91 year old sentenced to jail for his role in killing Jews.

[SovietSecrets]

People are put to jail to prevent them from causing (any more) damage to society...

That is one of the reasons. Another is to help maintain a sense of justice, a feeling by the populace that people who break laws are punished and innocents are not. If that's not kept up, the legal system loses credibility, which can pose a lot of problems down the road.

Letting an accused Nazi go free could have been a nasty blow to PR and therefore credibility-affecting, regardless of whether or not said Nazi was one voluntarily or committed any crimes himself.

Not to say that this result won't affect legal credibility either.

...

You want to know the really stupid thing? This man was quite clearly not a Nazi.

The evidence was sufficient to convince the judge that he worked at the camp. If you accepted that (and I don't think that would have been too unreasonable), you could argue that he was supporting the Nazi cause, and therefore was effectively one regardless of his personal views.

That would not have established that he participated in crimes nor that he was voluntarily a member of the party. That should matter by the letter of the law, but when the word "Nazi" gets flung around, people get hungry for vengeance.

Letting go someone who is a Nazi is bad yes, but an accused one with what looked like barely sufficient evidence I find is all right. He has been tried before by Israel and they let him go, why bring it up now again after all this time after the people who probably wanted him dead the most let him go free? Even more when the guy looks like hes gonna go any day anyways.

 

[Kilo24]

No, he was not "just a guard". Seriously did no one look into this before commenting? He had a reputation for being unusually cruel and revelling in torturing prisoners.

Thats not true, it says that no where. :S

ravensheart was misled.

An earlier trial in Israel accused him of being a guard at a camp who had earned the name of "Ivan the Terrible", but they didn't have enough evidence to back it up.

He was convicted now for being a guard in a different camp without that reputation, or indeed anything which linked him personally with an prosecutable crime.

...

Letting go someone who is a Nazi is bad yes, but an accused one with what looked like barely sufficient evidence I find is all right. He has been tried before by Israel and they let him go, why bring it up now again after all this time after the people who probably wanted him dead the most let him go free? Even more when the guy looks like hes gonna go any day anyways.

Absolutely. Unfortunately, the size of the accusation outweighs the actual evidence of the case in many eyes. And with just a little bit of evidence suggesting that he worked in a death camp, that's enough to be labeled "Nazi" and therefore be perforated with all the stereotypes that are attached to that word.

In other words: He says he's not a Nazi, but you're not going to believe a Nazi like him, right?

 

[lcyw20]

I agree that war criminals should be made to pay for their crimes. However, he is 91 years old. All I want is the truth, whether he did commit the crimes or not. But just to show that we are the better people, we won't demand vengeance. We will display compassion. 91 is not an age to put someone in jail. It would be fine he were much younger, but you put him in now, and you might as well be torturing him. Torturing is not our way. It's Dick Cheney's way. The unembarrassed-to-lie-through-the-teeth-bastard's way.

 

[SovietSecrets]

...

Letting go someone who is a Nazi is bad yes, but an accused one with what looked like barely sufficient evidence I find is all right. He has been tried before by Israel and they let him go, why bring it up now again after all this time after the people who probably wanted him dead the most let him go free? Even more when the guy looks like hes gonna go any day anyways.

Absolutely. Unfortunately, the size of the accusation outweighs the actual evidence of the case in many eyes. And with just a little bit of evidence suggesting that he worked in a death camp, that's enough to be labeled "Nazi" and therefore be perforated with all the stereotypes that are attached to that word.

In other words: He says he's not a Nazi, but you're not going to believe a Nazi like him, right?

Thats a quite saddening way to look at it. Shame it has to be like that.

 

[Mavinchious Maximus]

this entire case is just a waste of time and money.

 

[ApeShapeDeity]

I think punishing a 91 yo man for being an evil **** is just fine. Ethics permit this in my book. You play a part in something like that you ought to be happy if the authorities get you instead of me.

 

[Kilo24]

...

Letting go someone who is a Nazi is bad yes, but an accused one with what looked like barely sufficient evidence I find is all right. He has been tried before by Israel and they let him go, why bring it up now again after all this time after the people who probably wanted him dead the most let him go free? Even more when the guy looks like hes gonna go any day anyways.

