I meet young people today with such enormous gaps in their knowledge of history, it's mind - boggling. They grow up believing that "the camps" were run like the place Col. Hogan and crew were incarcerated. It's troubling. I don't think they teach this enough in schools.

I used to teach history in public schools, but there were always gaps. Not enough time. Yet the lesson of "Man's Inhumanity to Man" must be taught. How? People should be required to watch, "Night and Fog"..At least this chapter about the concentration camps will never be forgotten.. That film, 32 minutes long, is horrific beyond belief...Watch it ..Decide for yourself..32 minutes..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I'm not sure that is true everywhere though.

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I remember my peers and I were exposed to a lot of excellent historical fiction and non-fiction that touched on the horrors and inhumanity of the Holocaust (e.g. Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars, Schindler's List, textbooks that emphasized WW2, etc.). So, at least in my school district it was certainly taught.

My concern isn't that my peers would forget the horrible atrocities of WW2 and the Holocaust, but they go on with the impression that this was a singular and categorically different event in human history. There's a subtle, but important, difference between the Holocaust as a superlative exemplar of the type of evil that humanity has visited upon itself throughout history and throughout many cultures, and the Holocaust as that "one time humanity really screwed up badly--because Nazis!"

the only thing that makes the Holocaust "singular" was the organized and horrific precision with which it was carried out. Very German, indeed. Otherwise, you are right - such atrocities of mass extermination have been repeated over and over in world history. We must never excuse the Holocaust as something so singular it could never happen again.

My grandsons probably have not but one is only 2. I think they will learn, tho.

to a documentary film in which he participated. In the film, he describes in detail all he did and saw so that it would be on the historical record. He did it because he hated the Holocaust denialists and those rewriting history. He wanted the atrocities to never happen again. At least, that is how I understand it at this point.

I will have to ask them next time I visit...they are 19, 17, and 14...

Thank you for this exchange. It has been very interesting. I will continue to learn more about this case. I lived in Germany for 12 years. During that time, I never visited a concentration camp because I knew I couldn't bear it.

when I was newly married to a US airman. It was only 20 years after the war ended. I visited Dachau -- cried all the way through it. I'll never forget it.

(((HUG)))

Some of the Holocaust movies are now unbearable for me to watch. "Schindler's List" was uplifting but tough to watch...that little girl's red dress...

Needless to say I sobered up real quick.

By saying that, of course I am not condoning the atrocities of Auschwitz.

I just keep asking myself, what was he supposed to do? He was a lackey in the German Army. He was not a commander ordering the deaths of people. He didn't kill anyone. He asked for a transfer and it was denied. He did accounting. If he had refused, he would've been killed. He's 93 and he's had to live with what happened at Auschwitz.

I'm not saying "Let it go" because the Holocaust is something we should never let go of - but what will this achieve?

On Edit: One commenter on HuffPo said it best: If we are going to put this man on trial, then we need to put the entire German people on trial.

Not to mention the guy knew he was stealing the last things of value owned by these poor victims including their gold teeth fillings.

The guy is 94 years old!

for his crimes. Trust me, he knew exactly what was going on at that camp. His statement that he tried to transfer after seeing one atrocity is laughable.

I have a respectable opinion and gave my reasons. You, OTOH, are disrespectful and calling me names just b/c you disagree. You need to grow up.

to a ripe old age. They perished in a camp. With me it's not obsession - it's justice.

If he didn't do the accounting, then he certainly would've died also.

He was not an instigator. Can you blame him for following orders? Yes. But so did almost every other German guard. Are you gonna try them all? What about the locomotive engineers that manned the trains? What about the people who decided in the ghettos who should be exterminated and who was qualified to work? They are more guilty than the accountant.

Why don't we do all the analysis once we have more facts, OK?

Everyone who participated committed a crime. A heinous crime. He acknowledged that he knew what was going on and sought a transfer. All the Germans did not participate in the slaughter.

What this achieves is this: there is no statute of limitations. Time will not absolve you of your guilt. Everyone on this planet contemplating participation in war crimes will have to consider this fact.

This all came to light because he participated in a documentary film. He described in detail his duties in the film because he wanted it on the record. It was in response to the growing number of young Holocaust deniers. He never wanted anything like that to ever happen again to anyone.

He acknowledges his guilt, good for him, that does not absolve him of his guilt. Everyone who participated, everyone who worked at the death camps, is a criminal.

They could have put all the concentration camp guards on trial. Why didn't they?

Why now?

South America and all...

The lower ranks were not charged. That is what is unprecedented about this trial.

