A 96-year-old woman, who previously worked as a secretary at a concentration camp during World War II, is now going on trial in Germany. The trial will start on Thursday.
Irmgard Furchner, one of the first women to be tried for her role during the Nazi's reign, is being charged with complicity in the killing of more than 10,000 at the concentration camp. Furchner had worked as a secretary at the Stutthof camp when the German had occupied Poland during the war.
Furchner, who now lived in a retirement home near Hamburg, worked as a secretary at the camp when she was just between 18 and 19 years old. Prosecutors in the case accused Furchner of assisting in the "systematic murders" of those imprisoned in the camp. She reportedly worked directly under the office of the camp commander, Paul Werner Hoppe, from 1943 to 1945.
Prosecutors said more than 65,000 people had died or had been murdered at the camp, most of who were Jewish, Polish, and Russian prisoners.
Before the trial date was set, German courts had to first determine if Furchner was fit to stand trial. In February, the courts deemed her fit to face her charges.
"It was easy to die. And much harder to stay alive.“
Abba Naor survived the Nazi death camp in Stutthof. He will be following the trial against camp secretary Irmgard F. who is charged with complicity to murder in 11,000 cases.https://t.co/KIXQrudhZT — DW Europe (@dw_europe) September 30, 2021
Furchner's trial will be held in the northern German town of Itzehoe. The trial will be held just a week before a similar hearing will be held against a 100-year-old man that worked as a camp guard in Neuruppin.
The two people are among the last individuals to be prosecuted for Nazi-era crimes committed by the Third Reich. Furchner's trial on Thursday comes just a day before the 75th anniversary of the first Nuremberg trial, which saw the conviction and death sentencing of 12 senior members of the Nazi party.
As more suspects who participated in the heinous crimes during the war get old, time is running out for prosecutors to bring those people to justice. As of today, German prosecutors are handling eight other cases involving former Nazi personnel. This includes cases against former workers at the Buchenwald and Ravensbrueck concentration camps.
The Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes said it had to abandon or close down several cases as the accused had died or were now physically unable to stand trial due to old age and age-related illnesses. The last individual that was handed down a sentence was a former SS guard named Bruno Dey. The court slapped the 93-year-old man with a two-year suspended sentence in July.
