‘Accountant of Auschwitz' to face day in court
Prosecutors proceed with trial of 93-year-old Oskar Gröning, known as the 'the accountant of Auschwitz'
A FORMER Nazi SS guard at Auschwitz is to go on trial in Germany next year charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder at the infamous death camp based in German-occupied Poland.
Prosecutors said there was enough evidence to now proceed with the trial of 93-year-old Oskar Gröning’ known as the “the accountant of Auschwitz” for his role in helping collect and tally money stolen from inmates who were killed.
The International Business Times reports that the charges relate to two specific months of his role at Auschwitz, 16 May to 11 July 1944, a period dubbed the Hungary Operation, when “around 425,000 people from Hungary arrived at the camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau” with “at least 300,000 found their deaths in the gas chambers”.
Gröning has already confessed to witnessing atrocities at the concentration camp but denied the charges.
Prosecutors claim Gröning was aware that the prisoners deemed unfit to work “were murdered directly after their arrival in the gas chambers of Auschwitz”.
The case against Gröning came to light earlier this year when a number of former SS members’ homes were raided by German authorities. He was the only one deemed fit enough to stand trial.
A date has yet to be set for the trial.