Monday, December 26, 2022

Accessory to Mass Murder

"[Furchner] knew and, through her work as a stenographer in the commandant's office of the Stutthof concentration camp from June 1, 1942 to April 1, 1945, deliberately supported the fact that 10,505 prisoners were cruelly killed by gassings, by hostile conditions in the camp, [by transportation to the Auschwitz death camp and by being sent on death marches at the end of the war]."
"The promotion of these acts by the accused took place through the completion of paperwork [in he camp commander's office]."
"This activity was necessary for the organization of the camp and the execution of the cruel, systematic acts of killing."
German court in Itzehow State, Northern Germany
An elderly woman sits at a table during a court hearing.
Irmgard Furchner, seen here in court in Itzehoe, Germany, was convicted on Tuesday of being an accessory to murder for her role as a secretary to the SS commander of the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp during the Second World War. Her face is obscured in this photo by order of the court. (Christian Charisius/DPA)
 
In her teens when she chose to be a cog in the machinery of mass murder of Jews assembled from throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, Irmgard Furchner lived a long life as an ordinary German citizen until her past caught up with her when she was identified as an accessory to the murder of over ten thousand people. This past week a German court convicted Irmgard Furchner, now 97 years of age, of her World War II crimes.

She was, undeniably a part of the apparatus set up to accommodate and assist the camp near Danzig (now the Polish city of Gdansk) to efficiently pursue its assignments of mass annihilation of European Jews. The court handed down a two-year suspended sentence for her role as an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and an accessory to attempted murder in five other cases.

Prosecution demands were reflected in the verdict and following sentence. Defence lawyers, on the other hand, had requested of the court that their client be acquitted under the argument that evidence failed to show beyond doubt that Furchner definitely had knowledge of the systematic killings at the camp; proof of intent as required for criminal liability was never presented.

In a statement, the accused stated she regretted what had happened, that she had been at Stutthof at the time. It was, noted Judge Dominik Gross "simply beyond all imagination" that Furchner failed to notice the killings at Stutthof. She could, he said, view from her office window the collection point where new prisoners waited following arrival. The crematorium was in constant use in the fall of 1944, smoke spiralling across the camp.

Because the accused had been 18 and 19 years old at the time of the mass executions, she was tried in juvenile court. Judge Gross further stated that she could have, at any time, resigned from her position, to refuse to be part of the machinery of mass death. In September 2021, there was an attempt by Furchner to become a fugitive and hide somewhere rather than attend the trial, but she was foiled when police picked her up and placed her in detention for several days.

Irmgard Furchner, 97, has been convicted as an accessory to 11,412 murders at the Stutthof concentration camp, where she worked as a stenographer for an SS commander.

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posted by Pieface @ Monday, December 26, 2022

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