Sixty-Four Years Later…

John Demjanjuk is on trial in Munich, Germany for helping to force nearly 28,000 Jews to their death during World War II. Demjanjuk worked as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. Demjanjuk had been prosecuted under the name "Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka" in Israel in 1988, but his conviction was later overturned as a case of mistaken identity. The current case against charges Demjanjuk with 27,900 counts based on the theory that involves some 15 trains known to be carrying 29,579 people to the Sobibor death camp. If convicted, Demjanjuk, who is now 89, would likely spend the remainder of his life in a German prison cell.
I think it is amazing that to this day, roughly 64 years after the end of World War II, war criminals from the Nazi-era are still being prosecuted. Demjanjuk is among hundreds who have been tried for similar accounts. However, as more survivors and defendants age or pass away, the process is becoming more difficult every day. I believe that in our country, as well as in European countries, special interest is put into the persecution of men who were involved in Nazi related crimes. In some ways, the continued persecution may be because of bad consciences for what little was done at the time of these crimes, but it also is a way to show compassion for those who survived the tragic and horrifying events of this era.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/europe/01trial.html?ref=todayspaper