Defendant in Auschwitz Case to Face Charges in German Court

The proceedings against a 93-year-old former Waffen-SS member, will begin on April 21 in the German city of Luneburg.

MOSCOW, February 2 (Sputnik) — A man accused of killing at least 300,000 Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners in the Polish city of Oswiecim during the Second World War will face charges in a German Court.

The legal proceedings against Oskar Groening, a 93-year-old former Waffen-SS member, will begin on April 21 in the German city of Luneburg, the DPA news agency said.

According to prosecutors, the suspect was obliged to collect and get rid of clothes belonging to prisoners, who arrived at the concentration camp’s rail station. The prisoners were then considered disabled and sent to the gas chambers. This way, the prosecutors say, the suspect contributed to the systematic killings.

"I was ashamed for decades and I am still ashamed today," Groening said. "Not of my acts, because I never killed anyone. But I offered my aid. I was a cog in the killing machine that eliminated millions of innocent people."

Groening carried out the activities between May and July 1944. During that time, 137 trains arrived at the camp’s station with around 425,000 prisoners from Hungary. He is only one of the 30 former members of Aushcwitz personnel who were recommended in 2013 to state prosecutors by German office tasked with investigating Nazi war crimes.

Though the exact number of Auschwitz victims remains unknown as many documents were destroyed by Nazi forces, an estimated 1.5 million to 4 million people perished at the concentration camp.