Ex-Nazi death camp guard faces German court reckoning

Prosecutors’ closing arguments were to be heard on Monday in the trial of former Nazi concentration camp guard, Bruno D.

The 93-year-old is accused of complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 people at the Stutthof camp during World War II.

More than 60,000 people, including Jews, political prisoners, and homosexuals, were killed in the camp near what is now Gdansk, Poland.

“I don’t bear any guilt for what happened back then,” D. told Judge Anna Meier-Goering last year at the Hamburg tribunal.

“I didn’t contribute anything to it, other than standing guard. But I was forced to do it, it was an order.”

Read more: Trial of ex-SS camp guard put on hold

His defense argued that he was assigned to the camp because a heart condition prevented him from serving on the frontline.

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Erwin Schulhoff

  Born in Prague in 1894, Erwin Schulhoff was a protege of Antonin Dvorak. “He saw in Schulhoff the next big promise of the European musical scene,” said Amit Weiner, who founded the project “Music in Times of Tragedy.” His music combined many avant-garde styles with jazz.” Schulhoff was a professor of music in Prague before he was murdered in 1942 in a concentration camp.

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Gideon Klein

  The youngest Jewish composer murdered during the Holocaust, Gideon Klein was only 26 when he perished in the Fürstengrube sub-camp near Auschwitz. His oeuvre fuses Jewish themes with modern composition techniques. In 1940, he was offered a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. “This could have saved his life, but he was not allowed to travel from Prague,” explained Weiner.

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Hans Krasa

  “I find it very interesting that Krasa’s music is always so happy and optimistic. Even the music he wrote in Theresienstadt is very lively,” said Weiner about the Czech composer and author of the children’s opera “Brundibar,” who died in 1944 in Auschwitz. “Even in such dark times and horrible conditions, he saw hope and was optimistic about the future.”

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Ilse Weber

  The Czech poet had published several books of fairy tales in German before being transported to Theresienstadt in 1942. Weber started writing songs when she worked in the camp’s children’s hospital, and her music survived only thanks to her husband Willi, who discovered her songs after the war. Ilse and their son, Tommy, were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Mordechai Gebirtig

  “He was not a professional musician — in fact, he was a carpenter who did not even know how to read notes. All the songs he composed were written down by his friend, a clockmaker,” said Weiner about Gebertig, who, despite being just an avid amateur, remains one of the most popular singer-songwriters in Israel. The Polish composer died in the Cracow ghetto in 1942.

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Pavel Haas

  Prior to his deportation to Theresienstadt, Pavel Haas had written film scores and orchestrations but also destroyed much of his work. “He was very depressed at first, but composers such as Klein or Krasa encouraged him to keep on writing,” said Weiner. Paradoxically, the work he created in Theresienstadt surpassed what he had done before the war. He was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.

• Jewish composers who died during the Holocaust but whose music lives on

  Viktor Ullmann

  “If he hadn’t been imprisoned and later murdered in Auschwitz in 1944, I am sure he would have become one of the most important musical forces of the 20th century,” said Weiner about the Austrian Jewish composer who had been appointed conductor of the Prague State Opera before the war. The three years he spent in Theresienestadt were paradoxically the most prolific years of his career.

  Author: Jan Tomes

Prosecutors argued that his involvement was crucial to the killings because his time in the SS coincided with the “Final Solution” order to systematically exterminate Jews.

The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939, initially using it to detain Polish political prisoners.

But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews. Some 65,000 people perished in the camp.

Germany has been focusing on cases against concentration camp suspects in recent years. However court proceedings are difficult to execute due to the advancing age of the suspects.

Bruno D. is relatively young in comparison with previous defendants.

The 93-year-old’s trial has taken place in a juvenile court because he was 17 at the time.

A case against Johan Rehbogen, another Stutthof guard, could not be completed because of the suspect’s heart and kidney issues.

Another case was dropped because the accused 97-year-old was too ill to appear before the court.

kw/rc (AFP, epd)

Editor’s note: Deutsche Welle follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and urges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.

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