Threatening Self-Imposed Starvation
The infamous, elderly John Demjanjuk who stands accused of being an accessory to the murder of no fewer than 27,900 Jews during World War II and the seminal event of the Holocaust, is threatening in Germany where he is being prosecuted, to go on a hunger strike. How dramatic. The man's lawyer has read a statement from 90-year-old Demjanjuk whose trial is in the completion stages.
"There is only one path open to me: to show the world what a mockery of justice this trial is". And so, because justice is not being seen to be done by this former death camp guard who proclaims his innocence of ever having been a camp guard at Sobibor in 1943, he will take the path of passive resistance by starving himself to death.
He is, after all, 90 years old. He has lived a long and productive life, while having assisting a state machinery that was engaged in removing life from millions of men, women and children. Like the accused during the Nuremberg Trials he too is "nicht schuldig", because as a tiny cog in the wheel of improvidence for Jews, he was simply following orders.
He does not seem to understand that the prosecution in Germany too is following orders. Not simply the orders that justice demands, but the necessity to bring order to human existence through a commitment to ensure that those who commit grave crimes against humanity must, despite the passage of time, face their responsibility.
In the case of John Demjanjuk, who was highly successful in evading his personal responsibility for far too long, a fifteen-year sentence hardly represents punitive compensation for the thousands of lives that were summarily ended. The sentence, should it be pronounced, is a representation, a symbol.
No one expects the man, old and ill, to live out that time of incarceration. Justice must be seen to be done, however tardily, however inadequately, however - as far as this man's longevity and punishment is concerned - uselessly.
"There is only one path open to me: to show the world what a mockery of justice this trial is". And so, because justice is not being seen to be done by this former death camp guard who proclaims his innocence of ever having been a camp guard at Sobibor in 1943, he will take the path of passive resistance by starving himself to death.
He is, after all, 90 years old. He has lived a long and productive life, while having assisting a state machinery that was engaged in removing life from millions of men, women and children. Like the accused during the Nuremberg Trials he too is "nicht schuldig", because as a tiny cog in the wheel of improvidence for Jews, he was simply following orders.
He does not seem to understand that the prosecution in Germany too is following orders. Not simply the orders that justice demands, but the necessity to bring order to human existence through a commitment to ensure that those who commit grave crimes against humanity must, despite the passage of time, face their responsibility.
In the case of John Demjanjuk, who was highly successful in evading his personal responsibility for far too long, a fifteen-year sentence hardly represents punitive compensation for the thousands of lives that were summarily ended. The sentence, should it be pronounced, is a representation, a symbol.
No one expects the man, old and ill, to live out that time of incarceration. Justice must be seen to be done, however tardily, however inadequately, however - as far as this man's longevity and punishment is concerned - uselessly.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Holocaust, Human Relations
posted by Pieface @ 6:17 PM
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