Bookkeeper Guilty

From the BBC:
"'Auschwitz book-keeper' Groening sentenced to four years"

 

A German court has convicted a 94-year-old former guard at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews. Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz", was sentenced to four years in prison. He was responsible for counting the belongings confiscated from prisoners and had admitted "moral guilt". His lawyers said he did not facilitate genocide, but prosecutors argued that he had helped the camp run smoothly. Many observers have questioned whether Mr Groening will ultimately be sent to jail, given his advanced age. He is expected to be one of the last Nazis to face a courtroom. The trial was held in the northern German city of Lueneburg, hearing testimony from several people who had survived the death camp.

The case revolved around the question of whether people who had played a minor role in the Nazi-ordered genocide but had not actively killed any Jews could still be guilty of a crime. Mr Groening had publicly discussed his role at Auschwitz, making him unusual among former Nazis brought to trial. He said he was speaking out in order to silence those who deny the Holocaust took place. "I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria," he told the BBC in the 2005 documentary Auschwitz: the Nazis and the "Final Solution". "I was on the ramp when the selections [for the gas chambers] took place." More than one million people, most of them European Jews, died between 1940 and 1945 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

^ This wasn't much of a surprise, but it is a big step forward for the Germans as a whole. For decades the Germans (mainly the Western Germans) did everything in their power to keep former Nazis from being punished for their crimes and when those that were tried received lighter sentences. Those that did unspeakable crimes including murder lived out in the open in German society with many receiving pensions from the government - some still do today. I guess that shows just how much the Germans back in 1945 actively participated (even in a slight way) to getting rid of "sub-humans." Every family had someone involved since it was spread to ever aspect of society. Rather than openly admit their mistakes after the war most people simply ignored the whole period from 1933-1945 as though it never happened. It has only been since the 2000s that the Germans have taken an active stance against anything Nazi-related. These are people whose grandparents were involved in the crimes of the Third Reich. Even though this Nazi bookkeeper was found guilty and sentenced to four years he probably will go to some nice nursing home rather than jail because of his age. During the war, the Germans treated the children and the elderly much worse than others as they brought them to the mass graves to be shot or to the gas chambers. People who helped - even in the smallest way - to these kinds of killings shouldn't be given special treatment now just because the German Government finally got their act together and started punishing them for their crimes. Had the Germans punished them when they should have in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or 1990s then these mass murderers wouldn't be in their 80s, 90s or 100s. ^

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33533264