Germany: one of the last surviving former concentration camp guards will soon be tried
A view through the open door of the former Nazi concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, April 16, 2020. The end of April 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of prisoners from the camp.
© AFP / ArchivosTOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
It is a race against time for German justice which tries late to try people complicit in the Holocaust.
According to the daily
Welt am Sonntag
on Sunday, a trial is due to open in October against a centenarian.
The man was stationed at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin.
Publicity
Read more
From our correspondent in Berlin,
Pascal Thibaut
If his trial opens as scheduled in October, this former member of the SS will be the oldest accused to be held to account for his acts as guard of a concentration camp.
It will be one of the last procedures because of the great age of the few people still being prosecuted.
The centenary was stationed at the Sachsenhausen camp north of Berlin between 1942 and 1945. A camp where a total of 200,000 people were interned, 20,000 of whom did not survive.
The man is accused of aiding and abetting the murder of 3,500 people.
The Neuruppin court estimates that it is able to follow hearings of two to two and a half hours a day.
The centenary had certainly been interned by the Soviets after the war, but was never prosecuted even in the GDR where he lived or since reunification.
This case is part of the
latest proceedings
still underway against camp guards;
several could not be completed because of the very old age of the people concerned.
For ten years, German case law has evolved.
It is no longer necessary for an accused to have killed prisoners himself or given the orders.
Having been even a modest cog in the Holocaust now allows prosecution for complicity in murder.
► To read also: Germany: towards an abolition of the last Nazi laws
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Germany
Story
Holocaust
Justice