It seems to me that they want to be free of this stain on their conscience. Unlike the dastardly Austrians who don't own up to their own crimes...

I would like to speak to my friends in Germany about this. They can be very insightful.

I am a true lover of the arts, and yet, I was unaware of this story.

Another story I recently learned about (you probably already know this one) was about the Vogel collection. A magnificent story. http://mentalfloss.com/article/48844/how-working-class-couple-amassed-priceless-art-collection#.VTPBHcfWugs.facebook

Thanks for the reminder.

If you are interested, I have another art essay for this coming Friday. It's on a sculpture by Bernini entitled "The Rape of Persephone." About as different from Bloch-Bauer as you can get. It'll be up around 5 pm Friday in GD. Stop by if you can!

Methodically destroying records. Reconstructing who was doing what where, even for the infamous ones was and is not a simple task.

But I don't care who else was prosecuted or why this guy wasn't arrested and tried earlier. Everyone who is still alive who participated should be prosecuted.

Last edited Tue Apr 21, 2015, 10:42 PM - Edit history (1)

What exactly did this man do that requires "justice"?

Please understand that I am not condoning anything that happened at Auschwitz. I do not even know his entire story. What I have ascertained leaves me skeptical that a prison sentence is warranted in this case. He never killed anyone. He was an accountant. He asked to be transferred and it was denied. If he refused to do his duty, he would've been shot.

If we are going to try him, then what about the people who informed the SS of those who were in hiding? What about the train engineers? What about the people who re-located the Jewish people in ghettos? Or the slaughter that occurred during the relocation? What about those who participated in Krystal Nacht? The list is endless.

Yes, he was a young SS officer. Young and naive and listened to the only news source available in Germany - the Nazi controlled radio channel, a propaganda station.

His story came out because he wanted young people today to know the Holocaust really happened (he hates the denialists) and how terrible it was.

they "had to." Where were their voices before this thing got underway in the first place? At the end of the day, he was still complicit, even tho his youth was probably in his favor.

Look at it this way. He is alive. How many are dead?

He gave elderly people in his "care."

The SS were volunteers. They were the true believers. They knew what they were doing, and why.

an hour of court testifying is not enough.

For the history records, rather then jail him until death it would be good of the Judges to order weeks, months of interviews and questions.

He's 93. Things start to go wrong for most people in their '90s.

A German Truth & Justice commission

So---he tried to get transferred when he witnessed an atrocity---What a bullshit story. People outside his office window were being shot or just falling down dead due to starvation and hypothermia. New arrivals were separated into lines of working slaves and those who would die immediately in gas chambers. Children and parents who were separated were screaming and crying. He didn't know Auschwitz was a slave camp, an extermination camp and atrocities were happening outside his window and down the driveway? Yeah, sure.

I doubt it completely. He contributed to the mass murder of over a million people. " At least 1.1 million prisoners died at Auschwitz, around 90 percent of them Jewish; approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp.[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp

He's guilty as hell and he can rot in jail for the rest of his life. It's too good for him.

The question here, though, is whether to imprison a man who was just doing as he was ordered, or he would have gotten shot.

And where do you draw the line? What about the people who reported on their neighbors for hiding Jews? Should they now be tried? Or do you just put the entire German population on trial for not standing up to the Nazis?

Does it matter to you that that this man has blasted Holocaust deniers (a real problem among some German youth)?

He is undoubtedly one of the last surviving witnesses. EVERYTHING he has to say should be documented. That should be his punishment.

Anyone who is still out for "punishment" of these guys is obsessive-compulsive.

Laughable hyperbole.

and then tried to transfer, unsuccessfully. Total BS story.

Well if it were your family you might not be bleeding so hard for this criminal.

OK, keep amping up the shrill rhetoric, because that's all you have.

down and tell you about my life.

Facts are facts, 1.1 million murdered and this guy says he tried to transfer after witnessing one atrocity. What else is he lying about? And why are you defending his actions when we don't even really know what happened b/c he hasn't stood trial yet?

I think the question here is how "culpable" he was. There have been enough lives shattered. We don't want to throw a man in prison for the remainder of his life if he was not directly responsible for the atrocities that occurred.

Auschwitz started out as a POW camp for Polish Prisoners and later Russia POWS. These tended to be worked or starved to death. This included some people of Jewish extraction but killing of Jews that was NOT the intention of the original camp.

