Topline
A 96-year-old German woman suspected of serving as a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp during the Holocaust began trial Tuesday for her connection to the camp’s 60,000-plus victims who died from murder, disease and starvation between 1943 and 1945.
96-year-old Irmgard Furchner stood trial in Germany Thursday for alleged crimes during the … [+]
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Key Facts
Irmgard Furchner faced a judge in Itzehoe, a small town in northern Germany, on Tuesday morning for her contribution to the murder of 11,412 people at Stuthoff while she allegedly worked at the camp as a typist.
Despite being in her 90s, Furchner is being tried in youth court as she was 18 years old when she committed the purported crimes.
Following a five-year investigation, Furchner was indicted in February for being an accessory to murder.
Furchner previously attracted media attention last month when she didn’t show up for her September 30 court appearance and briefly went on the run, fleeing her assisted living home for a nearby Subway station instead of the courtroom, though she was located hours later.
Key Background
Furchner is the latest in a line of elderly suspected former Nazis to be prosecuted by German authorities. Oskar Groning, dubbed the “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz” for his role as an accountant at the Auschwitz concentration camp, was convicted in 2015 of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people at Auschwitz, but died at 96 years old before serving jail time. In August, the court date for an alleged 100-year-old former guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was set for this month. Due to the advanced age of the defendants, the trials of this guard and Furchner are expected to be among the last legal actions against Nazi actors and represent a last-ditch effort of the German government to seek justice for Holocaust victims.
Chief Critic
Aaron Krell, a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor that now resides in New York City, decried the trials of former Nazis as a “sham.” Krell, whose mother died at the same Stutthof camp, told the New York Post, “If they could find her now, they could have found her decades ago…. What good is it to be on trial now? What is the punishment that they’re going to get? What’s the suffering they will get? Nothing.”
Further Reading
German Nazi war crimes suspect, 96, who went on the run goes on trial (Reuters)
