Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Ex-Nazi Faces Trial in 300,000 Deaths at Auschwitz

A former Waffen-SS member is going on trial, charged as an accomplice in the murder of 300,000 victims at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Oskar Groening, 93, will be tried at the District Court of Luneburg, near his hometown in Germany. The trial will begin on Tuesday.

Groening has admitted to being a guard at Auschwitz and, unlike most others brought to trial in recent years, has publicly expressed shame for having been “a cog in the killing machine that eliminated millions of innocent people.” He gave a long interview about his experiences to Der Spiegel magazine in 2005.

Plaintiffs in the case against him include the state as well as more than 60 Holocaust survivors and their relatives. Attorney Thomas Walter, who represents some 30 of the co-plaintiffs, said his clients are seeking belated justice and simply want to know the truth from Groening.

Among Groening’s alleged duties was removing luggage from the death camp train platform, so that new arrivals would not see evidence of murder of those who had preceded them.

He also had to count the money removed from the luggage and send it on to the SS in Berlin, according to dpa, the German news agency. Groening reportedly was aware that those prisoners deemed unfit for labor would be murdered in gas chambers almost immediately after their arrival.

The charges relate specifically to the murder of at least 300,000 Hungarian Jews in the summer of 1944. There is no statute of limitations on murder in Germany, and if found guilty Groening could get a life sentence, which in Germany translates to 14 years. But the state prosecutors would have to determine whether he was fit to serve even a part of such a sentence.

Groening is one of several former concentration camp guards charged with crimes against humanity in the past year.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.