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Auschwitz defendant says he is not entitled to forgiveness

 
Former SS officer Oskar Groening, 94,  is charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder.
Former SS officer Oskar Groening, 94, is charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder.
Published July 2, 2015

LUENEBURG, Germany — A 94-year-old man charged as an accessory in the murders of about 300,000 people at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau told a court Wednesday that he consciously had not asked Holocaust survivors for their forgiveness because, given the dimensions of their suffering, he is not entitled to it.

"I can only ask God for forgiveness," former SS member Oskar Groening said in a written statement that was read by his attorney during his trial.

Groening, known as the bookkeeper of Auschwitz-Birkenau, confessed for a second time to his participation and complicity in the Holocaust. His work contributed to the functioning of the concentration camp, he said.

The obedience that had been instilled in him prevented him from rebelling against the murders being carried out at the camp, he said.

"There was a self-denial in me that today I find impossible to explain," Groening said. "Perhaps it was also the convenience of obedience with which we were brought up, which allowed no contradiction. This indoctrinated obedience prevented registering the daily atrocities as such and rebelling against them."

Though pleas are not entered in the German system, as Groening's trial on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder opened in April he told the court he felt a moral guilt for what he had done. He faces a possible three to 15 years in prison if convicted.

On the first day of the proceedings, Groening confessed to his role in the horrors at Auschwitz and said, "For me, there is no question that I morally share in the guilt," although he said he did not directly take part in the murders.

He is accused of collecting the valuables of Jews arriving at the camp before they were dispatched to its gas chambers.

He is also alleged to have counted the money found among their belongings and sent it to SS headquarters in Berlin, and to have overseen arrangements for the victims' luggage.

More than 1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz during World War II, most of them Jews.