A 93-year-old former Auschwitz guard is to stand trial for 300,000 counts of accessory to murder, a German court ruled Tuesday.
Oskar Groening is accused of helping the Nazis kill 300,000 Jews, mostly from Hungary, as they arrived on trains at the infamous death camp in occupied Poland during WWII, RT reported. Groening, a German national, has insisted he did not commit any crimes but a court ruled he is to stand trial in 2015 in the city of Lueneburg.
Prosecutors say Groening had knowledge of what was going to happen when 425,000 Jews arrived on 137 trains from May 1944 to July of that year. Court records show 300,000 of them were killed as soon as they arrived.
Groening, who started out as a volunteer guard, was charged with taking the luggage and money of the arriving victims. He remained an SS guard until 1944.
"The accused knew that, as part of the selection process, those not chosen for work and told they were going to the showers were really going to the gas chambers where they would be put to death in an agonizing manner," the court said according to RT.
Court officials have listed 49 survivors and relatives of victims as "co-plaintiffs" in the case, NBC News reported. The defendant is not considered a flight risk and is free until his trial.
Groening's looming trial comes as German prosecutors and Nazi hunter groups track down former Auschwitz guards. But many suspects have been deemed unfit to stand trial or have died before being charged, including an 89-year-old former guard who died hours before a U.S. court allowed for his extradition to Germany, RT reported.
