This sounds like a reasonable article. The statement “Germany’s pursuit of Demjanjuk creates the impression that Germany is extraordinarily thorough about prosecuting Nazi war crimes” says it all. Interestingly, as the years go by since the war ended, the hunt for war criminals becomes more intense.
Also “Holocaust Memorials” have been popping up all over the world. Germany completed a huge “holocaust memorial” in Berlin just 3 or 4 years ago and the United States has a huge Holocaust memorial in Washington, D.C (built in 1993) and a big one in Los Angeles too, as well as smaller ones sprinkled throughout the country. Most of these been built relatively recently. Interestingly, before 1991 the Soviet Union which had 25 million people killed in the war (far more people than any other country) did not have separate memorials for Jews. This is understandable, since most of the 25 million killed were Russians that were not Jewish. Everyone that suffered was memorialized – not just Jews. Some American Jews considered this anti-semitic, they wanted separate recognition for Jewish suffering.
The USA which had about 450,000 people die in the war (no civilians) and is on a separate continent than Europe, has some kind of holocaust memorial in almost every state (some states have more than one). But there are no memorials at all to the suffering of Blacks in 300 years of slavery or the genocide committed against the American Indian. Holocaust Studies programs (studying the suffering of the 6 million Jews that died in the war) is now offered in many or most universities in the USA. The almost 50 million Europeans that were not Jewish get no such recognition.
Germany has done more than any country to prosecute war criminals. Its actually more accurate to say Germany is the only country to prosecute its own citizens for war crimes committed during WW II. Not one Russian, Briton or American has been prosecuted for war crimes despite the fact that two million German women were gang raped (and many then murdered along with their family) by the Soviets and British and Americans murdered 125,000 Germans in the city of Dresden in two nights of bombing. This was the first use of napalm, but Dresden is a city so it was the napalm was meant to burn Germans, not forests. While looking at the plan to bomb Dresden, President Roosevelt commented “we may have to castrate the Germans”. Similar bombing attacks were done on many German cities.
