‘Nazi Grandma’ evades prison term

Ursula Haverbeck, an infamous German neo-Nazi who was sent to prison for denying the Holocaust, is fleeing justice.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

A Holocaust survivors’ group is urging German authorities to intensify their search for a notorious neo-Nazi who didn’t show up for her prison sentence.

The International Auschwitz Committee said Sunday it hopes that Ursula Haverbeck, 89, who has been sentenced to two years in prison for incitement and Holocaust denial, will soon be found.

Haverbeck was convicted of Holocaust denial in September 2016 for a letter she wrote to the mayor of Detmold when Reinhold Hanning, a former SS Auschwitz guard, was on trial, claiming the notorious Nazi death camp was merely a labor camp and calling survivors “alleged witnesses.”

In 2015 she was convicted for a similar statement in an interview outside the trial of Oskar Groening, another former SS Auschwitz guard, in Lueneburg. She was convicted of Holocaust denial in November 2016 as well.

She was supposed to start her prison sentence on Wednesday in the town of Bielefeld.

Committee member Christoph Heubner told the German news agency dpa “one can only hope that… police are looking for her with high pressure.”

Local paper Westfalen-Blatt reported that Haverbeck’s home in Vlotho in central Germany seemed empty for days with mail piling up in front of the door.

Several courts have sentenced Haverbeck to prison terms in the past, including a Berlin district court in October, but Haverbeck has remained free pending appeals.

GermanyHaverbeckHolocaust denialNeo-Nazis