A 100-year-old former Nazi guard has gone on trial, facing charges for 3,518 deaths

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Lawyer Stefan Waterkamp covers the face of accused Josef S. at the court room in Brandenburg, Germany, on Oct. 7, 2021. The 100-year-old man is charged as an accessory to murder on allegations that he served as a guard at the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

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Markus Schreiber/AP

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Authorities say that the defendant is considered fit enough to stand trial despite his advanced age, though the number of hours per day the court is in session will be limited.

More than 200,000 people were held at Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. Tens of thousands of inmates died of starvation, disease, forced labor and other causes, as well as through medical experiments and systematic SS extermination operations including shootings, hangings and gassing.

Exact numbers on those killed vary, with upper estimates of some 100,000, though scholars suggest figures of 40,000 to 50,000 are likely more accurate.

«The defendant knowingly and willingly aided and abetted this at least by conscientiously performing guard duty, which was seamlessly integrated into the killing system,» prosecutor Cyrill Klement told the court.

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A survivor of Sachsenhausen, 100-year-old Leon Schwarzbaum, attended the trial as a visitor.

«This is the last trial for my friends, acquaintances and my loved ones, who were murdered, in which the last guilty person can still be sentenced — hopefully » Schwarzbaum, who also survived the Auschwitz death camp and Buchenwald concentration camp, told dpa.

The opening of the trial comes a week after another the opening of another elderly concentration camp suspect’s trial was disrupted.

A 96-year-old former secretary for the Stutthof camp’s SS commander skipped the opening of her trial at the Itzehoe state court in northern Germany. She was tracked down within hours and proceedings are to resume on Oct. 19.