Fifty men in their 90s may face prison terms in Germany over allegations of their service as guards at Auschwitz, the biggest concentration camp in Nazi Germany, media reports said.
The Zentrale Stelle, a federal law enforcement body investigating Nazi crimes, wants the suspects charged with accessory to murder, the newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung said.
The crackdown - which comes 68 years after the end of World War II - was enabled by the precedent case of John Demjanjuk, convicted over similar charges in Germany in 2011.
Zentrale Stelle’s investigation lacks direct witnesses, but the agency hopes that available written records would suffice in court, as was the case with Demjanjuk, said the probe’s leader, Kurt Schrimm.
Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, was a guard at Sobibor concentration camp. He lived in the US after the war, but was stripped of citizenship and deported to Germany, where he was convicted of accessory to murder of all 27,900 people who died at Sobibor, though his direct involvement in any of the deaths was never proven. He died last year before the ruling came into effect.
The 50 Auschwitz guards came from all over Germany, Schrimm said.
He did not specify their present whereabouts.
RUSSIAN ART MUSEUM HONOURS ITS CAT GUARDS!
Reminding of a less-known side to the struggle for fine arts, Russia’s most visited art museum has honoured its staff felines. The Hermitage Museum employs some 60 cats that guard its three million artworks from rats and mice. The animals’ effort was honoured, among other things, by a cat drawing competition for schoolchildren, the presentation of the Book of Record of Hermitage Cats, and the opening of a small exhibit of works by Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen, an Art Nouveau painter noted for his love of cats. The museum is celebrating Hermitage Cat Day since 1998, but this is the first time the event was marked by a separate art exhibit. Hermitage was established in 1764 and is best known for its collection of Old Masters, including Rembrandt, Rubens, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Caravaggio and van Dyck.
The Zentrale Stelle, a federal law enforcement body investigating Nazi crimes, wants the suspects charged with accessory to murder, the newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung said.
The crackdown - which comes 68 years after the end of World War II - was enabled by the precedent case of John Demjanjuk, convicted over similar charges in Germany in 2011.
Zentrale Stelle’s investigation lacks direct witnesses, but the agency hopes that available written records would suffice in court, as was the case with Demjanjuk, said the probe’s leader, Kurt Schrimm.
Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, was a guard at Sobibor concentration camp. He lived in the US after the war, but was stripped of citizenship and deported to Germany, where he was convicted of accessory to murder of all 27,900 people who died at Sobibor, though his direct involvement in any of the deaths was never proven. He died last year before the ruling came into effect.
The 50 Auschwitz guards came from all over Germany, Schrimm said.
He did not specify their present whereabouts.
RUSSIAN ART MUSEUM HONOURS ITS CAT GUARDS!
Reminding of a less-known side to the struggle for fine arts, Russia’s most visited art museum has honoured its staff felines. The Hermitage Museum employs some 60 cats that guard its three million artworks from rats and mice. The animals’ effort was honoured, among other things, by a cat drawing competition for schoolchildren, the presentation of the Book of Record of Hermitage Cats, and the opening of a small exhibit of works by Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen, an Art Nouveau painter noted for his love of cats. The museum is celebrating Hermitage Cat Day since 1998, but this is the first time the event was marked by a separate art exhibit. Hermitage was established in 1764 and is best known for its collection of Old Masters, including Rembrandt, Rubens, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Caravaggio and van Dyck.