‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’, 93, goes on trial in Germany

Oskar Groening, 93, is being tried on 300,000 counts of “accessory to murder” for deported Hungarian Jews who were sent to the gas chambers, and faces up to 15 years jail.

Given the advanced age of most German war crimes suspects, Groening is expected to be among the last to face justice, 70 years after the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II.

Media interest in the trial of the frail widower, who entered court using a Zimmer frame, is intense, with several Auschwitz survivors set to appear as witnesses or co-plaintiffs.

The bespectacled Groening appeared calm as he took his seat wearing a white striped shirt and a beige sleeveless sweater.

“To me he is a murderer because he was part of the system of mass murder,” said Romanian-born Auschwitz survivor and co-plaintiff Eva Kor, 81.

“This may be our last chance to get information on Auschwitz from one of the perpetrators,” US citizen Kor, who lost her parents and two siblings in Auschwitz, told Bild daily.

“To me this is not about a jail term for him, but about researching and dealing with the crime.”

Eva Fahidi-Pusztai, a Hungarian Auschwitz survivor, said on news channel NTV that “one has always had the feeling that justice has not been served, and so this provides a sense of satisfaction, to some extent.”