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Journalism of Courage
A German court convicted John Demjanjuk on Thursday for his role in the killing of 27,900 Jews in the Sobibor Nazi death camp during the Holocaust,then set the 91-year-old free because of his age.
Holocaust survivors welcomed the Munich courts verdict that Demjanjuk,who was exonerated in another war crimes case in Israel two decades ago,was an accessory to mass murder as a guard at Sobibor camp in Poland during World War Two.
Demjanjuk showed no reaction while Judge Ralph Alt delivered the five-year sentence,and then said he would be released.
Alt said guards played an important role at extermination camps like Sobibor,where at least 250,000 Jews are thought to have been killed despite only 20 German SS officers being there.
He knew from the beginning exactly what was going on in the camp, Alt said.
Demjanjuk attended the 18-month court proceedings in Munich birthplace of Adolf Hitlers Nazi movement in a wheelchair and sometimes lying down.
Defence attorney Ulrich Busch told the court that even if Demjanjuk did become a prison guard,he did so only because as a prisoner of war he would have either been shot by the Nazis or died of starvation.
