By Polly Johnson
Senior Desk Officer, Europe

MUNICH, Germany – A German court on Thursday convicted and sentenced 91-year old autoworker John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for helping the Nazis murder more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor concentration camp during World War II. He was released pending appeal.

Demjanjuk, who is in poor health, showed no emotion when the verdict was announced, said Al Jazeera correspondent Tim Friend. “John Demjanjuk’s health has been questionable during this entire trial. He has spent much of it on a stretcher in court,” Friend said.

Starting in November 2009, the trial lasted eighteen months. Proceedings were limited to two sessions of ninety minutes a day because of Demjanjuk’s health problems, including an incurable bone-marrow disease.

“The court is convinced that the defendant [ . . . ] served as a guard at Sobibor from 27 March 1943 to mid-Septermber 1943,” and “took part in the murder of at least 28,000 people,” said presiding judge Ralph Alt, who noted that Demjanjuk voluntarily took part in the Nazis’ “machinery of destruction.” Approximately 250,000 people died at Sobibor.

Demjanjuk denied the claims against him. His lawyers said they will appeal the conviction.

Ukranian-born Demjanjuk, a former U.S. citizen, was a soldier in the Red Army in 1942 when he was captured by the Germans and recruited to be an SS guard at the death camp. He was deported to Germany in 2009, where he was accused of assisting the Nazis herd Jews to the gas chambers at the camp in Poland.

The prosecution used various documents to prove its case, including an SS identity card indicating Demjanjuk’s association with Sobibor, staff lists, and a memo dated January 1943 that showed Demjanjuk was at Sobibor. The defense argued that most of the documents were forged, a claim Alt said was unlikely.

Demjanjuk’s association with Sobibor during the relevant time period, rather than specific evidence linking him to the murders, was enough to show that he participated in the mass killings, the prosecution argued.

The defense argued that though Demjanjuk was recruited as a camp guard, he was not placed at Sobibor. Demjanjuk said he remained a prisoner of war until 1945, then later moved to the United States, where he started a family and lived in Cleveland.

Demjanjuk’s family said after the verdict that Demjanjuk should not spend any more days in prison. An email signed by Demjanjuk’s son John Demjanjuk Jr., reported by the New York Times, said: “There remains not a scintilla of evidence he ever hurt a single person anywhere. While some may take satisfaction from this event, this verdict is no more definitive today than the wrongful Israeli conviction and death sentence was previously.” Demjanjuk was found guilty in the 1980s in an Israeli court for serving as a guard in another camp, Treblinka. After serving close to eight years in an Israeli prison, five of which were spent on death row, the court overturned the verdict on the grounds of wrongful identification.

However, others, including families of World War II victims, expressed relief at the verdict. Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that the court’s decision “sends a very strong message that even years after the crimes of the Holocaust, perpetrators can be held to account for their misdeeds.”

Rudolf Salmon Cortissos, whose mother was killed in the gas chambers at Sobibor told the Associated Press, “It’s very emotional – it doesn’t happen every day.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – ‘Nazi guard’ found guilty of murder – 12 May 2011

BBC – John Demjanjuk guilty of Nazi death camp murders – 12 May 2011

Bloomberg – Demjanjuk Convicted of Helping Nazis to Murder Jews During the Holocaust – 12 May 2011

New York Times – Demjanjuk Convicted for Role in Nazi Death Camp – 12 May 2011

Radio Free Europe – Demjanjuk Found Guilty Of Nazi Murders, Released On Grounds Of Age – 12 May 2011