An elderly woman is sentenced to two years probation for complicity in 11,000 Nazi murders

A German court on Tuesday sentenced two years probation a irmgard furchnera nonagenarian stenographer and typist of the concentration camp Nazi’s Stutthofon Polish territory, by declaring it guilty of complicity in the murder of more than 11,000 people – among whom were prisoners of war and Jews – during the years between 1943 and 1945according to Reuters.

After 40 days of trial, the district court of the northern city of Itzehoe has given Furchner a two-year suspended sentence under the juvenile law because he was only 18 years old at the time of the crimes, while the defense had requested his acquittal. The prosecution expressed its belief that with his office work, he contributed to ensure the operation of the field and that with his voluntary work he constituted an important support for the camp commander and his assistants.

In about 14 months, the trial files swelled to about 3,600 pageYes, to which is added a USB stick with some two thousand interrogation records. Fourteen witnesses gave statements, eight of them survivors of the Stutthof concentration camp. The trial, the start of which had to be postponed after the defendant realized on the run Was captured hours later not appear in court. Apparently, the woman had already announced at the beginning of September in a handwritten letter and addressed to the court her intention not to appear due to her advanced age and “physical limitations” with the request to be represented by her lawyer, according to the newspaper ‘Die Welt’. “I want to save myself this shame and not become the object of ridicule for humanity,” she added in her letter.

Although the presiding judge, Dominik Groß, responded to his letter and warned him of the implications of not attending the trial, which had to be postponed to October 19. Furchner had already testified twice then as a witness, in 1954 and 1962, about his role in the Stutthof concentration camp. In 1954 he declared that the entire correspondence with SS headquarters had passed through his hands and that the commander of the camp, Paul Werner Hoppe, dictated daily writings and radio messages. At the time he claimed, however, that during his service in the field he had never been aware of the murder machine of which tens of thousands of people were victims. “At 18 or 19 I did nothing for which I have to take responsibility at 96,” he said in his letter to the court.

The trial started finally on October 19 from last year. Between March and April was interrupted due to illness of the defendant and both the survivors and their lawyers they feared that the nonagenarian would not return to court anymore; however, he recovered and the process, the first of its kind against a civilian employee, could be resumed on April 26.

In the concentration camp of Stutthof, near Gdansk, they died during World War II. around 65,000 prisoners, among them many Jews, mainly from weakness and disease. At least 200 prisoners were killed with cyclone B in the gas chamber and inside a closed train car and others 30 shot in the neck in a secret place located in the crematorium.