A man of 101 years old, believed to be a former concentration camp guard Nazi in World War II, was convicted by a German court of being an accessory to 3,518 counts of murder.
The man, identified only as Josef S. due to Germany’s strict privacy laws, was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison by the Neuruppin Regional Court, according to The New York Times.
Believed to be the oldest living person to be tried on Holocaust-era charges.
“Josef S.” He denied the accusations that he worked as an SS guard in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, north of Berlin, from 1942 a 1945. Despite being convicted, prosecutors were unable to link him directly to the deaths of the prisoners.
A lawyer for the man said he would appeal the decision if authorities try to send him to prison, according to The New York Times. It is also unclear if he would get an authorization from the medical commission for his health that would allow him to face confinement.
The man stated that he worked as a farm laborer during the time he was sentenced, but it was determined that he assisted in the Nazi killing machine.
“He voluntarily supported this mass extermination with their activity,” said presiding judge Udo Lechtermann. “The court has concluded that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years,” he added.
The man’s conviction comes as a byproduct of two recent events. One is that Germany’s highest criminal court ruled this year that people who worked as guards in concentration camps could still be convicted, even if specific crimes cannot be proven.
The other is that in 2018, the records of the Red Army concentration camp were examined in Moscow, and that is how the name of Mr. S. was discovered.
“We are guided by the simple principle that murder has no statute of limitations,” Thomas Will, a head of the German government office that investigates Nazi-era crimes, told The Times. “It is the right thing to do and of course it would have been the right thing to do 70 years ago.”
Sachsenhausen was established at 1936 just north of Berlin as the first new camp after Adolf Hitler gave it to the SS total control of the Nazi concentration camp system. It was intended to be a model facility and training ground for the labyrinthine network the Nazis built in Germany, Austria, and the occupied territories.
More of 200,000 people were detained there between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of inmates died of starvation, disease, forced labor, and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic extermination operations by the SS, including shootings, hangings, and gassing.
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