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Former SS officer Oskar Groening , 94
94-year-old Oskar Groening has admitted guarding prisoners’ baggage at Auschwitz and collecting and counting money stolen from new arrivals. Photograph: Ronny Hartmann/AP
94-year-old Oskar Groening has admitted guarding prisoners’ baggage at Auschwitz and collecting and counting money stolen from new arrivals. Photograph: Ronny Hartmann/AP

Jail sentence sought for former Auschwitz guard

This article is more than 8 years old

Three-and-a-half year term pursued for ex-SS sergeant who admits to working at concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during second world war

German prosecutors have said they are seeking a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for a 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during the second world war, saying his role there made him an accessory to murder.

Oskar Groening has admitted guarding prisoners’ baggage after they were unloaded from cattle cars, and collecting and counting money stolen from the new arrivals and sending it to Berlin.

Yesterday prosecutors told the Lüneburg state court in their closing arguments that his role helped the camp function, and he should be convicted of 300,000 counts of accessory to murder for those killed while he was there.

Unusually for trials of former Nazi camp guards, Groening has been open about his past. When the trial began in April he said he felt moral guilt but it was up to the court to decide if he was legally guilty of a crime.

Dozens of Auschwitz survivors joined the trial as co-plaintiffs, and many of them testified about their own experiences in the death camp.

Last week Groening told the court their personal stories had brought home the enormity of the atrocities.

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