100-year-old ex-concentration camp guard to stand trial in Germany

100-year-old resident of Germany will appear in court in October, according to the BBC. The suspect is accused of knowingly and voluntarily assisting in the killing of prisoners in the Sachsenhausen camp in the city of Oranienburg from 1942 to 1945. In particular, he is accused of complicity in the execution of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942 and the murder of prisoners using the poisonous gas "Cyclone B".

The name of the accused was not disclosed in accordance with German confidentiality laws, it is only known that he lives in Brandenburg near Berlin. Despite the advanced age of the accused, the prosecutor's office managed to obtain a medical examination, which confirmed that the man's health allows him to appear before a court. Hearings will be limited to two and a half hours a day. Lawyers who represent victims' interests said that "some of the victims in this case are as old as the accused and expect justice to be done".

Sachsenhausen was built in 1936 after Hitler gave the SS full control of the concentration camp system. It was to become a training camp and a model for all the facilities that the Nazis built in Germany, Austria and the occupied territories. From 1936 to 1945, more than 200,000 people were held in Sachsenhausen. Many of them died from hunger, disease, forced labor, as well as medical experiments and massacres by firing squad, hanging and gas poisoning. The exact death toll is unknown. Scientists estimate that the number of victims was between 40,000 and 50,000.

In the early years of the camp, most of the prisoners were either political prisoners or criminals. In addition, Jehovah's Witnesses and gays were held in Sachsenhausen. In 1938, after Kristallnacht, the first large group of Jews was brought in, and during the war, the camp was expanded with Soviet prisoners of war, who were shot in the thousands.