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Auschwitz victim faces alleged SS guard on trial over murders

By Justin Huggler in Berlin

THERE were dramatic scenes at the trial of a 94-year-old alleged former SS guard in Germany as he was confronted by an Auschwitz survivor.

Reinhold Hanning, accused of being a former SS sergeant, faces charges of being an accessory to the murder of 170,000 people in the first of a series of Holocaust cases expected to go to trial this year.

“We are about the same age and we will soon both be before the highest court,” Leon Schwarzbaum, an Auschwitz survivor, told Mr Hanning from the witness box across a crowded courtroom.

“I want to call on you to tell the historical truth. Speak here about what you and your comrades did.”

Mr Hanning is one of a number of alleged former SS members facing trial as German prosecutors scramble to bring Holocaust perpetrators to justice while there is still time.

He has denied taking part in the killings at Auschwitz. Mr Hanning, who is hard of hearing and in poor health, sat impassively as Mr Schwarzbaum gave his testimony

World News

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2016-02-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

2016-02-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/282166470240226

Daily Telegraph