Tag Archives: Justice

When should we stop pursuing justice? NEVER!

jUSTICE

The pursuit for truth and justice for the victims of the Holocaust should never ever stop.Even when perpetrators are brought to justice it is still just a hollow one, because what punishment can possibly cover the vile and sickening crimes committed.

However it is important that these people are pursuit regardless what age they are, or in what health condition they are.

Earlier this month US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents removed Jakiw Palij from his home in Queens, N.Y.  in order to send him back to Germany.

DEPORTATION

Jakiw Palij is a former Nazi guard, who had worked as a guard at the Trawniki Labor Camp.He immigrated to the United States in 1949, he had lied  on his immigration documentation that he claimed he  had been a simple farm-worker on his father’s land during the war. Palij entered the U.S. via Boston and became a US citizen in 1957. He bought a  home in Queens, New York in 1966.

He was Born in a part of Poland that is now modern-day Ukraine. He lived a quiet life as a draftsman in the US. In 2001 an investigator from the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations  showed up at his home  to question him about his wartime activities. Palij  admitted to federal officials  that he had been trained as a Nazi guard in spring 1943.

On November 3, 1943, more than 6,000 men, women and children imprisoned at Trawniki were shot to death in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.

 

By ensuring that no one was able to escape, Jakiw Palij was instrumental in the massacre of the 6000 innocent men,women and children.

camp

Nearly three decades ago  investigators found his name on an old Nazi roster and a fellow former guard spilled the secret that he was “living somewhere in America.” It would take until 2001 before he was found. In 2003 he citizenship was revoked,based on his wartime activities, human rights abuses and immigration fraud. An immigration judge ordered him to be deported in 2004.

protest

But that turned out to be more complicated as was envisaged for neither the Ukraine nor Germany, nor any other country wanted him. he therefore remained in the US until August 21 when he was finally deported to Germany.

His  case will now be part of an investigation at a Nazi crimes investigation unit in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

Himmler

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

$2.00

Sources

NBC News

CNN

Journal.ie

Business Insider

 

The few times when justice was served.

trial

So many involved in the Nazi atrocities did get off so lightly or escaped punishment altogether. How the judges in the war crimes trials came to some of the sentences or lack thereof has always been a puzzle to me.

Additionally there were also many how fled to countries where they knew they would face little or no chance of ever being extradited.Others took the easy way out by killing themselves.

After_World_War_2 (9)

In my opinion, and I want emphasize the fact that it is my opinion, there could have only been one sentence, the death sentence. Regardless what their rank or involvement was, if they knew about the atrocities, and all of them did, they were either actively involved in the killings or were complacent,either way they were responsible.

I have heard the argument that some of them had no choice. But there is always a choice, and if you can’t make that choice then you have to face the consequences of your actions or inaction.

However there were some who did get what they deserved below are examples of just a few of them.

General Anton Dostler

After_World_War_2 (1)

The General, Commander of the 75th Army Corps, was sentenced to death by an United States Military Commission in Rome for having ordered the shooting of 15 unarmed American prisoners of war, in La Spezia, Italy, on March 26. He was executed on December 1, 1945 by a firing squad in a stockade in Aversa, Italy.

Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling

After_World_War_2 (35)

In the course of the Dachau Trials following the liberation of the camp at the close of the war, Schilling was tried by a U.S. General Military Court, appointed at November 2 1945. He was convicted of using 1,200 concentration camp prisoners for malaria experimentation. Thirty died directly from the inoculations and 300 to 400 died later from complications of the disease. His experiments, all with unwilling subjects, began in 1942.The tribunal sentenced Schilling to death by hanging on 13 December 1945. His execution took place at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg am Lech on 28 May 1946.

Max Blokzijl

Max Blokzijl

Max Blokzijl was a Dutch singer and journalist. Following the German occupation of the Netherlands Blokzijl was executed for his collaboration with Nazi Germany.

Blokzijl  was the effective head of the  Nazi controlled press in the Netherlands. He also broadcast pro-Nazi shows on Radio Hilversum which were particularly noted for the strength of their anti-British sentiment.

On 16 March 1946 Blokzijl became the first Dutch collaborator to be executed, by firing squad in Scheveningen.

Rudolf Mynzak, Wilhelm Mueller and Kurt Kleiwitz.

Rudolf Mynzak, Wilhelm Mueller and Kurt Kleiwitz.

Three of the 19 camp guards tried and convicted by a general military court at Dachau for atrocities committed at Mauthasen.

Ans van Dijk

Ans van Dijk

Ans van Dijk  was a Dutch-Jewish collaborator who betrayed Jews to Nazi Germany during World War II. She was the only Dutch woman to be executed for her wartime activities.

On 14 January 1948 she was executed by firing squad at Fort Bijlmer in the then municipality Weesperkarspel (now the Bijlmermeer municipality of Amsterdam). The night before her execution she was baptized and joined the Roman Catholic Church.

Rudolf Hoess

Rudolf Hoess the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, is hanged next to the crematorium at the camp, 1947 (1)

During his trial in Poland, although he never  denied that he had committed crimes, he claimed that he had only been following orders. He knew exactly what  fate  awaited him. To the end, Hoess contended that, at the most, a million and a half people had died at Auschwitz, not 5 or 6 million. He he requested the court’s permission to send his wedding ring to his wife,at the end of the trial. Hoess was sentenced to death by hanging on 2 April 1947. The sentence was carried out on 16 April immediately adjacent to the crematorium of the former Auschwitz I concentration camp. The gallows constructed specifically for that purpose, at the location of the camp Gestapo.

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

$2.00

Identifying evil

concentration_camp_victim_identifies_camp_guard_original (1)

What a tremendous feeling it must have been to accuse and identify  those who committed awful crimes, without the fear of retaliation. Probably it wasn’t even out of revenge but with a feeling of getting justice done.

On the other side how panicking it must have been for those criminals when the finger was pointed at them.Unfortunately we know that the majority of them still got away with no or lenient sentences.

The above picture depicts a liberated Russian inmate pointing an identifying and accusing finger at a Nazi guard who was especially cruel towards the prisoners in Buchenwald camp.There’s something really fascinating about this picture. We can only see so much of the prisoner’s expression here, but that finger means so much. Days, maybe even hours earlier, that prisoner might have been afraid to cross paths with or even make eye contact with this man.

A survivor drags a former concentration camp guard by the hair while American troops look on at the newly liberated Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp.

71e6b8fa57331617056e54eee1d83cc8

Concentration Camp prisoner holding German at bayonet point after liberation of his camp.How tempted he must have been to just pull the trigger.

7840061f32411e40c6debd4c256d4efe

Former inmates of Dachau Concentration Camp moments away from executing an SS guard with a shovel.

cf9e19107a1481290bb8da6b6514e06c

A freed prisoner fights a German soldier who was recently captured by the U.S soldiers at the dachau concentration camp, the Americans are watching the fight continue.

6e9667558d38b2240b2f6dfa7c17a3d6

German soldiers react to footage of concentration camps, 1945.I wonder did they identify themselves and their mates in the footage, or what the crimes they committed,and did they care?

German soldiers react to footage of concentration camps, 1945

Another view of this scene that was taken from the back of the theater.

German soldiers react to footage of concentration camps, 1945 2

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

$2.00