Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America's Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals

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John "Iwan" Demjanjuk was at the center of one of history's most complex war crimes trials. But why did it take almost sixty years for the United States to bring him to justice as a Nazi collaborator The answer lies in the annals of the Cold War, when fear and paranoia drove American politicians and the U.S. military to recruit "useful" Nazi war criminals to work for the United States in Europe as spies and saboteurs, and to slip them into America through loopholes in U.S. immigration policy. During and after the war, that same immigration policy was used to prevent thousands of Jewish refugees from reaching the shores of America. The long and twisted saga of John Demjanjuk, a postwar immigrant and auto mechanic living a quiet life in Cleveland until 1977, is the final piece in the puzzle of American government deceit. The White House, the Departments of War and State, the FBI and the CIA supported policies that harbored Nazi war criminals and actively worked to hide and shelter them from those who dared to investigate and deport them. The heroes in this story are men and women such as Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman and Justice Department prosecutor Eli Rosenbaum, who worked for decades to hold hearings, find and investigate alleged Nazi war criminals, and successfully prosecute them for visa fraud. But it was not until the conviction of John Demjanjuk in Munich in 2011 as an SS camp guard serving at the Sobibor death camp that this story of deceit can be told for what it is: a shameful chapter in American history. Riveting and deeply researched, Useful Enemies is the account of one man's criminal past and its devastating consequences, and the story of how America sacrificed its moral authority in the wake of history's darkest moment.

Reviews

"A richly researched, gripping narrative about war, suffering, survival, corruption, injustice and morality."
"Useful Enemies is a remarkable and riveting account of how good people in a great nation can do very bad things and fail to do good things. This is a terrifying account of the triumph of injustice in the false name of pragmatism and in the immoral service of bigotry."
"WWII isnt over for everyonein May 2011, John Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine and former American citizen, was convicted of war crimes for his role as a guard at the Sobibor concentration camp. Rashke (Escape from Sobibor) uses Demjanjuks story to explore the troubling implications of U.S. immigration patterns after WWII; the author contends that the United States knowingly accepted Nazis while simultaneously denying entry to Holocaust survivors, a trend motivated by a political agenda concerned with monitoring Europe in the postwar period and during the cold war. As evidenced by the particulars of Demjanjuks casewhich included numerous trials in various countries, possibly forged identity papers, and extradition deadlockthe narrative is riddled with political intrigue. While the immediate ethical and political ramifications of his argument are fascinating, one of the most interesting aspects of Rashkes investigation is how it complicates the idea of a survivor: was Demjanjuk, who lived a quiet life in Cleveland following the war, also a survivor of the Nazis, different from the men and women whose killings he oversaw only by degree The answer, as Rashke points out, requires untangling historical forces, moral behaviors, legal issues, and more, and its a riveting read."

Author Bio

RICHARD RASHKE is a lecturer and author of non-fiction books including The Killing of Karen Silkwood. He is featured in the award-winning international television series Nazi Hunters. His works have been translated into eleven languages and have been the subject of movies for screen and television. A produced screenwriter and playwright, his work has appeared on network television and off-Broadway. He is also an alto sax player and composer. His latest composition, Crane Wife, a family musical based on a Japanese folktale, was performed at the Kennedy Center, and his play, Dear Esther, based on a Sobibor prisoner, was the first play performed at the United States Holocaust Museum. He lives in Washington, D.C.