Germany: ‘Book-keeper of Auschwitz' sentenced to four years

Oskar Groening, a ninety four-year-old former SS sergeant who served at Auschwitz concentration camp, was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews by a German court in Lueneber, Wednesday. Groening, commonly known as ‘the bookkeeper of Auschwitz’, was sentenced to four years in prison. His duties in the camp amounted to administrative work, counting the belongings confiscated from prisoners for example. The prosecution successfully argued that Groening’s work helped run the camp efficiently, and thus facilitated the genocide. Groening is expected to be one of the last Nazis to face trial, due to the advancing age of those involved. Only 43 out of the 6,500 SS members who worked in concentration camps have ever faced trial and prosecution. He, however, admitted he was aware of the use of gas chambers, an admission which was successfully used against him in the trial. Over one million people, mostly eastern European Jews, died between 1940 and 1945 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau, located in Nazi-occupied Poland.