As part of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" Auschwitz was repurposes, to a death camp. Thus the Auschwitz Jews were sent to was NOT a "Slave Camp" or a "Concentration Camp" but a "Death Camp". Its primary purpose was to kill people and dispose of their bodies. The terms Slave Camp, Concentration Camp and POW do apply to the early Auschwitz, but NOT the Auschwitz of 1942-1945, the period where this man was involved with the camp.

As a Death Camp, Auschwitz was a very efficient plant. In 1942 to about 1944, the victims would dismount the train that brought them, put on trucks that took them to the "Delousing station". Just before they entered that Station they were ordered to removed their clothes, they then entered the station and were killed. Sometime in 1943 or 1944 the train was extended to the station so the trucks could be dispensed with. When the Russians came near told the end of 1944 the movement of new victims stopped, and thus few executions in the few months before the Russian liberation of the Camp in January 1945.

The camp could kill and dispose of 20,000 victims a day. A German Train of WWII era had 55 rail cars. Each car could take 40 people, thus a train could bring in 2200 victims, Auschwitz could take 10 trains a day (20,000 a day six days a week, would be 120,000 victims a week, 6,000,000 a year. The Germans rarely were able to get to these numbers, but in the 3 years the Death Camps were in operation (1942, 1943, 1944, but late 1944 most had been liberated by the Russians) the estimate of 13 million is while within the capacity of Nazi Germany during WWII.

Ukrainian Guards manned the outside perimeter, with orders NOT to interact with any of the people inside the camp. If any prisoner came close to the wire they were given a warning shot and if they continued killed (The Guards were told they had to take the place of any prisoner who escaped, but if the prisoner died that was the same as bring them back alive, warning shoot could be given, but in most cases such shots were NOT, instead the victim was just killed). This rarely happened for most of the victims did not live long enough to understand that this was anything more then a stop on their way to a resettlement camp.

The interior of the Camp were manned by people selected from the victims, mostly men to do heavy lifting (including removing the bodies from the Gas Chambers and into the Crematoriums). Others were selected to gather the clothing and other items and to remove anything of value. These people tended to be over worked and under feed, but most of the survivors of the camps are of these groups of people. Several SS men supervised these workers and made sure they did they job

The SS leadership ran the camps, and did check up to make sure the camp was working as designed (The Victims came in, taken to the Gas Chambers, Killed and then removed and their bodies burned) but most of the day to day operation (including the killing) was done by those victims selected by the SS to do the killing. Some of the Ukrainian Guards added to the torment of the victims NOT killed in the Gas Chambers (Ivan the Terrible was one such Guard), but as a whole the system ran itself. The SS Supervisors also added to the misery of the people actually running the camp.

I bring this up, for what this man is saying makes sense. As a SS Officer, he did not have to do anything in regards to the killings, that was done by others. The valuables he was inventory was brought to him by those victims the Camp kept alive so the camp could kill others and recover they valuables for the Third Reich. Thus he could have avoided seeing any of the killing. He may even have refused to discuss it with his fellow SS personnel.

He is 93 years of age, thus he was born in 1920, thus of the right age to serve in the German Army. He had an education in Banking but decided to join the SS instead of the German Army (Probably because he saw the chance of rapid promotion, which was possible in the SS, but not in the Regular German Army). He is NOT an innocent person, he knew what they were doing in that camp, but he also could have NOT see it happening for his job did not involve the actual killing. Thus it is possible he did NOT see any of the killing, for that was NOT his function in that huge death camp.

Thank you for posting. It certainly puts things in perspective.

After all, he acted as a guard at a notorious concentration camp where more than a million victims were murdered. . .

He was assigned there and requested a transfer. It was denied. What should he have done?

What would you have done if you witnessed the atrocities at Auschwitz? I for one would have packed my bags, left Germany and reported what I witnessed to the world since complaining to the German gov. about Auschwitz practices would have gotten me nowhere.

Instead, this guy stayed on for years robbing Jews of what little they had left. And there's no way he witnessed one atrocity. It's like saying that allied troops who came to the camps to liberate them saw one victim. Totally unbelievable.

There was a world war going on, remember? And are you going to set the same standard for all Germans, for one could say they are all guilty for what happened. You have conveniently ignored the other case scenarios I have presented. Where do you draw the line for culpability?

Again, HE did not steal. He was the accountant. With all due respect wordpix, you keep bringing up accusations that are not pertinent to this man's trial.

Hell, sometimes Jews left in the dark of night if they were lucky enough, and they were under a lot more surveillance than a German accountant.

