A 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard was sentenced to five years in prison by a German court for aiding and abetting the murder of 3,518 people during the Holocaust.
The man had been charged in 2021 with “knowingly and intentionally” aiding and abetting the killing of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, from January 1942 to February 1945, according to the prosecution in Neuruppin, Brandenburg state in northeastern Germany.
He was sentenced by the Neuruppin Regional Court on Tuesday, court spokeswoman Iris le Claire told reporters. CNN.
Le Claire said the trial was a complex process. “It was extraordinarily difficult to find a suitable punishment because the acts took place a long time ago and the perpetrator is already very old. All of this had a mitigating effect on the sentence,” she said.
The sheer number of people who died under the guard’s watch was also taken into account, Le Claire suggested. Under German law, people found guilty of murder are normally sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison.
It is estimated that around 100,000 prisoners died in the Sachsenhausen camp.
“The verdict is late compensation for relatives and a very important signal from Germany,” Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told CNN on Tuesday.
Heubner, who followed the trial, criticized the number of years it took German courts to press charges. “Now the wound of relatives can be treated,” he said.
The convict has always denied being active in the concentration camp, according to Heubner.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany recognized the decision. “Even though the defendant is likely to not serve the full prison term due to his advanced age, the verdict is welcome,” Josef Schuster, chairman of the board, told CNN.
“The thousands of people who worked in the concentration camps kept the murder machinery running. They were part of the system, so they should also take responsibility for that,” Schuster said. “It is bitter that the defendant denied his activities at that time to the end and showed no remorse.”
The man’s name has not been released, in accordance with German privacy laws. The charges included involvement in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942, and aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners through the use of poison gas, as well as other shootings and the killing of prisoners, creating and maintaining hostile conditions at Sachsenhausen camp.
Sachsenhausen was built by prisoners and opened in 1936. Of the approximately 200,000 prisoners who passed through it, around 100,000 are believed to have died there. During World War II, the prison population of the camp fluctuated between about 11,000 and 48,000 people.
An estimated 6 million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Roma, political opponents, homosexuals and people with physical or learning disabilities were also killed.
Source: CNN Brasil
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