A man dubbed the “book-keeper of Auschwitz“ is appealing his prison sentence for complicity in the murders of 300,000 people at the camp because, his lawyers argue, jail time would violate his right to life.
Oskar Groening, 96, has challenged a 29 November court ruling that said he was fit to go to prison as his special needs could be accommodated there.
The physically frail Groening was sentenced to four years in 2015 in one of the last cases against a surviving Nazi, but has not been incarcerated since then because of a legal argument about his health.
German media quoted Groening’s lawyer, Hans Holtermann, as saying that the latest legal challenge asked Germany’s constitutional court to determine if imprisonment would violate Groening’s right to life, given his medical condition.
He told broadcaster N-TV an expert had concluded Groening was not fit enough to be imprisoned.
Groening, a former Nazi SS officer, did not kill anyone himself while working at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. But a court convicted him in 2015 of aiding and abetting mass murder there through various actions, including by sorting banknotes seized from arriving Jews.
He admitted during his trial that he was morally guilty and said he had been an enthusiastic Nazi when he was sent to work at Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of 21.
Some six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust carried out under Adolf Hitler.
During Groening’s trial, Auschwitz prisoner Kathleen Zahavi told how her “happy childhood” was shattered when her family were kidnapped and her mother and aunt were executed
They were “treated worse than animals” at the death camp in occupied Poland, she said, telling a visibly distressed Groening how “I hope the images of what went on there will stay with you for the rest of your days”.
THE INDEPENDENT
