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BERLIN – A 94-year-old man, who served as a guard in the SS Hitler, seized his cane when a bailiff brought him into a courtroom Tuesday for the start of his trial for having participated in the murder of hundreds of people out of 60,000 perished at the Stutthof concentration camp.
Johann Rehbogen was still a teenager when he started working as a guard in the camp where he was posted between June 1942 and September 1944. As he was under 21 at the time the alleged crimes were committed, the case is under trial. in a juvenile court, where he incurs a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The indictment mentions the death of more than 100 Polish prisoners and at least 77 Soviet prisoners of war, as well as "an unknown number – at least several hundred – of Jewish prisoners" killed in gas chambers or by other means during his tenure at Stutthof, located on the coast of the Baltic Sea near what is now the city of Gdansk in Poland.
More than 140 women and children, mostly Jewish, were killed by gas or phenol injection "directly into the heart of each prisoner," while "an unknown number of prisoners died in various ways, including by freezing of the winter of 1943-1944, "according to the newspaper. the indictment.
"The defendant knew the different methods of murder, he tried to make them possible," said Andreas Brendel, prosecutor for Nazi crimes in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, who learned of the charges laid the court of Münster.
Seventeen survivors and their families, many of whom live in the United States, Israel and Canada, joined the trial as co-applicants.
Judy Meisel was 12 years old when she arrived at Stutthof. At 89, she still remembers having been standing naked, next to her mother, in the queue for the gas chamber. At the last minute, a guard indicated that she could return to the barracks. "Run, Judy, run!" Shouted his mother in Yiddish. Ms. Meisel never saw her mother again.
"Stutthof was organized by the SS for mass murder, made possible thanks to the help of the guards," she said in a written statement read to the court by her lawyer.
"He must take responsibility for what he did in Stutthof, and participate in these unimaginable crimes against humanity," she said. "For helping to murder my beloved mother who missed me for the rest of my life."
In Germany, Mr Rehbogen has stated through the intermediary of his lawyers that he will address the court at one point or another during the trial, which should last until the end of the year. January. Because of its age, trial sessions are limited to two hours a day and two non-consecutive days a week.
For decades, the German judicial system insisted that it was necessary to prove that there was direct involvement in a crime of the Nazi era to indict its author, thus allowing Countless nazis of lower rank live in peace.
This changed after 2011, when a Munich court ruled John Demjanjuk guilty of complicity in murder for serving as a guard at Sobibor's death camp. The court concluded that there was no reason why he was not aware of the murder that was unfolding around him.
Mr Demjanjuk, who challenged the prosecution, died before his challenge to the decision could be heard. But in 2015, the highest criminal court in the country confirmed the conviction of Oskar Gröning, former Auschwitz guardian, found guilty of the same argument of association, reinforcing the legal precedent.
Brendel said investigators in his office had studied hundreds of testimonies, as well as documents from other Nazi trials. They also flew to interrogate survivors, such as Ms. Meisel, a resident of Minneapolis.
"Given the structure of the camp, we think the guards knew what was going on," said Brendel. "Murders, especially gassing and burning of corpses, can not be concealed."
Founded in 1941 as a labor camp, Stutthof later became a concentration camp. In 1944, a gas chamber was put in place.
Ms. Meisel's grandson, Benjamin Cohen, 34, attended Tuesday's trial as part of a documentary about his life.
"Reading her statement in court today and her story in front of everyone in this courtroom was so monumental for her and for our family," said Mr. Cohen. "It puts into perspective how important it is to recognize these crimes and never stop telling these stories."
