THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: John Demjanjuk, the former Nazi death camp guard, has been found guilty of almost 30,000 counts of accessory to murder and been jailed for five years.
The judge in the court in Munich said he was convinced that Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was a guard at the Sobibor death camp "and that as a guard he took part in the murder of at least 28,000 people."
Demjanjuk sat in a wheelchair before the judges as they announced their verdict, but showed no reaction.
The court sentenced him to five years in prison. It was not immediately how much credit he would get for time already served.
Demjanjuk's defense has said it would appeal a conviction.
Prosecutors had called for a six-year jail sentence for Demjanjuk, who was deported to Germany in 2009 from the United States, where he lived for decades after World War II.
Demjanjuk was brought into the packed courtroom in a wheelchair on Friday, as usual, wearing a light-blue baseball cap, dark glasses and an army-like green coat which he took off after arriving.
Demjanjuk has kept silent throughout the proceedings, sitting in a wheelchair or lying on a stretcher. His health was often a cause for concern during the trial, leading to frequent delays. » | Thursday, May 12, 2011
Monday, October 25, 2010
World War II: The Lost Color Archives
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Anniversary of the Blitz: 'I Thought, I Cannot Be Alive'
THE TELEGRAPH: On the 70th anniversary of the start of the aerial bombing that devastated British cities, Juliet Gardiner recalls eight months of terror and hardship, and the rise of the 'Blitz spirit'.
Len Jones spent the night of Saturday September 7 1940 in a brick-built public shelter in Poplar, east London, which "lifted and moved, almost as if it was a ship in a rough sea. And the suction and the blasts were coming in and out of the steel door, smashing backwards and forwards, bashing us against the walls…
"The worst part was the poor little kids, they were screaming and crying and clutching their parents. The heat was colossal; the steel door was so hot you couldn't touch it. And everybody was being sick, and people were having to carry on their normal bodily needs, and the smell was terrible."
It was the first night of the Blitz that would last for eight exhausting and perilous months, with German bombs pounding the towns, cities, ports and industrial sites of Britain. The Battle of Britain, in which the Luftwaffe targeted British airfields and aircraft in an attempt to gain air supremacy, had clearly not succeeded in persuading the British to surrender as Hitler had hoped. Although he had no particular wish to fight Britain, since his ambitions lay east, towards Russia, the Führer needed British acquiescence and it was clear that this was not forthcoming. Britain would "fight on, if necessary alone", said Churchill after the fall of France. "We will never surrender."
So German tactics changed: although the dogfights in the air over southern England continued, the Luftwaffe switched its bomber force to attack London in an attempt to destroy Britain's capacity to wage war. London would be bombed without cessation for 57 consecutive nights. And, although in November the aerial attacks fanned out to the provinces, starting with Coventry and extending to Merseyside, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Clydeside, Hull, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, Portsmouth, Plymouth and many other places, it was as if London was a magnet attracting the bombers back to devastate the capital.
That first terrible night set the pattern for the Blitz. First, the bombers would drop incendiary bombs; if left unattended, these would start fires that would absorb the resources of the Civil Defence workers and act as a beacon for the next wave of bombers, which would drop deadly high explosive bombs, ranging in weight from 112lb to the "Max" at 5,500lb. Although the targets were munitions factories, docks and administrative centres, the notion of precision bombing was a chimera and, in any case, in the 1940s industrial and residential areas lay cheek by jowl in Britain's towns and cities. "Collateral damage" invariably included a grim tally of homes and lives. >>> Juliet Gardiner* | Tuesday, September 07, 2010
* Juliet Gardiner is the author of 'The Blitz: The British Under Attack' published this week (Harper Press, £25)
France's 'Enfants de Boches' Awarded German Passports
THE TELEGRAPH: Children believed to have been fathered by German soldiers in occupied France are receiving dual Franco-German nationality in a belated move to recognise their identity.
Pierre, born in a town in Normandy, realised his family were keeping a terrible secret from him when he discovered shortly before his wedding that he had been baptised without a surname.
He called his mother's husband "papa" but always had the "painful intuition" that he was not his real father.
Then seven years ago, when he was 60, his mother finally admitted that he was an "enfant de Boche" – roughly translated as "child of Jerry" - born during the war to French women and German soldiers. At the age of 20, she had an affair with a German sailor whom she met while cleaning a chateau requisitioned by the Nazis.
On Wednesday, Pierre, whose surname has been withheld, reportedly became the first of at least 200,000 children believed to have been fathered by German soldiers in France during the war to receive dual Franco-German nationality. He was to receive his passport and papers at a ceremony in the German embassy in Paris. >>> Henry Samuel in Paris | Wednesday, October 07, 2009
France 'Responsible' for Holocaust Deportations, Court Rules
76,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps in Germany during World War II, including Auschwitz. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
France has officially accepted its role in the Holocaust for the first time – admitting its government freely sent thousands of Jews to their deaths during World War II.
The Council of State, the country's highest judicial body, said the Vichy government of the time held 'responsibility' for deportations.
It ruled that Nazi officials did not force them to betray their fellow citizens, but that anti-Semitic persecution was carried out willingly.
But today's ruling stated there would be no payments for the survivors or families of victims, because all had been compensated 'as much as was possible, for all the losses suffered'.
Thousands of Jews were deported from France to concentration camps during the Occupation, which lasted from 1940 until 1944.
Post-war French governments refused to acknowledge any role in the Holocaust by the collaborating Vichy regime. >>> By Peter Allen in Paris | Monday, Febraury 16, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: 'Jewish War Victims Have Had Enough Compensation' French Court Says
The French State was responsible for deporting Jews during the Second World War, the top judicial authority ruled for the first time yesterday, but it dismayed families of victims by declaring that they had already been compensated. >>> Charles Bremner in Paris | Tuesday, February 17, 2009
