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Irmgard Furchner, who in her late teens while working at the Stutthof camp, was sentenced when the government made a last-ditch effort to seek justice for Nazi-era crimes.
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By Christopher F. Schuetze
BERLIN – She was taken to court in a wheelchair dressed in a hat, a Covid mask and dark sunglasses. And the 40 days of the trial, he only spoke once, in the end. It was transparent from the beginning, 14 months ago, that Irmgard Furchner, 97, did not need to be in court.
In the end, she had no choice. She was summoned to attend his trial and forced to hear about the terrible suffering she helped organize as a young woman some 80 years ago, World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust.
On Tuesday, a court in the northern German city of Itzehoe convicted Furchner of her role in the killing of 10,505 other people, and the attempted murder of five others, making her the first secretary of a low-level concentration camp and likely one of the last. Living participants in the Nazi death device to be convicted. She won a two-year suspended sentence.
Because the murders occurred when Ms. Furchner was in her teens and running as a civilian worker for the camp commander, he convicted her through the juvenile court in Itzehoe, which is close to her home. The prosecution had requested a stay because Ms. Furchner is a minor, ages 18 and 19, at the time of the crimes.
Although Ms. Furchner never possessed a weapon and may not have simply been involved in quick killings, the prosecution was able to conclude the trial she knew about the murders and that she had voluntarily supported control of the Stutthof camp, which is now Poland, performing her duties as the non-public stenographer of the camp commander.
Dominik Gross, who led the trial jury, said her time in Stutthof, Ms. Furchner, “did not remain in ignorance of what had happened there. “They were killed or allowed to perish under an inhumane remedy in the camp, the court said.
In recent years, German prosecutors have stepped up efforts to expel lower-ranking aides from concentration camps, hoping to secure convictions before the last of those who helped expose the Holocaust dies. The governing body of workers and guards can be prosecuted for concentration camp murders, even if no explicit crime can be proven.
A prosecution office specializing in Nazi crimes, which has referred nearly 200 criminal cases over the past decade, still has five cases pending, all involving guards and other unskilled workers in concentration camps and prisoner-of-war camps. The targets of these bodies fear members of the Nazi apparatus who were overlooked through outside investigations because there was no specific crime to typify them.
This summer, a 101-year-old former guard was sentenced to five years in prison for his role as an SS guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin from 1942 to 1945.
Thomas Will, who heads the special counsel’s office, said it is vital to bring justice to those who were part of the Nazi death system. “Because homicide and complicity in homicide have no statute of limitations, we continue our work,” he said. .
The Itzehoe court heard from 8 witnesses about life in Stuthoff and a historian, Stefan Hördler, who described the suffering in the camp of Mrs. Furchner’s stay. In 14 days of testimony in Itzehoe and a stopover at the site of the former concentration camp in present-day Sztutowo, northern Poland, the court learned what had happened there.
The testimony included a description of how typhoid fever had spread among camp inmates beginning in the fall of 1944. In reaction to the outbreak, the commander quarantined entire sections where prisoners were left to die without any medical care or treatment, the court heard. The camp’s crematorium operated 24 hours a day to incinerate the loads of the dead, the court said.
Furchner’s lawyer said he was unaware of the suffering because his workplace faces court.
Onur Özata, a lawyer who represented 3 survivors at the trial, said Furchner’s sentencing is not the subject of the process.
“It doesn’t matter that the trial didn’t result in a criminal conviction. The important thing, he said, is that there is a trial, that the survivors have had the opportunity to testify and that the state shows that it is still prosecuting the Nazis. period crimes.
Josef Salomonovic, a survivor of Stuttoff and the only witness to testify before a user in court, told a German public broadcaster: “I’m just saying it’s 80 years late and now it’s spinning in my head and soul. “
Ms. Furchner broke her silence at the end of the trial. “I’m sorry for everything that happened,” he reportedly said, adding: “I had been in Stutthof at the time. “
Ms. Furchner testified against the camp commander in the 1950s at his trial, but did not need to appear in court for her own trial. Denied, she refused to appear on the first day of the trial. The opinion on the opinion had to order the police to locate her and bring her to trial.
Rachel Century, a historian who wrote an e-book about directors of the Third Reich, said Furchner was most likely aware of the crimes committed in the concentration camp. But, he added, Furchner might have feared the consequences if she had refused to cooperate or spoken out in some other way.
“It’s very complicated to judge these women because the scenario for them got complicated,” Century said.
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