Absolutely. Unfortunately, the size of the accusation outweighs the actual evidence of the case in many eyes. And with just a little bit of evidence suggesting that he worked in a death camp, that's enough to be labeled "Nazi" and therefore be perforated with all the stereotypes that are attached to that word.

In other words: He says he's not a Nazi, but you're not going to believe a Nazi like him, right?

Thats a quite saddening way to look at it. Shame it has to be like that.

When you have grotesquely warped stereotypes, stuff like this happens. Not just on the negative side, but the positive version can happen too (see a few divine emperors, or cults of personality around modern dictators.)

Nazis are, in the public view, a social group who can do no right. If I were to claim that maybe not every Nazi worshipped Satan and could breathe fire, I could be labelled as pro-Nazi. And in the sense that I was saying something nice about Nazis, I would actually be pro-Nazi by a certain interpretation. If this were politics and not just some random Internet lunatics making stupid statements, I could easily lose my job and my credibility if someone wanted to press that point home. Instead, it's rather safer to claim that Nazis are pure evil.

After that line of rationale is followed by enough people, then the pure evil Nazi becomes a stereotype that fills out our superhero comics, video games, and political dogma. It doesn't matter if the swastika had a much longer history before Nazis appropriated it, or that most of the Nazis thought about the party philosophy about as deeply as most Americans think about politics today, or that obedience to authority has been proven had a far larger psychological effect than anyone thought possible - anything associated with Nazis is evil. In fact, because of this severe prejudice, anything which even challenges that concept slightly is pretty much the same thing a skinhead would claim to seduce you into becoming a Nazi - that fate is so horrifying that people who claim otherwise should be castigated, even if they might not have a hidden anti-semitic agenda.

If I said that Nazis had some good ideas, I'd get shot down with so much crap about the Holocaust even if all I meant was that they thought tobacco was bad for you and they outlawed animal cruelty. If I instead just was talking about some random national socialist party instead, I might be able to talk long enough that some people would agree.

Why is this rambling about how Nazis are portrayed important? Well, because it leads to occasions like this trial. The Holocaust was bad enough that being part of the party who had the people responsible is bad enough that being accused of being a Nazi because you were forced to work as a guard or die is bad enough to earn a conviction.

 

[Kilo24]

I think punishing a 91 yo man for being an evil **** is just fine. Ethics permit this in my book. You play a part in something like that you ought to be happy if the authorities get you instead of me.

And that's where stuff like this gets complicated.

One argument is, yes, the old man is too old for this to really matter, or that the statute of limitations should have expired. That argument has a number of counterarguments, not the least of which involve the rule of law: a basic legal concept which says that everyone should be treated equally in court. I consider this a pretty good counterargument, myself.

That does not mean that this is the only argument against the case's ruling. It's easy to get annoyed at all the people who oppose the ruling because they're busy crying "Oh, he's too old to be punished!", but court cases always are and/or become more complicated than they first appear. That's not a general statement, but one guaranteed by the fact that you've got two lawyers slinging mass legal precedents at each-other with a judge trying to make legal sense of the whole thing in the middle.

In any case, the opposition that I have to it is that the evidence is insufficient to suggest that he committed a crime. The prosecution established that he worked for the Nazis, and - even if you disregard the defense's claims of being forced to do so and/or that the ID card was a fake - all that proves is that he worked there. There's no proof that he killed anyone, much less that he was instrumental in the decision to kill someone. Death camps of ultimate evil need janitors, too.

But, if you start out believing something (even for faulty reasons) you generally keep believing it. Even people who go and think upon reading the article, "Well, the law's still the law, even for a 91-year-old" are much more likely to peg that as the key point in this trial and stick to their opinions even if other points of greater validity come out later in the article.

In other words, it's perhaps a benefit to the prosecution that the guy is 91 years old. That way, they can focus on a single point defeated soundly by modern legal theory, rather than arguing over the shakier evidence that makes up the rest of the case.

 

[Astoria]

I really don't see the point. The guy's 91, he hasn't got long left anyway so he's hardly paying for what he did and it's just a waste of money and space in jail.

 

[tjdwo09]

Wow I though escapists were above just saying "he's a Nazi he deserves this".
That's just lazy and uncaring.

Putting him in jail is not justice. No one benefits from this.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

they were forced to do it. should we condemn soldiers at war for committing murder? of course not. this is not justice, this is crap.

