London - A former guard at Auschwitz has been ruled fit to stand trial on charges of participating in the mass murder of 300 000 people.
Oskar Groening, 93, will go into the dock next spring. He is the only one of a ‘dirty dozen’ of former personnel at the concentration camp identified and charged over participation in the Holocaust in the past two years who will actually answer for his crimes.
The others were told their cases were being dropped because of age, infirmity or lack of evidence.
Groening, a member of the SS, has spoken of his time at the camp in Poland but claims that while he witnessed atrocities, he did not take part. He was among a team collating the possessions of those killed.
The charges relate to a two-month period between May and July 1944, when at least 300 000 out of 425 000 new arrivals - mostly from Hungary - were murdered.
Daily Mail