the Accountant of Auschwitz

the Accountant of Auschwitz by ric Gustafson


Yesterday April 21, former SS SGT Oskar Groening told a German court that he watched as Jews were led from cattle cars to the gas chambers of Auschwitz death camp. The 93 year old former camp guard has been charged with 300,000 accounts of accessory to murder. During the opening of his trial, he told the court that he witnessed atrocities but did not participate in them.
The trial was being held in Lueneburg state court in northern Germany. Groening testified that he volunteered for the SS in 1940 and served at Auschwitz from 1942 to 1944. He testified that he helped on the ramp and also to collect and tally money. His job was to deal with the belongings stolen from the people arriving. He told Judge Franz Kompisch that the money belonged to the state and was sent back to Berlin.
One of the survivors of the camp testifying was 81 year old Eva Kor of Indiana. She told the Associated Press that she lost both of her parents and her two older sisters at the camp. She and her twin sister Miriam were subjected to horrific experiments by camp doctor Josef Mengele.
This trial came about because of a new line of German legal reasoning. Prosecutors are now arguing that anyone who was a guard at a death camp can be charged as an accessory to murders committed at the camp even without evidence of involvement in a specific death.
If convicted, Groening could receive the maximum of 15 years in prison.


research help: an Omaha World Herald article


Peace and God's blessings. Love Ric