Ex-SS guard guilty as accessory to 300K murders in Auschwitz death camp during WWII, gets 4 years
Entrance gate to Auschwitz concentration camp. Image from Shutterstock.
A former SS officer who worked for the Nazis in an administrative job at the notorious Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II has been found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jewish prisoners.
Oskar Groening, 94, was sentenced Wednesday to four years in the landmark case, which was tried in Lueneburg, Germany. Only in recent years have the country’s prosecutors pursued criminal cases against those responsible for the genocide based on circumstantial evidence, when no evidence of specific conduct against a specific victim was available. The BBC News, CNN, the Guardian and the New York Times (reg. req.) have stories.
Although some wondered why an old man is being pursued decades after the crimes took place, others said it was important that he be held accountable.
“Even 70 years after the end of the Holocaust, the need for justice remains powerful,” Olivia Marks-Woldman told CNN. She is chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which is based in the United Kingdom.
“Oskar Groening was part of the Nazi killing machine which murdered 6 million Jewish people, and it is right that a court has judged him for his role,” Marks-Woldman said. “He chose to stand by and be complicit in the killing.”
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Trial set to begin for former SS guard charged as accessory to 300,000 murders in World War II”
