Dozens of Holocaust Survivors and Victims' Relatives to Be Plaintiffs in Germany Trial of Former Nazi Oskar Groening
A former Nazi death camp guard will go on trial in Germany in April.
According to the BBC, Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz," faces 300,000 charges of accessory to murder. He will attend trial in the German city of Lueneburg. Plaintiffs in the case include 55 survivors and victims' relatives.
Prosecutors say Groening, now 93 years old, was responsible for counting money and hiding victims' luggage away from new arrivals to Auschwitz to disguise their fate. Prosecutors also say the former Nazi guard knew that those who were deemed unfit to work were murdered.
The front gate of Auschwitz was inscribed with "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Makes You Free." About 1.1 million people were murdered at the camp between 1940 and its liberation on January 27, 1945. Many of them were Jews.
Groening has admitted to witnessing the killings at Auschwitz. He began working at the camp at 21 years old.
"I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria. I saw the open fires. I was on the ramp when the selections [for the gas chambers] took place. I would like you to believe these atrocities happened -- because I was there," Groening said in 2005.
Groening says he never committed violent acts and only witnessed them.
Prosecutors in Hamburg are also looking into the involvement of Hilde Michnia at the Bergen-Belsen death camp during the Holocaust. Prosecutors believe the 93-year-old woman served as a Nazi SS guard at the camp. They allege she helped evacuate the Gross-Rosen camp and forced prisoners on a march that killed 1,400 of them.
Michina says she worked in a different side of the camp in the kitchens and never saw the starving victims or dead bodies.
A German court ruled in 2011 that cases could be brought to court against former Nazi guards for participating as "accessories to murder," making it easier to prosecute. These charges come after years of investigation by prosecutors and Nazi hunters in the German city of Ludwigsburg. They have looked into documents related to at least 30 suspected Auschwitz guards believed to still live in Germany. Many of the suspects have died or have been declared unfit for trial.
Last week commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp by the Soviet Red Army.
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