Germany Arrests 93-Year-Old Auschwitz Medic

Prosecutors: He played a part in gas-chamber deaths in 1944
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 19, 2014 8:07 AM CDT
Germany Arrests 93-Year-Old Auschwitz Medic
In a Jan. 26, 2005 file photo, visitors walk under the notorious "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at the entrance gate of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in Oswiecim, southern Poland.   (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski/file)

Add yet another elderly suspected Nazi to the list of those recently arrested for charges of aiding and abetting mass murder at Auschwitz. A 93-year-old former medic was arrested at his home north of Berlin this week and taken into pre-trial detention, the Guardian reports. Prosecutors say the ex-SS member played a role in the gas-chamber deaths of as many as 1,721 people who were judged to be unfit for forced labor after arriving at Auschwitz from Germany, Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Slovenia in September 1944.

The president of the World Jewish Congress praised the man's arrest—his name wasn't released due to German privacy laws, the AP notes—the latest made as part of an effort to track down former Auschwitz workers. "The prosecution of those who participated in terrible crimes sends a clear message that justice must be done, no matter how late the hour," he said. "There cannot be a statute of limitation for crimes against humanity." Meanwhile, the Times of Israel notes that a 90-year-old female ex-guard, who prosecutors say viciously beat Auschwitz prisoners, will also stand trial. (More Holocaust stories.)

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