News

On Trial

23 April 2015

By James

A 93-year-old former concentration camp guard known to survivors as “the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz” has admitted that he is “morally guilty” during his trial in Germany this week. Oskar Groening, who served at the concentration camp in Poland from 1942 to 1944, is on trial at a court in Luenenberg, Lower Saxony for 300,000 counts of accessory to murder.

The hearing, which has attracted media personnel from all over Europe, stems from the fact that at Auschwitz-Birkenau Groening was responsible for removing any banknotes from the luggage of inmates and victims of the gas-chambers, and sending said money on to Germany where it was used to fund the ongoing war against the Allies. Groening was a witness to the mass murder at the camp, and has freely admitted his guilt towards the Jewish community.

He has never returned to the camp since leaving due to his guilt, and stands to receive a prison sentence of three to fifteen years if found guilty by the court.

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