A 97-year-old lady is appealing her conviction in Germany for being an accessory to almost 10,000 killings during World War II, when she served as secretary to the commandant of the Nazi concentration camp Stutthof.
The Itzehoe state court imposed a two-year suspended sentence on Irmgard Furchner on December 20 for being an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and an accessory to attempted murder in five cases. Wednesday, the court said that both the defense and a co-attorney plaintiff’s had filed appeals with the Federal Court of Justice.
It was unclear immediately when the federal court would hear the matter.
Between June 1943 and April 1945, Furchner was accused of being a member of the apparatus that helped the camp near Danzig, now the Polish city of Gdansk, function.
The lawsuit relied on a German legal precedent developed over the past decade that allows anyone who helped Nazi death camps and concentration camps function to be charged as an accessory to the killings committed there, even in the absence of evidence of direct participation.
The defense attorneys argued that the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Furchner was aware of the systematic killings at the Stutthof concentration camp, which is a requirement for criminal responsibility.
As he pronounced the verdict, presiding Judge Dominik Gross stated that it was “just unfathomable” that Furchner did not see the murders at Stutthof.
Furchner was tried in juvenile court since she was 18 and 19 years old at the time of the alleged acts and the court was unable to show her “maturity of mind” beyond a reasonable doubt.
»Irmgard Furchner, 97, appeals conviction for over 10,000 deaths«