Auschwitz SS guard gets four years

A 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served at the Auschwitz death camp was convicted on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder and sentenced to four years in prison.

Oskar Groening testified during his trial at the state court in Lueneburg, northern Germany, that he guarded prisoners’ baggage after they arrived at Auschwitz and collected money stolen from them. Prosecutors said that amounted to helping the death camp function.

Presiding Judge Franz Kompisch said Groening had decided to be part of the Nazis’ machinery of death.