John Demjanjuk

John Demjanjuk should be allowed to remain in the United States (“U.S. Court Calls for Return of Demjanjuk,” Aug. 4). His extradition to Israel is a typical example of our persistent kowtowing to Israel.

After eight years in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison, this man has been punished sufficiently, and perhaps wrongly. His age, his family, and his years as a law-abiding citizen should be taken into account. After 50 years it is time to forgive and forget.

Israel and America have been guilty of plenty of atrocities against defenseless civilians. Our villains go unpunished because they have been on the winning side.

ALICE F. SMITH

The acquittal of Demjanjuk was a fantastic travesty of justice. Whether or not he was the real “Ivan the Terrible” is immaterial. The mere fact that he was a concentration camp guard made him a murderer.

I was a sergeant in the 89th Infantry Division and we liberated the first concentration camp discovered in Germany, and many more thereafter. There were several hundred dead bodies lying on the ground after a massacre that occurred a few hours before we arrived at the camp. We found large pits with several hundred bodies in each, and other bodies stacked up like cordwood to be burned.

The inmates told us stories of how the guards raped young girls and then shot them, and how they beat the prisoners. Guards shot prisoners for target practice. The average life in a slave labor camp was about six months. By then the prisoners died of starvation, or diseases, or were shot or beaten to death. There was no such thing as an “innocent” guard, as all camp guards were involved in killing inmates. Demjanjuk should be put to death!

BARRY ZIFF Encino