The man was accused in 2021 of “knowingly and intentionally” aiding and abetting the killing of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, from January 1942 to February 1945, according to the prosecutor’s office in Neuruppin, in the north-east. On the side. Province of Brandenburg.
He was convicted by the Neuruppin District Court on Tuesday, court spokesman Iris Le Claire told CNN.
Le Claire said the process was a complex process. “It was extremely difficult to find an appropriate punishment, as the acts were committed a long time ago and the perpetrator is already very old. All of this had a mitigating effect on the sentence, “she said.
The huge number of people killed under security surveillance was also taken into account, Le Claire suggested. Under German law, people convicted of murder are usually sentenced to between three and 15 years in prison.
“The sentence is overdue compensation for relatives and is a very important sign from Germany,” Christoph Heubner of the Auschwitz International Committee told CNN on Tuesday.
Heubner, who followed the trial, criticized the number of years it took for German courts to bring charges. “Now the wound of loved ones can be taken care of,” he said.
The convict has always denied being active in the concentration camp, according to Heubner.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany recognized the decision. “Even if the accused is unlikely to serve a full term in prison due to his advanced age, the sentence should be welcomed,” Joseph Schuster, the council’s president, told CNN.
“Thousands of people who worked in the concentration camps kept the killing machine working. They were part of the system, so they also have to take responsibility for it,” Schuster said. “It is bitter that the defendant denied his activities at that time to the last and did not show any remorse.
The man’s name has not been made public in accordance with German privacy laws. The charges include involvement in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942 and aiding and abetting the killing of prisoners using poison gas, as well as other shootings and killings of prisoners by creating and maintaining hostile conditions in the Sachsenhausen camp.
Sachsenhausen was built by prisoners and opened in 1936. Of the approximately 200,000 prisoners who passed through it, it is estimated that about 100,000 died there. During World War II, the number of prisoners in the camp varied between about 11,000 and 48,000.
About 6 million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Roma, political opponents, homosexuals and people with physical or educational disabilities were also killed.
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