A German court has convicted a 97-year-old woman of being an accessory to more than 10,000 murders for her role as secretary to a Nazi SS major stationed in a concentration camp in World War II.
Tuesday’s court ruling found that Irmgard Furchner worked at the Stutthof concentration camp in what is now Poland, according to the Associated Press. Furcher argued that she had no knowledge of the 10,505 murders in which she was accused of being an accessory. Prosecutors countered that the assembly point for newcomers to Stutthof was visible from her office window and that the crematoriums at the camp were in constant operation during her time there.
Judge Dominik Gross found that it was “simply beyond imagination” that she was unaware of the murders taking place in the camp.
Furchner was tried in a juvenile court, since she was 18 and 19 years old during her stay at the camp. She was given a two-year suspended sentence, according to AP.
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Irmgard Furchner, accused of being part of the apparatus that helped run the Nazis at the Stutthof concentration camp, appears in court for verdict in her trial in Itzehoe, Germany, Tuesday, December 20, 2022. (Christian Charisius /Pool Photo via DPA )
Irmgard Furchner, accused of being part of the apparatus that helped run the Nazis at the Stutthof concentration camp, appears in court for verdict in her trial in Itzehoe, Germany, Tuesday, December 20, 2022. (Christian Charisius /Pool Photo via DPA )
Furchner reportedly attempted to skip her first trial-related hearing, leading authorities to detain her. She said that she was “sorry” for her actions during her sentencing.
Efraim Zuroff, one of Germany’s leading Nazi hunters, argued that the sentence was as good as could be expected.
“In light of Furchner’s recent statement in court that he ‘sorried everything,’ we were concerned that the court might accept his defense attorney’s motion for acquittal,” Zuroff told the AP. “However, given his claim that he had no knowledge of the murders taking place in the camp, his repentance was far from convincing.”
The number of remaining Nazis and Nazi collaborators is dwindling in Germany as more than 75 years have passed since the end of World War II. However, German prosecutors say they have pending cases against five other people.
This undated file photo shows a roll call, early in the morning or late in the afternoon, in the square in front of the gate of the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo, File)
Furchner’s conviction comes more than a year after Germany tried and sentenced a former Nazi guard in 2021. The man’s name was not released, but he was 100 years old at the time of his conviction.
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The man was charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder for working as a guard at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1942 and 1945.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
