It has been revealed today that twenty former SS concentration camp guards at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland could face charges in Germany, following a widespread probe of the Nazi SS men and women who served there during the Second World War. Federal Prosecutor Kurt Schrimm, who heads Germany’s special Nazi War Crimes Office, has said he expects to turn the cases over to state investigators within two weeks for them to pursue accessory to murder charges. Around thirty suspects had been identified, but ten had already died.
The remaining twenty men all still live in Germany and while 220 other cases are still being investigated for possible charges, they have yet to be located.
The Majdanek camp was responsible for the deaths of 360,000 innocent people, the majority being Jews. Initially purposed for forced labour rather than extermination, it was used to kill people on an industrial scale during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all Jews within their General Government territory of Poland. Of the more than 2,000,000 Jewish people killed in Operation Reinhard, at least 60,000 came from Majdanek concentration camp. The camp was liberated by allied forces in July 1944.
To view original footage of the Majdanek concentration camp, have a look at our Youtube channel here. (Viewer discretion is advised).
What do YOU think? Should these former guards be punished now, or has too much time passed for justice to be served?
