000 Jewish soldiers in the German army, including at least a dozen high ranking officers of Jewish descent as well as the role played by Jewish Kapos, police and the Judenrat during the war. Let us remember that it was German officers and German soldiers that governed the death camps of Nazi Germany – not Ukrainians like Demianiuk. While the world ignores such  instances of Nazi collaboration it watches in silence as prosecutors seek to pin the tail on the donkey in Demianiuk’s case.

 Why?

 The reason is because this is not really about Demianiuk as a camp guard at all. That is clear from the fact that he is accused of being an accessory to 29,000 deaths, but not of murdering anyone. Isn’t that odd? That is because there is no evidence of his killing anyone. This is an accusation of guilt by association. It is founded on the belief that anyone who was a guard at any Nazi camp was by that very fact guilty of a war crime. No allowance is made for the possibility that such guards were not there of their own volition but forced to be there by threats to their families or other circumstances. Mere presence was enough. In this sense the Demianiuk case is little more than a Western show trial to reinvigorate the memory of the Holocaust and the collateral damage to people like Demianiuk and others is negligible or even deserving as far as those who are running this campaign are concerned. It is a show trial along the lines of what we saw in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany previously.  Those who seek to condemn the atrocities of those regimes and who hold the rule of law dear to their hearts owe it to Demianiukto rally to his defense.

 I have very little in common with Patrick Buchanan otherwise, but he is the only prominent American commentator who has spoken up about this witch hunt and I respect him for that.  But where are all the others? It appears they are not concerned that the Demianiuk case demonstrates that American courts can be politicized and made to bow to the pressures of expediency. It appears they are prepared to accept that America cannot always be relied on to be balanced, fair and to protect the rights of its citizens and the rule of law.