German authorities have filed charges against a 98-year-old man for complicity in the murder of 3,300 people at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II. This comes shortly after a 97-year-old former secretary was found guilty of aiding the mass murder of 10,505 people at another Nazi prison. The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, allegedly “supported the cruel and malicious killing of thousands of prisoners as a member of the SS guard detail” from 1943 to 1945.
Last year, the man was declared fit to stand trial, and now the court in Hesse will decide whether the case should proceed. Due to the fact that the individual was under 18 at the time of the alleged crimes, if the trial goes ahead, he will be tried in a juvenile court.
Under German law, anyone who worked at a Nazi concentration camp can be prosecuted as an accessory to the murders committed there, even if they did not directly participate in the killings. This legal precedent was established in 2011 with the conviction of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian guard at the Sobibor extermination camp. Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison for complicity in the murder of 28,060 Jews but died at the age of 91 while appealing the verdict.
In December of last year, 97-year-old Irmgard Furchner was given a two-year suspended sentence for her role in the killing of 10,505 prisoners at the Stutthof camp in occupied Poland. Furchner, who was a teenage typist at the camp, has appealed against the sentence.
The Sachsenhausen concentration camp, located just north of Berlin, held over 200,000 Jews, gypsies, Soviet soldiers, and other political prisoners between 1936 and 1945. The inmates endured forced labor, starvation, medical experiments, and execution by SS guards. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 prisoners died at the camp.
While the 98-year-old former guard at Sachsenhausen is among the oldest individuals to face prosecution for their involvement in the Holocaust, he is not the oldest person to be prosecuted. Last June, a 101-year-old former SS guard became the oldest Nazi criminal ever to be found guilty. He was sentenced to five years in prison for aiding in the murder of over 3,500 individuals at the same concentration camp.
The pursuit of justice for the crimes committed during the Holocaust underscores the importance of holding individuals accountable for their actions, regardless of the passage of time. Germany’s commitment to prosecuting those who assisted in the atrocities of the Nazi regime serves as a reminder of the horrors of the past and the need to prevent such atrocities from happening again in the future.
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