Too many Nazi criminals are convicted and sentenced, but do no time – Even if Irmgard Furchner is convicted of being an ‚accessory to murder,‘ she probably won’t see the walls of a prison cell, but running away got her a week in jail | Timesofisrael

What does it take to ensure that a Nazi criminal convicted these days in Germany will actually be sent to prison? That is a question which has bothered me for about a decade, ever since Ivan Demjanjuk, who was convicted for “accessory to murder,” in Munich on May 12, 2011, for his service in the Sobibor death camp, and was sentenced to five years in jail, was allowed to remain a free person until his appeal against the verdict was decided. Thus, Demjanjuk was allowed to live in an old age home in Bad Feilnbach, awaiting the court’s decision, and he died on March 17, 2012, before his appeal was reviewed. He did not serve a single day of his sentence from the German court. (At least, he was incarcerated for more than seven years in Ramle Prison, and was also in prison in the United States on several occasions and in Germany pending his trial in Munich.)