70 Years after Auschwitz closes…one of last staff members goes on trial
General view of a ‘wall of death’ at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in Oswiecim January 19, 2015. Ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp will take place on January 27, with some 300 former Auschwitz prisoners taking part in the commemoration event. The Germans built the Auschwitz camp in 1940 as a place of incarceration for the Poles. From 1942, it became the largest site of extermination of the Jews from Europe. In Auschwitz, the Nazi Germans killed at least 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of other ethnicities. On January 27, 1945 the camp was liberated by the Red Army soldiers. Picture taken January 19. REUTERS/Pawel Ulatowski (POLAND 0
Oskar Groening is perhaps one of the last real Nazi war criminals still drawing breath. With WWII 3/4 of a century
behind us, the “Greatest Generation” has sadly gone as are the enemies they fought against and threatens to get
smaller with every passing moment.
Groening was a 21-year-old paper pusher. His job: remove luggage from incoming death camp residents and catalog
the contents to include counting the banknotes taken from prisoners and securing them for future use.
Although he did not directly kill anyone, he still freely admits with remorse that, “I was a cog in the killing machine
that eliminated millions of innocent people.”