Suspending Justice

From the DW:
"German court suspends trial for Auschwitz medic"

 

A court has suspended the trial of a 95-year-old charged with involvement in the murders of 3,681 people at the Auschwitz extermination camp. Hubert Z. was on duty when Anne Frank arrived.  Citing the defendant's failing health, on Monday a court in Neubrandenburg suspended the trial of 95-year-old Hubert Z., a former medic at Auschwitz, the notorious death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Hubert Z. is charged with being an accomplice to the murders of 3,681 people. Prosecutors say the medic's unit was involved in putting Zyklon-B pesticide crytals into Auschwitz's gas chambers, where up to 6,000 Jews were killed per day, and was "supportive of the running of this extermination camp."  "The accused lent support to the organization of the camp and was thereby both involved in and advanced the extermination with these insidious and cruel killings of at least 3,681 people," the prosecutors charge. Psychiatrists who examined Hubert Z. last year considered him mentally fit to stand trial. But defense attorney Peter-Michael Diestel plans to continue to challenge that evaluation. Diestel claims that his client has a form of dementia.  Christoph Heubner, deputy president of the International Auschwitz Committee, said Germany's justice system had looked the other way for far too long and failed to seriously examine such atrocities in the past. He believes that prosecutors should pursue cases like Hubert Z.'s as long as suspects are still alive. "These trials are an important contribution to the dignity of our country," Heubner told DW. "Germany is holding itself accountable. During the war, the accused we see on trial today were young, conscious men that knew what was going on and that didn't do anything against the killings that were happening around them."

Hubert Z. has been imprisoned once before for his activities at Auschwitz. In 1948 a Polish court had sentenced him to three years. He returned home to Neubrandenburg, in northern Germany, after serving his time.

 

^ The Germans seem to be reverting to their old tactics. After the war the majority of Nazis were not tried because most Germans were either in the Nazi Party or had close family and friends who were in the Party and they wanted to keep them from being punished. That allowed those involved with the Holocaust to live openly and to even receive government pensions. Then the next generation of Germans came of age and it moved to their parents' actions during the war. Things in Germany started to change a little in the 1960s with this new generation trying to bring light of the horrible crimes out in the open. Then the next generation of Germans came of age and it became what their grandparents did during the war and for many today it is what did your great-grandparents did during the war. The Germans seemed to be on a trend lately of actually punishing those involved in the Holocaust and yet they do something like suspending this case and move two steps backwards rather than forwards in their quest to atone for the crimes done in their name by their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents. These people should have been tried and sentenced 50, 60 , 70 years ago, but the German desire to hide the truth and pretend it never happened while at the same time honoring the murderers with state pensions and awards continues to hinder bringing these criminals to justice. There's a saying: "Those who stand by and watch something bad happen are just as guilty as the ones committing the act themselves." That means any German (or any person) who helps keep the crimes of the Holocaust a secret by not bringing those involved to justice are just as guilty. That doesn't mean every German is guilty, but large segments of the population are. You can not act as though you are ashamed of the crimes of the Holocaust while at the same time not bringing the Nazis to justice. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/german-court-suspends-trial-for-auschwitz-medic/a-19081593