You are right. We should wait and see what comes out at the trial. If he was more responsible than appears at first glance, I will be happy to change my opinion. I lived in Germany for 12 years, and I have spoken at great length with Germans who lived through that time in history. It is not all black and white. I'm not sure if this is a witch hunt or a trial with real merit. We'll find out. I am planning on calling my good friend who writes for Der Tagesspiegel (the NYT's of Germany) to hear what she has to say. Her opinion would be very interesting to me.

Still, I'm not positive this man was any more culpable than thousands of other Germans. Where does one draw the line?

could he have gotten a visa to any other country?

I'm asking because I really don't know. I would be inclined to believe that every other country in the world would be highly suspicious of an SS member wanting to flee Germany.

Leaving may not have been all that easy. Or even possible.

If one is asked to work in a murder plant, one refuses.

But he probably would have died doing so.

This comment makes me think about what I would have done. I would have certainly refused. But, what if I was afraid it would put my family in danger? What if I was scared that my actions would cause their deaths? We have been lucky in life, you and I. We have not lived under the fear of a totalitarian government. It is difficult to judge without knowing the facts.

I think anybody would sensibly think of the consequences, particularly for one's kids for refusing to participate. . . .

What is interesting-- I believe it came from "Hitler's Willing Executioners. . . " (and I never would have known this) was that several members of the notorious Einsatzgruppen were interviewed. They stated that there had been 'many' incidents in which Einsatzgruuppen members asked to be reassigned as they couldn't stand to kill civilians. There apparently were no negative repercussions, and they were reassigned without any issues. It makes me question the claim of being afraid to ask for reassignment elsewhere.

I'm glad I'm not on the jury for this trial. I think he should certainly face trial, but I wouldn't begin to pretend to know what the verdict should be. That's up to the judge & jury. . .

He should stand trial.

He's had the good fortune of being free for all that time, now he should pay.

was shaped by my family dying in a camp. I have recorded my memories for my grandchildren - don't want the world to ever forget.

I was around 20 at the time and thought she was a bit over the top. But after seeing everything happening in the world since then with various forms of genocide in Africa, Asia and the recurrence of "white power" groups in the US and Europe, I think she was right.

Holocaust denial and revisionism is becoming more and more popular, though you are wise to record your memories because studies show younger people are largely unaware of the Holocaust, other than a few key topics. I have even seen people "justify" research which "questions" the Holocaust in part or fully. Holocaust deniers are used as sources of articles by people claiming to be on the left. By in far, Holocaust revisionism is becoming less a stigma than it ever has.

He participated in a documentary to set the record straight about the atrocities because he hates the denialists and revisionists. He never wanted such a thing to happen again.

It has always been an atrocity that we, as Americans, point at the massive human crimes of others and pronounce judgment while finding every reason to push away a judgment and punishment for our own crimes. Slavery and our ethnic cleansing of Native tribes is only the beginning. Do your research about our own conduct during war and afterward. Do you know what we did during the civil war to captured southerners? Do you know what we did and allowed others to do in Germany after the war? Do you know what we've don all along in Central America? The list goes on. The Balkans, Rwanda and Cambodia cried out for the world to help and got little and got it late. The world is not served by selective outrage, partial blindness and empty apologies on the part of those who would stand and accuse.

"Selective Blindness"......one million killed in IRAQ War...TORTURE...clearly against the U.S.Constitution.

Ammendment 8 ... "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Who up on top has been charged..??? Would a panel of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln, indict , try, and convict Bush and Cheney ...of torture, and acting against the Constitution and put them in jail.?? (after hearing evidence about "warterboarding" and, other forms of torture, how they were used in Iraq)

I wonder??

probably not

'I saw the gas chambers'

The nonagenarian has achieved notoriety as one of the few Germans to speak out about their role in the genocide, a decision he say he took to stop Holocaust deniers.

"I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria," he told the BBC in the 2005 documentary Auschwitz: the Nazis and the "Final Solution".

"I was on the ramp when the selections [for the gas chambers] took place."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32392594

He was indeed a minor functionary in the death camp. He merely kept records. But he was a person involved in the process of exterminating millions of people, he was aware of his part in that endeavor, and he acknowledges his guilt. Why can't you accept that?

My comment was about the legality of going after someone whom everyone agrees didn't actively commit any atrocity.

Even more, it wasn't even considered a crime until now and how does the German legal system permit ex post facto type trials?

snip; Groening testified that he did not know what that duty was until he arrived at Auschwitz but quickly learned that Jews were being selected for work and those who couldn't work were being killed. In the vocabulary of the camp, he said, "the enemies of Germany were being exterminated."