The main Nazi crime investigation unit in Germany has asked prosecutors throughout the country to take 30 former guards at Auschwitz concentration camp to court, Bloomberg reported.
The Nazi crimes unit began their investigation into 49 suspects after John Demjanjuk was sentenced in 2011 for helping the Nazis murder nearly 28,000 Jews during World War II at the Sobibor death camp.
According to an official statement, the now 30 suspected guards can be prosecuted under the same legal standards. Demjanjuk was give a five year prison sentence.
Demjanjuk's verdict set off a new string of investigations. Unlike other judges that required proof of individual acts in the Holocaust, the judges in his case said showing proof of working at the camp was enough to convict him.
In 1969, Germany's top court said that Auschwitz guards could not be tried under the same rules that guards from other camps were, since Auschwitz was a camp where guards not only killed prisoners but also forced them into slave labor.
"As a rule, a guard in Auschwitz has to be judged the same way as guard in one of the so-called pure extermination camps," the Nazi unit said.
The Nazi crime unit, based in Ludwigsburg, Germany, ran into difficulty trying to locate all 49 suspects; two of them are missing, seven live abroad, and nine have died. However, one suspect is being handled in another case by Stuttgart prosecutors.
"Even though pursing Nazi crimes becomes more difficult with every year that goes by...we have a huge responsibility because of our history," said state Justice Minister Rainer Stickelberger. "We cannot let the terrible memory of the crimes of Nazism fade away - instead we must face them - also legally."
Throughout World War II, the Nazis killed an estimated 6 million Jews and ran multiple death camps in Europe. Auschwitz, located in parts of Poland annexed by Germany, has remained as one of the most tragic symbols of the Holocaust.
