Who was John Demjanjuk?

John Demjanjuk was a Ukrainian-American autoworker accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for having allegedly served as a guard at Nazi extermination camps during World War II. Legal cases surrounding his alleged participation in the Holocaust began during the 1970s and continued until his death in 2012.

Born in 1920 in Ukraine, Demjanjuk was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army in 1940. He fought in World War II and became a prisoner of war in the spring of 1942. According to evidence brought against him in a German court, he served as a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp and at least two concentration camps. In 1952, he emigrated from West Germany to the United States. He took up residence in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in an auto factory until his retirement.