Today, in Germany, accused war criminal Ivan Demjanjuk was convicted by a German court. Read the article at : http://www.680news.com/news/world/article/225230--john-demjanjuk-convicted-at-war-crimes-trial-in-germany-but-ordered-freed-pending-appeal

This man has been hounded by "Nazi hunters" for the better part of three decades.  In previous trials it was shown that much the evidence against him was manufactured, including a SS ID card, shown to be a KGB fake.  The above article also notes that "There was no evidence that Demjanjuk committed a specific crime. The prosecution was based on the theory that if Demjanjuk was at the camp, he was a participant in the killing — the first time such a legal argument has been made in German courts."

I find this particularly disturbing, that was convicted, despite no evidence of a specific crime being committed.  As with his previous trials, the evidence appears weak at best.  Demjanjuk has maintained that "he was a victim of the Nazis — first wounded as a Soviet soldier fighting German forces, then captured and held as a prisoner of war under brutal conditions before joining the Vlasov Army, a force of anti-communist Soviet POWs and others that was formed to fight with the Germans against the Soviets in the final months of the war." 

German forces did push captured soldiers and those living in their occupied territories into service, many into the "Waffen SS" divisions, which were primarily made up of non-German soldiers.  My father was also pressured into service in German-occupied Estonia.  After the war, exception made was for Waffen-SS conscripts sworn in after 1943, who were exempted due to their involuntary servitude, which Demjanjuk falls into.

What I don't understand is why they still hound this man, despite the fact that the evidence is far from conclusive or sound.  What do men like the Simon Weisenthal Center's Efraim Zuroff hope to gain from this?  It has been almost seventy years since the end of the war.  What is the purpose of continually pulling the scab off this major wound?  Its is time to let it go and let the wound start to heal.

And before I get hate mail on this, I'm not saying for one second that the Holocaust should be forgotten.  It is an important part of history, and needs to learned, along with other genocides.

To get on my history teacher pedestal for a minute, along with the Holocaust, greater attention should also be paid to what I like to call "The Other Holocaust" - the war crimes of the Soviet Union, the millions that were killed during their regime, not only during the Second World War (estimated at a MINIMUM of 30 million) but the years before and after - conservative estimates put their death toll at a MINIMUM of 60 million, almost certainly higher.  Yet, it is an area of history that has been largely ignored, partially due to the secrecy of the Soviet Union, and their status as a "victor" of the Second World War.  I've seen some texts that refer to their take over of eastern Europe as a "liberation", yet you will find very few in those countries that they crushed in their march to Germany calling them "liberators".  The Nazis were not the only ones guilty of atrocities in those dark, and we should recognize the fact that fact, instead of sweeping it under the carpet of history.