Holocaust survivors demand ‘medic of Auschwitz’ be tried

Holocaust survivors and historians are demanding that an ex-SS guard be tried before it is too late. 

A group of Holocaust survivors, historians and others are urging a German court to reopen as soon as possible the trial of an ex-SS medic who served at the Auschwitz death camp.

In a letter to the Neubrandenburg state court, the group accused the presiding judge of a “partisan approach” and of being more concerned with the physical condition of Hubert Zafke than about “the defendant’s responsibility.”

The trial has been postponed repeatedly after judges ruled that the 96-year-old was medically unfit to stand trial.

In December, the court rejected a complaint filed by prosecutors and attorneys representing Auschwitz victims and their families to remove the judges for alleged bias.

Zafke is charged with 3,681 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly helping the camp function. His attorney says he did nothing criminal.

The trial is one of several in recent years to arise from a shift in German legal thinking. Prosecutors have successfully argued that since the Nazi death camps’ entire purpose was to murder Jews and others, helping the camp run in any manner makes one an accessory to the crime.

The charges against Zafke stem from a one-month period in 1944 and involve the deaths of Jews who arrived in 14 transports, including one that brought Anne Frank and her family to the camp. Frank died later at Bergen-Belsen.

Cornelius Nestler, who represents two brothers from Colorado who survived Auschwitz as young boys but lost both their parents, said last March that the German court has shown “that it is not interested in this going to trial at all.”

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

AuschwitzGermanyHolocaustHolocaust survivorsHubert ZafkeNazis