BERLIN (AP) — A German court has cancelled another session in the trial of a 93-year-old former Auschwitz death camp guard due to the former SS sergeant’s poor health, and has scheduled new dates through the end of November to accommodate shorter hearings.
The Lueneburg state court said Tuesday that Oskar Groening’s trial needed to be extended in order to hear all the evidence while limiting the sessions to three hours at a time. Judges canceled Wednesday’s session after hearing testimony Tuesday from an expert witness.
Two other sessions have already been canceled due to Groening’s health since the trial began last month.
Groening is charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations he helped the death camp function in his job sorting cash and valuables seized from Jews.
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Fine. Let him listen to 3 hours of testimony every day until he dies. For him and all his pals, let them know that we don’t forget and we don’t give up.
The reason we temper justice with mercy is because we choose to do so, where those guilty did not.
So, what is the merciful thing to do here? Let him go and live out the rest of his days because he lived to a ripe old age without being caught? I think that he should spend the rest of his life, whatever that is, in jail so that (i) he can remember what he did and (ii) those that know him do not think of him as the kind grandfather that they thought they knew, but a man that willfully participated in the mass-murder of hundreds of thousands of people.
Frankly, I hope that the few others that are still alive out there live in fear of every knock on their door. Just because a mass-murder has hidden successfully for 70 years does not mean that he should not answer for his crimes once found. There is no statute of limitations for murder for a reason.