John Demjanjuk was convicted on Thursday in a German court for his participation in the killings of more than 27,900 Jews in Poland during World War II.

The 91-year-old was born in Ukraine on April 3, 1920 and joined the Soviet army in 1941. A year later, he became a prisoner of war of the Germans and served as a Nazi camp guard in Sobibor, Poland during the Holocaust.

Demjanjuk emigrated to the United States in the 50s and became a citizen in 1958. In 1981, he was stripped of his American citizenship, extradited to Israel and was sentenced to death for helping kill 870,000 people at the Treblinka Camp, where he was notoriously called “Ivan the Terrible” by the Holocaust survivors. His conviction was overturned after the court discovered it was a case of mistaken identity.

He flew back to the States in 1993 and got his US citizenship back five years later. However, the US Department of Justice reopened the case against him, so in 2009, he was deported to Germany, where he was sent behind bars in a Munich prison.

Ralph Alt, the presiding judge, said, “The court is convinced that the defendant served as a guard at Sobibor from March 27, 1943, to mid-September, 1943.” The prosecution also presented an identity card from the Nazi SS that shows Demjanjuk had undergone training at an SS camp.

Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison.

Want to earn some spare money as a writer for us? Send us an email!