Former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening, on trial for his role in the murder of 300,000 people in the Nazi death camp, asked for forgiveness.
Groening, 93, told the District Court of Luneburg on April 21, the first day of the trial, that “for me there is no question that I made myself morally complicit.”
The former Waffen-SS member told the court that he learned about the gas chambers as soon as he reported for duty at Auschwitz in 1942, the German news agency DPAreported. He admitted to gathering the money and valuables found in the baggage of murdered Jews and handing it over to the SS — something he has publicly discussed in interviews over the years.
“I beg for forgiveness,” he said in court, according to news reports. “When it comes to the question of criminal guilt, you must decide.”
Groening is charged in the murders of at least 300,000 Hungarian Jews in the summer of 1944. He is one of several former concentration camp guards summoned to stand trial in the past year. — jta