A Ukrainian-American organization will hold a benefit dinner in a Buffalo, N.Y. suburb this Sunday for the defense of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born war criminal ordered by the Justice Department to be extradited to Israel to stand trial for his part in the murder of 900,000 Jews at the Treblinka death camp during World War II. Demjanjuk, a retired automobile worker from Cleveland, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 1981.
According to the World Jewish Congress, the fundraiser to be held in Cheektowaga, N.Y. on December 15 was announced by the Newark, N.J.-based “Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine” which cited Demjanjuk’s “danger of extradition to Israel for trial on war crimes charges.”
The benefit has been publicized exclusively within the Ukrainian community as a “Ukrainian dinner” at which drawings for prizes will be held. The monies raised are earmarked for the “John Demjanjuk Defense Fund.” Literature promoting the dinner described Demjanjuk as “an innocent man” being “persecuted” by a “Kremlin-penetrated” U.S. Justice Department.
Demjanjuk, 65, lost his U.S. citizenship when the Justice Department determined that he lied to conceal his wartime activities when he entered the U.S. in 1952.
Last April, he was ordered extradited to Israel after a U.S. District Court in Cleveland confirmed his identity as the brutal death camp guard, known as “Ivan the Terrible” to the inmates of Treblinka where he tortured Jews and operated the gas chambers. A Federal Appeals Court in Cincinnati upheld the lower court’s decision last October 31.
Demjanjuk had been identified by Jewish survivors of Treblinka and by a former SS man, now a resident of West Germany, who knew him at the Polish death camp. His lawyers have contended that he is the victim of fraudulent evidence manufactured by the KGB.
Israel sought Demjanjuk’s extradition under an extradition treaty with the U.S. dating from 1963. If the order is implemented, he would be the first Nazi war criminal ever extradited to Israel for trial and could face the death penalty. Israel tried and executed the war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1961 after he was captured by Israeli agents in Buenos Aires.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
