- Title: Germany tries 94-year-old accused of helping Nazis in camp murders
- Date: 6th November 2018
- Summary: MUENSTER, GERMANY (NOVEMBER 6, 2018) (REUTERS POOL) VARIOUS OF 94-YEAR-OLD WAR CRIMES SUSPECT BEING BROUGHT IN TO COURTROOM IN WHEELCHAIR HAT AND PLASTIC CUP ON TABLE VARIOUS OF SUSPECT AUDIENCE IN COURTROOM / SUSPECT JUDGES ARRIVING STATE PROSECUTORS COURTROOM LAWYER REPRESENTING CO-PLAINTIFFS, ONUR U. OEZATA AUDIENCE SUSPECT'S LAWYERS VARIOUS OF LAWYERS IN COURTROOM VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WAITING OUTSIDE COURTROOM (SOUNDBITE) (German) LAWYER REPRESENTING TWO CO-PLAINTIFFS, ONUR U. OEZATA, SAYING: "They are from Latvia and Lithuania. They lost their relatives - their parents were murdered, their siblings, their whole families. They lost their homes, their property. After the German occupation they were deported to Stutthof and kept prisoner there. So they are victims and survivors." OEZATA BEING INTERVIEWED (SOUNDBITE) (German) LAWYER REPRESENTING TWO CO-PLAINTIFFS, ONUR U. OEZATA, SAYING: "For them it's not about this elderly 94-year-old man going to jail and suffering, it's just about justice being done, even if only in a small way." (SOUNDBITE) (English) CO-PLAINTIFF AND GRANDSON OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR JUDY MEISEL, BEN COHEN, SAYING: "My grandmother has committed her entire life to telling her story, and this is just another incredible way for people to learn about her story and about victims of the Holocaust. And telling that story itself is justice for her." COHEN SPEAKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) CO-PLAINTIFF AND GRANDSON OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR JUDY MEISEL, BEN COHEN, SAYING: "Her being able to witness even some of this process, even from afar, is a sense of closure. To have Germany listening to her is very powerful for her. So I think there is some closure already in this process, we've already achieved some. I speak to her all the time and I can see a new perspective that this gives her on things, so that could maybe be considered a form of closure. But closure is a difficult word in this context." COHEN'S HANDS IN POCKETS (SOUNDBITE) (English) CO-PLAINTIFF AND GRANDSON OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR JUDY MEISEL, BEN COHEN, SAYING: "I am extremely grateful for this process. My family never thought something like this could take place, so it's just been an incredible thing to be a part of. And for me as a third generation to have something that I can witness and say 'this happened' is really also very meaningful for me." PEOPLE OUTSIDE COURTROOM (SOUNDBITE) (German) SENIOR PROSECUTOR AT DORTMUND PUBLIC PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE, ANDREAS BRENDEL, SAYING: "The suspect is accused of being an accessory to hundreds of murders because when he was a guard at Stutthof people were murdered there with gas. People were also shot in the back of the head and left to starve and freeze to death - there is barely any kind of murder that did not take place in Stutthof." PEOPLE OUTSIDE COURTROOM
- Embargoed: 20th November 2018 10:07
- Keywords: Nazi youth court SS Stutthof concentrration camp guard murder
- Location: MUENSTER, GERMANY
- City: MUENSTER, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
- Reuters ID: LVA00195D9A2V
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:A 94-year-old wheelchair-bound man appeared in court on Tuesday (November 6) accused of helping to murder hundreds of people at a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two, in what is likely to be one of the last such trials.
The man, a former guard in the SS paramilitary wing of Hitler's Nazis who cannot be named for legal reasons, has denied the accusations. He spoke with a rough voice when answering questions about his identity.
He is being tried in a youth court because he was under 21 at the time of the suspected crimes at the camp near what is now the Polish city of Gdansk. Hearings will last a maximum of two hours per day because of the man's fragile health.
The former guard is accused of knowing about mass killings between 1942 and 1945, when he served in the Stutthof camp where about 65,000 people died - some in gas chambers, some by poisonous injection and others of cold.
The prosecutor told the court that the suspect had known about the gruesome methods used for killing victims, including shootings, freezing, and starvation. The suspect looked down when the prosecutor mentioned the lethal gas Zyklon B.
One of the co-plaintiffs, Ben Cohen, is the grandson of Holocaust survivor Judy Meisel. She grew up in Lithuania and was deported to Stutthof along with her mother and sister after the German occupation. Her mother was killed in the gas chamber there.
Cohen said the trial brought "a form of closure" for his grandmother, who is now 89 and living in Minnesota. "And for me as a third generation to have something that I can witness and say 'this happened' is really also very meaningful for me," he added.
Germany has a patchy record in prosecuting war criminals, with many high-ranking Nazis and SS members escaping justice, but in the last decade some prosecutors have stepped up efforts to bring more junior members of the Nazi death machine to trial. - Copyright Holder: POOL (CAN SELL)
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