Talk:John Demjanjuk

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[edit] Maiden Name?

Wasn't John Demjanjuk's mothers maiden name Marshenko? If that is true, how does that exonerate him?

Please sign comments- and don't add stupid things like "DOuble Yeah," 58.178.25.207 00:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Marchenko is the name he quoted himself as his mother's maiden name. Turned out to be incorrect. Tabachuk was the real maiden name, the defense proved. He claimed to have forgotten that. But in 1948 he was only 28 - who does not remember his mother's name at that age? And to have chosen "Marchenko" at random. Come on, too good to be true. There may be reasons why his mother might have been known unofficially as Marchenko - her mother (Demjanjuk's grandmother) may have re-married, may have lived together with someone called Marchenko. Or his mother herself lived with a Marchenko before she got married to Demjanjuk's father. (If that sounds funny - look up Garry Kasparov) Or - and that's probably the real answer: Demjanjuk for some reason liked to use the name Marchenko. --193.190.172.92 14:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Transcripts

Are there transcripts of the trials on line? If so links would be good. Rich Farmbrough 16:35, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

=>I've read a handful of the court opinions on Westlaw, a legal resource website. Citations to case law certainly would make the article more authoritative, but very few people can access these cases, so it is pointless to include these. However, I did find a transcript on CNN.com of a US Justice Department news conference on Feb 21, 2002 given by then US Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, Criminal Division and Eli Rosenbaum, Director, Office of Special Investigations, to CNN that confirms Judge Matia's ruling and makes mention of Demjanjuk's involvement at Sobibor. Specifically, Director Rosenbaum quotes some of Judge Matia's opinions in the ruling, stating that [Demjanjuk, at Sobobor,] "contributed to the process by which thousands of Jews were murdered by asphyxiation with carbon monoxide."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0202/21/se.04.html IntegrityCounts 01:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Specifics of the charges

What, exactly, did he allegedly do that was so horrible, even compared to other extermination came guards?

Please sign comments! Ronan.evans 22:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


The judge's decision was that seeing as how he couldn't prove he was not there then he must be guilty. Nothing was ever proved, hardly anything was charge - just implied. His first trial in Israel was embarrassing - a holocaust deniers delight. Hard to believe that the Israeli officials didn't know this was not true before they got egg in their faces.

Maybe so, but from an American perspective, he was found guilty of entering the US and getting citizenship under false pretenses. You cannot hide the fact that you were a concentration camp guard or a member of a Nazi organization. When my father-in-law emigrated to the US in the late 1950s, he had to show his de-nazification certificate to prove he had not been in the Nazi party or the SS (he had been in the Hitler Youth (as all in his generation were) and the Army (as a teenaged conscript toward the end of the war)). Which is why after it was clear he was not Ivan, he was deported back to Ukraine instead of extradicted to Israel. --Amcalabrese 03:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that prehaps we add a link or mention of Demjanjuk's political supporters (such as Pat Buchanan) --Amcalabrese 03:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Holocaust box

Holocaust box should be present. Despite the fact Demjanjuk was found innocent his story is very much connected to the Holocaust. The only people who would use this page would be those reseaching the holocaust. If not for the Holcaust this mans story would be un-notewothy and thus not deserving of an article! Besides many Holocaust victims have the Holocaust box on their wikipedia pages. Ronan.evans 22:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

He was never retried because the first one was so embarassing and revealed things that noone - ie Israel - revealed. Another trial - ie complicity in gassing - could have turned into a true disaster.

Ronan, you have justified linking to this article from an article on the holocaust. You have not justified dominating this page with a Holocaust box. Anyone on this page who want's to find out about the holocaust can follow the links. The box is inappropriate for someone found innocent of the charge. Akihabara 14:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Please read my comment before wrting anything... ronan.evans 11:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] POV

This article, the whole way through, reads as if it is trying to convince the reader that this man is guilty even though he has been found innocent. The problems start in the first paragraph with the multi-line separation between "accused of, tried for, convicted of, and sentenced to death for war crimes" and "he was later exonerated". These should be in the same sentence, or at least adjacent. The intervening text belongs elsewhere.

Another example is the summary given of the Israeli ruling. Ending with "they also contained doubt that he was in fact innocent" is POV and the whole interpretation of the ruling is intended to convey this impression.

It really needs work by someone without preconceived ideas; accordingly I have tagged the article. It should aim to just list facts without trying to sway the reader either way. The article has almost no references for such a controversial and presumably researched subject! There are many examples on Wikipedia of controversial subjects handled more sensitively. Akihabara 15:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming the article

It seems some Wikipedians want to rename the article about the Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow because they don't like the spelling of his name. Although Turkmen language is written with Latin alphabet and Turkmen language is the only official language of Turkmenistan, they can't support the idea that his name can be written with a "w" at thee end, because it comes etymologically from a Russian "в" and, in Russian names, we use to translitterate "в" by a "v". I think if this reason is accepted, we can consider that the "ju" of Demjanjuk comes from a Russian "ю" and then this article will have to be renamed "John Demyanyuk"! And the fact that Demjanjuk's name comes from Ukrainian and not from Russian won't be an argument since Berdimuhammedow is Turkmen and not Russian. If you have something to say about the subject, don't hesitate to post it here: Talk:Gurbanguly_Berdimuhammedow#Page_move. Švitrigaila 23:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be very silly. I've been following the Demjanjuk case, albeit loosely, since the early 1980s. He's always been refered to in the media as "John Demjanjuk". Wikipedians will expect to find him by the name as it is spelled in conventional and historical media. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.61.125.201 (talk) 22:47, August 29, 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Updated material

Here is the latest news. --Tom (talk) 16:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


His trial showed he was not a Treblinka guard - it also showed ( evidence supplied by the US government ) that Treblinka was a transit site anyhow. 159.105.80.141 (talk) 12:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)