When they overturned his conviction in Israel, the supreme court judges there said they still believed Demjanjuk had served the Nazis, probably at the Trawniki SS training camp and Sobibor. Sobibor was also the site of the most successful attempt by prisoners to escape a Nazi extermination camp during the Holocaust. He leaned toward the white wire mesh screen that separated him from the reporters to argue otherwise. Demjanjuk died in a nursing home in southern Germany as a prisoner of failing health but not of the justice system that found him guilty last year of being an accessory to mass murder. His defiance, even as he was led away in handcuffs, was a proper closing flourish for a politician who had made a career of controversy and flamboyance. Martin Cueppers, a Holocaust historian at the University of Stuttgart, said researchers concluded that Demjanjuk is probably depicted in at least one case in conjunction with the criminal police office in Germanys Baden-Wuerttemberg state, whose biometric department agreed to examine the historical photos, The Associated Press reported. His son, John Demjanjuk Jr., who lives in Ohio, confirmed his fathers death of natural causes to the Associated Press. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., took legal possession of the photos. Reporting from London -- John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio autoworker convicted of serving as a guard at a Nazi extermination camp and being complicit in the deaths of more than 28,000 people, died Saturday in Germany. Snow accumulations less than one inch. Prosecutors had a recording of him accepting $163,000 from members of organized crime. He said after the war he was unable to return to his homeland, and that taking him away from his family in the U.S. to stand trial in Germany was a "continuation of the injustice" done to him. Demjanjuk died a free man in . You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. That and other evidence indicating Demjanjuk had served under the SS convinced the panel of judges in Munich, and led to his conviction. friends: They met 70 years ago at the Ashtabula County Children's Home, SPIRE official responds to availability issues, Two Democratic candidates face off Tuesday for Ashtabula's top job, Nursing home assault victim's autopsy still pending. His conviction helped set new German legal precedent, being the first time someone was convicted solely on the basis of serving as a camp guard, with no evidence of being involved in a specific killing. He and his wife, Vera, had a son, John Jr., and two daughters, Irene and Lydia, who survive him. Low 38F. Choose from the CJN's informative e-newsletters. John Demjanjuk's Family & Children: 5 Fast Facts | Heavy.com Twisted history of John Demjanjuk - The National Photos that may contain images of convicted Nazi collaborator John Demjanjuk at the Sobibor death camp raise the specter of a story that divided Cleveland and the world for decades. Broadcast on Israeli radio and television, the proceedings stretched out over 18 months and featured emotional testimony from Holocaust survivors who identified Demjanjuk as Ivan the Terrible. He was in his early 20s then, having been born on April 3, 1920, in the central Ukrainian village of Dubovi Makharintsi, before the country was absorbed into the Soviet Union and subjected to dictator Josef Stalin's brutal rule. Raab, who visited Sobibor with his mother, said he had no opinion about whether the images portray Demjanjuk. John Demjanjuk dies at 91; convicted Nazi death camp guard Demjanjuk was born April 3, 1920, in the village of Dubovi Makharintsi in central Ukraine, two years before the country became part of the Soviet Union. That and other evidence indicating Demjanjuk had served under the SS convinced the panel of judges in Munich, and led to his conviction. John Demjanjuk Jr said in a telephone interview from Ohio that his father, who had terminal bone marrow disease, chronic kidney disease and other ailments, died of natural causes. Esther Raab, who lived in Vineland, N.J., escaped from Sobibor as well. Until the mid 1970s, the Ukrainian immigrant had lived a quiet life in suburban Cleveland. He said after the war he was unable to return to his homeland, and that taking him away from his family in the US to stand trial in Germany was a "continuation of the injustice" done to him. The trial began four months later. Israeli Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer, who researches at the Yad Vashem memorial, said Demjanjuk's story showed an important moral lesson. Traficants charges were not connected to the shooting. Henry Chu first joined the Los Angeles Times in 1990 and worked primarily out of the San Fernando Valley office before moving to the foreign staff in 1998. I think that maybe he was recruited involuntarily, fell into a situation that was not his choice, got involved with horrible things. Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. "Germany is responsible for the fact that I have lost for good my whole reason to live, my family, my happiness, any future and hope," he said. History will show Germany used him as a scapegoat to blame helpless Ukrainian POWs for the deeds of Nazi Germans.. Prosecutors in Germany filed charges in 2009, saying Demjanjuk's link to Sobibor and Trawniki was clear, with evidence showing that after he was captured by the Germans he volunteered to serve with the fanatical SS and trained as a camp guard. All rights reserved. He was ordered tried in Munich because he lived in the area briefly after the war. Demjanjuk was found guilty and sentenced to death in April 1988. Historical evidence has proven that captured Soviet POWs were coerced to serve under a threat of death if they were not among the millions who perished in German POW camps.. He closed floor speeches by saying, Beam me up, Speaker. He voted far more often with the Republicans than with his own party, though in the end both parties voted nearly unanimously to oust him. The Mahoning investigation led to the convictions of more than 70 local residents, including business people, the former prosecutor, and a county sheriff.