101-year-old former Nazi camp guard sentenced to 5 years in prison

“The verdict is a late compensation for the relatives and a very important sign from Germany,” Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told CNN on Tuesday.

Heubner, who followed the trial, criticized the number of years it had taken the German courts to press charges. “Now the wound of the relatives can be taken care of,” he said.

The convicted man had always denied being active in the concentration camp, according to Heubner.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany acknowledged the ruling. “Even if the defendant will probably not serve the full prison term due to his advanced age, the verdict is to be welcomed,” Josef Schuster, the council’s president, told CNN.

“The thousands of people who worked in the concentration camps kept the murder machinery running. They were part of the system, therefore they should also take responsibility for it,” Schuster said. “It is bitter that the defendant has denied his activities at that time until the end and has shown no remorse.”

The man’s name has not been made public, in accordance with Germany’s privacy laws. The charges included involvement in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942, and aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners through the use of poisonous gas, as well as other shootings and the killing of prisoners by creating and maintaining hostile conditions in the Sachsenhausen camp.

Sachsenhausen was built by prisoners and opened in 1936. Of the roughly 200,000 prisoners who passed through it, around 100,000 are thought to have died there. During World War II, the camp’s inmate population fluctuated between about 11,000 and 48,000 people.

An estimated 6 million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Also killed were hundreds of thousands of Roma people, political opponents, homosexuals, and people with physical or learning disabilities.