German Court Sentences Ex-Camp Guard Over Mass Murder
by Stefan Bos, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A German court has convicted a 93-year-old former Nazi SS concentration camp guard for complicity in the murder of thousands of prisoners. Bruno Dey was among the last World War Two-era Nazi suspects to face trial in Germany.
His appearances in court were marked by him arriving in a wheelchair and covering his face. But eventually, Dey was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence by a court in the German city of Hamburg for his involvement in killing more than 5,000 prisoners.
Camp records showed Dey had operated a tower at the Stutthof Camp in what was then occupied Poland. His task was to keep watch to prevent inmates from attempting to flee.
Dey was tried in a youth court because he was 17 at the time the atrocities were carried out. The indictment says the killings happened between August 1944 and April 1945.
Among the thousands killed were many Jews and others the German Nazi occupiers didn’t like. Up to 65,000 people were killed in that camp, including in gas chambers and shootings or because of malnutrition and exhaustion.
DENYING WRONGDOING
Dey said he was not guilty as he was ”too young and insignificant” to disobey orders abs that he was not aware of the killings.
But judges disagreed and said he played a significant role in the mass murder. Their sentiment is shared by Marek Dunin-Wasowicz, a survivor of the camp and the same age as Dey. He, too, does not believe that Dey didn’t know of the killings.
“His testimony before a court was a lie. Because standing on the tower, he had a view of the whole camp under his nose,” the survivor recalled. He added that Dey “stood next to the machine gun. If anything happened, an inmate rebellion or riots he would have shot without hesitating.”
The trial of Bruno Dey was one of the last Nazi-era trials. Both survivors and perpetrators are now ancient, and in some cases, their memories are failing.
Critics say justice has come too late. However, rights activists say frail Nazi-suspects must be prosecuted as they were not weak at the time when the atrocities happened.
Atrocities, they stress, should never be forgotten.
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