Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening asks God for forgiveness at trial

A 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served in Auschwitz has testified that he helped the death camp function in his role sorting cash and valuables seized from Jews after they arrived in cattle-cars.

Oskar Groening told the Lueneburg state court in a statement read by his lawyer yesterday it was hard today to understand the blind obedience he had to the Nazi system, even when witnessing the atrocities perpetrated at the camp in Poland.

“There was a self-denial in me that today I find impossible to explain,” he said.