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To: National Desk
Contact: Myrna Shinbaum, 212-885-7747, or Todd Gutnick, 212-885-7755, both of the Anti-Defamation League
NEW YORK, April 30, 2004 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) praised today's ruling by a three judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals which affirmed the 2002 District Court decision stripping John Demjanjuk of his citizenship. The previous ruling, issued in February of 2002 by US District Court Judge Paul Matia, held that Demjanjuk had lied about his role in the Holocaust on his original citizenship application and should be stripped of his citizenship.
"John Demjanjuk never deserved access to the benefits and privileges of citizenship. Today the atrocities of his past have finally caught up with him," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director and a Holocaust survivor. "For decades, Demjanjuk remained beyond the reach of international justice for his well- documented complicity in the Holocaust while using his citizenship as a protective shield. Demjanjuk enjoyed all the benefits of freedom in a free land after having denied his own victims the dignity of their lives. This was a case of justice long delayed, yet some measure of justice for Demjanjuk is better than none."
Commenting further on today's decision, David J. Millstone, ADL Cleveland regional chairman, and Bettysue Feuer, ADL regional director, stated:
"This is an important victory for the victims of the Holocaust. As we move further away from the events of that time, many people tend to diminish the suffering and the anguish of those caught up in the web of the Nazi regime. These deadly acts took place with the complicity of many people. The U.S. should never allow participants in these events of horror to remain in our country through the manipulation of our laws. We applaud and commend the court for its upholding the findings that Demjanjuk served the Nazi regime in many concentration camps and was a willing participant in the process that asphyxiated thousands of Jews at Sobibor. Such a person has no right to the privileges of citizenship."
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
� 2004 U.S. Newswire