A 101-year-old man was convicted in Germany of three,518 counts of accent to homicide on Tuesday for serving on the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen focus camp throughout World War II.
The Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced him to 5 years in jail.
The man, who was recognized by native media as Josef S., had denied working as an SS guard on the camp and aiding and abetting the homicide of hundreds of prisoners.
In the trial, which opened in October, the person mentioned that he had labored as a farm labourer close to Pasewalk in northeastern Germany throughout the interval in query.
However, the courtroom thought-about it confirmed that he labored on the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary wing, the German information company dpa reported.
“The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years,” presiding Judge Udo Lechtermann mentioned, in response to dpa, including that in doing so, the defendant had assisted within the terror and homicide equipment of the Nazis.
“You willingly supported this mass extermination with your activity,” Lechtermann mentioned.
Prosecutors had primarily based their case on paperwork regarding an SS guard with the person’s title, date and hometown, in addition to different paperwork.
The five-year jail sentence was in keeping with the prosecution’s demand. However, the defendant can attraction the courtroom’s ruling.
For organisational causes, the trial was held in a gymnasium in Brandenburg/Havel, the 101-year-old’s place of residence.
The man was solely match to face trial to a restricted extent and was solely in a position to take part within the trial for about two and a half hours every day. The trial was interrupted a number of instances for well being causes and hospital stays.
Efraim Zuroff, the pinnacle Nazi hunter on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s workplace in Jerusalem, informed The Associated Press that the sentence “sends a message that if you commit such crimes, even decades later, you might be brought to justice”.
“And it’s a very important thing because it gives closure to the relatives of the victims,” Zuroff added. “The fact that these people all of a sudden feel that their loss is being addressed and the suffering of their family who they lost in the camps is being addressed … is a very important thing.” Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 simply north of Berlin as the primary new camp after Adolf Hitler gave the SS full management of the Nazi focus camp system.
It was meant to be a mannequin facility and coaching camp for the labyrinthine community that the Nazis constructed throughout Germany, Austria and occupied territories.
More than 200,000 individuals have been held there between 1936 and 1945. Tens of hundreds of inmates died of hunger, illness, pressured labor and different causes, in addition to by way of medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations together with shootings, hangings and gassing.
Exact numbers on these killed differ, with higher estimates of some 100,000, although students recommend figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are probably extra correct.
In its early years, most prisoners have been both political prisoners or felony prisoners, however in addition they included some Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. The first giant group of Jewish prisoners was introduced there in 1938 after the so-called Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht, an antisemitic pogrom.
During the battle, Sachsenhausen was expanded to incorporate Soviet prisoners of battle — who have been shot by the hundreds — in addition to others.
As in different camps, Jewish prisoners have been singled out at Sachsenhausen for significantly harsh remedy, and most who remained alive by 1942 have been despatched to the Auschwitz dying camp.
Sachsenhausen was liberated in April 1945 by the Soviets, who turned it right into a brutal camp of their very own.
Tuesday’s verdict depends on current authorized precedent in Germany establishing that anybody who helped a Nazi camp perform might be prosecuted for accent to the murders dedicated there.
In a distinct case, a 96-year-old girl went on trial in late September within the northern German city of Itzehoe.
The girl, who allegedly labored throughout the battle because the secretary for the SS commandant of the Stutthof focus camp, has been charged with greater than 11,000 counts of accent to homicide.
