A 100-year-old man went on trial in Germany on Thursday, October 7, accused of being an accessory to murder for allegedly serving as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp during World War II.
Per The Guardian, the defendant, identified only as Josef S, allegedly served at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing.
He has been charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder and his trial was held at the Neuruppin state court.
Stefan Waterkamp, Josef's lawyer, announced at the trial that his client would refrain from commenting on the allegations. The German legal system does not have formal pleas.
Officials say Josef is fit to stand trial in spite of his old age, however, the number of hours a day that the court is in session will be limited.
According to CNN, more than 200,000 people were held at Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945.
Tens of thousands of inmates lost their lives as a result of starvation, disease, and forced labor. Many also died due to medical experiments and SS shootings, hangings, and gassing.
Many scholars have suggested somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 died a the camp, but others have indicated that the number could be as high as 100,000.
The prosecutor, Cyrill Klement, told the court: "The defendant knowingly and willingly aided and abetted this at least by conscientiously performing guard duty, which was seamlessly integrated into the killing system."
The suspect's charges "include the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942, aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners through the use of poison gas, as well as other shootings and the killing of prisoners by creating and maintaining hostile conditions in the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp."
Leon Schwarzbaum, a 100-year-old survivor of Sachsenhausen, watched as the trial went underway yesterday.
Schwarzbaum, also a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp and Buchenwald concentration camp, told DPA: "This is the last trial for my friends, acquaintances and my loved ones, who were murdered, in which the last guilty person can still be sentenced - hopefully "
