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Auschwitz 1, in Poland AP photo

30 Auschwitz guards to face criminal probes

The guards are aged up to 97 and face possible charges of accessory to murder.

THE GERMAN OFFICE investigating Nazi war crimes said today it would send files on 30 former Auschwitz death camp personnel to state prosecutors with a recommendation to pursue charges.

Chief investigator Kurt Schrimm told reporters that the suspects were former Auschwitz guards now aged up to 97 and would face possible charges of accessory to murder.

“The cases will be handed over to the respective public prosecutor’s offices,” Schrimm said.

image

People’s shoes at Auschwitz. Pic: Sojka Libor/Czech News Agency/PA Images

Schrimm’s Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in the southwestern city of Ludwigsburg has carried out more than 7,000 probes but has no powers to charge suspects itself.

Instead it sends case files to regional prosecutors who then decide whether to pursue probes against suspects, who must also be judged fit to stand trial by the courts.

Investigation

The investigative office, set up in 1958, said it had initially identified 49 former guards at the camp in what was Nazi-occupied Poland who were still alive but nine had since died.

Thirty live in Germany and will now be subject to criminal investigation. Another seven live abroad and the investigation against them in Ludwigsburg is still ongoing.

Two people could not be found, the office said, and one had already been under investigation in the southern city of Stuttgart.

More than 6,000 SS personnel served at Auschwitz, where about 1.1 million Jews, Roma and Sinti and members of other persecuted groups died in gas chambers or of forced labour, sickness and starvation.

image

Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland. Pic: Sojka Libor/Czech News Agency/PA Images

For more than 60 years German courts only prosecuted Nazi war criminals if evidence showed they had personally committed atrocities, but since a 2011 landmark case all former camp guards can be tried.

In that year a Munich court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for complicity in the extermination of more than 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor camp, where he had served as a guard.

The announcement from Ludwigsburg came a day after the start of a trial in Germany of a 92-year-old former SS officer for the murder of a Dutch resistance fighter nearly 70 years ago.

As the proceedings opened in the western town of Hagen, Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is a German national, was deemed fit enough for the trial to sit for up to three hours a day.

He faces a life sentence if found guilty.

Since the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946, around 106,000 German or foreign-born Nazi soldiers have been accused of war crimes.

- © AFP, 2013

Read: Over 40 Auschwitz guards to face German prosecutors>

Read: Most-wanted Nazi war crimes suspect dies>

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    Mute Ciaran De Bhal
    Favourite Ciaran De Bhal
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    May 12th 2023, 7:27 AM

    Beautiful house. €8.5m though? Imagine having €8.5m. Wouldn’t you buy a nice house anywhere but Dublin for half a million and live your life with the remaining 8, with no worries or stress, or gridlock. Utter madness

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    Mute Gerard McAuliffe
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    May 12th 2023, 2:43 PM

    @Ciaran De Bhal: Anyone buying a house for €8.5M is probably worth 3-4 times that so if they wanted they could just sit and relax and avoid gridlock at home in Foxrock anyway.

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    Mute Sea-point Point
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    May 12th 2023, 6:44 PM

    @Ciaran De Bhal: if you can afford a €8.5m gaff, it’s nailed on that you don’t spend your whole year in Dublin and probably have a holiday home in Ireland and a pied-a-terre or two abroad….

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    Mute Mick Hyland
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    May 15th 2023, 1:32 AM

    @Ciaran De Bhal: €8.5 million isn’t what it used to be you know.

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    Mute david byrne
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    May 12th 2023, 7:10 AM

    Cud ya imagine just having 8.5million

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    Mute Rafa Condron
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    May 12th 2023, 6:49 AM

    I’ll put my name in the hat. When’s the draw?

    135
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    Mute Liz O'Neill
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    May 12th 2023, 10:28 AM

    An Orangery. Loyalists only need apply?

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    Mute Sue O'Neill
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    May 12th 2023, 7:19 AM

    Love it

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    Mute pio Martin
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    May 12th 2023, 6:26 AM

    Meh

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    Mute The Red Devil
    Favourite The Red Devil
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    May 14th 2023, 7:51 AM

    8.5m and no pool or helicopter landing pad ……I feel cheated so no I’m out

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    Mute Patricia Ellis Dunne
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    May 12th 2023, 5:54 PM

    Orangery? Had to Google that. Was wondering how they were growing oranges in Foxrock

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    Mute John Murphy
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    May 12th 2023, 8:48 PM

    @Patricia Ellis Dunne: I’m disappointed with the orangery too. I clicked this story to see their millionaire greenhouse setup!

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    Mute SPQH
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    May 14th 2023, 6:20 PM

    @John Murphy: haha same here. Orangery is now just posh speak for a sunroom. Nonsense usage of the word in the gaff above. Very disappointed. Zero fruit trees.

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    Mute John O'Neill
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    May 12th 2023, 8:27 PM

    Liked and shared

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    Mute Mary Fitzsimons
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    May 14th 2023, 1:55 PM

    Garden is boring as hell. It took 2 designers to come up with a hedge and lawn

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    Mute SPQH
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    May 14th 2023, 6:22 PM

    @Mary Fitzsimons: was thinking the same, I clicked to see the “orangery” but just found a bloody sunroom, sure I have one of those myself! Designer names….. Big lawn in the shape of a rectangle, very boring. So much potential in that plot.

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    Mute reg morrisey
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    May 14th 2023, 10:03 AM

    Today I learned what an orangery was.

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    Mute James Lyons
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    May 14th 2023, 12:00 PM

    I’ve a few questions about the Orangery

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    Mute Eoghan O Sullivan
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    May 14th 2023, 11:29 AM

    They could have fit another toilet / Jacks under thr stairs if they had designed it properly.

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    Mute Yvon Queguiner
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    May 14th 2023, 3:00 PM

    I am baffled by the number of people who have no clue what an orangery is.
    It’s very common pretty much anywhere and in any renaissance garden.
    The lack of education is showing!

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    Mute SPQH
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    May 14th 2023, 6:24 PM

    @Yvon Queguiner: I don’t think the sellers know what one is either. That’s not an Orangery! Do you think it is? That’s a sunroom! It’s property seller speak for sunroom, it’s a modern nonsense take on a real orangery. There’s a proper one in Killruddery that looks the part, although no longer in use as one I believe.

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    Mute Riddled Fidl
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    May 14th 2023, 6:27 PM

    Orangery… notions!

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