 

[trouble_gum]

Justice does not have a time limit....

Justice systems with statutes of limitations would beg to differ there.

You (generic third person) also have to contemplate the irony that Israel tried this guy, with the death penalty on the table, and the case was thrown out of court due to concerns over the evidence. From the details available, it seems we have someone who was a PoW, forced into the role of concentration/death camp guard, now 91, being convicted on dubious evidence of being an accessory to 28,000 murders.

Kinda smacks of "Well, damn. We couldn't get you convicted for x in y country, let's try again somewhere else, twenty five years later!"

Lots of people get very 'excited' about this and headlines spray around words like "Nazi" and "murderer" or "genocide" - but, let's face it, this appears to be an unfortunate man forced into a situation, being dragged through a show-trial for the sake of it.

If he was a 'real' Nazi, one of the architects of the Final Solution, or a camp commandant or someone who could demonstrably be shown to have invested time, energy and enjoyment in the extermination of these 28,000 individuals, then his trial and conviction might be something worth being satisfied with.

 

[ApeShapeDeity]

I think punishing a 91 yo man for being an evil **** is just fine. Ethics permit this in my book. You play a part in something like that you ought to be happy if the authorities get you instead of me.

And that's where stuff like this gets complicated.

One argument is, yes, the old man is too old for this to really matter, or that the statute of limitations should have expired. That argument has a number of counterarguments, not the least of which involve the rule of law: a basic legal concept which says that everyone should be treated equally in court. I consider this a pretty good counterargument, myself.

That does not mean that this is the only argument against the case's ruling. It's easy to get annoyed at all the people who oppose the ruling because they're busy crying "Oh, he's too old to be punished!", but court cases always are and/or become more complicated than they first appear. That's not a general statement, but one guaranteed by the fact that you've got two lawyers slinging mass legal precedents at each-other with a judge trying to make legal sense of the whole thing in the middle.

In any case, the opposition that I have to it is that the evidence is insufficient to suggest that he committed a crime. The prosecution established that he worked for the Nazis, and - even if you disregard the defense's claims of being forced to do so and/or that the ID card was a fake - all that proves is that he worked there. There's no proof that he killed anyone, much less that he was instrumental in the decision to kill someone. Death camps of ultimate evil need janitors, too.

But, if you start out believing something (even for faulty reasons) you generally keep believing it. Even people who go and think upon reading the article, "Well, the law's still the law, even for a 91-year-old" are much more likely to peg that as the key point in this trial and stick to their opinions even if other points of greater validity come out later in the article.

In other words, it's perhaps a benefit to the prosecution that the guy is 91 years old. That way, they can focus on a single point defeated soundly by modern legal theory, rather than arguing over the shakier evidence that makes up the rest of the case.

Ah! A well founded argument! Good. I like that.

Consider this, however. These cases are not brought to bear lightly, no doubt, particularly in the case of a decrepid old man. There is going to be damning evidence against this guy. Count on it.

On a more subjective note, if you've ever seen the truly oppressed and down trodden cry over thier murdered children first hand... well, you'd get your panties in a bunch over stuff like this too... assuming you're a decent human being.

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Poor fella, by 91 he would of had enough time be remorseful

 

[SeaCalMaster]

Consider this, however. These cases are not brought to bear lightly, no doubt, particularly in the case of a decrepid old man. There is going to be damning evidence against this guy. Count on it.

It would appear that you are making the claim that an accusation against someone is evidence of that person's guilt. Please tell me that I am wrong.

 

[Soods]

People are put to jail to prevent them from causing (any more) damage to society...

That is one of the reasons. Another is to help maintain a sense of justice, a feeling by the populace that people who break laws are punished and innocents are not. If that's not kept up, the legal system loses credibility, which can pose a lot of problems down the road.

Letting an accused Nazi go free could have been a nasty blow to PR and therefore credibility-affecting, regardless of whether or not said Nazi was one voluntarily or committed any crimes himself.

Not to say that this result won't affect legal credibility either.

Well played good sir, well played! I'm not gonna change my opinion, but atleast I can understand yours

 

[LiudvikasT]

This is insane. The court system should look at one thing: is the accused a danger society? Is a 91 year old man a danger to anyone? No. So he should go free.
If courts do not account for this, then it's not justice it's plain vengeance.