Hubert Zafke’s trial is set to take place 72 years after the horrific events at Auschwitz’s Nazi death camp. Zafke, aka Hubert Z., 95, who was an Auschwitz paramedic will stand trial in Germany on charges of being an accessory to murder.
Hubert Zafke, also known as Hubert Z., will be facing a German judge next month for crimes he committed in 1944. Mr. Zafke, who is a 95-year-old retiree, worked as a guard and paramedic at the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland.
Documents showed that Zafke was first hired/recruited as a sergeant at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp between October 1943 and January 1944, and worked as a paramedic between August 15 and September 1944. The elderly man has been charged with being an accessory to murder in the deaths of more than 3,681 people at the concentration camp.
According to court documents, authorities think that Zafke was aware that he was working in an extermination camp and that he was “supportive of the running of this extermination camp” where over 1.2 million people were murdered. They added:
“Given his awareness, the accused lent support to the organization of the camp and was thereby both involved in and advanced the extermination with these cruel and insidious killings of at least 3,681 people.”
They go on to say:
“Although classed as a medic, such personnel at Auschwitz were not concerned with the health of inmates, but often poured in the Zyklon-B pesticide crystals into the gas chamber to murder them.”
It has been confirmed that Zafke was present when famed writer Anne Frank and her family were brought in on a train from Holland’s Westerbork concentration camp on September 5, 1944, along with 498 men, 442 women, and 79 children.
He was jailed in 1948 in Poland for his involvement in Auschwitz, and few years later he moved back to Germany, sold agricultural products including Zyklon-B pesticide, married, and fathered four sons. In 2015, he was examined by psychiatric doctors appointed by the court, and was judged mentally sound enough to stand in a trial.
During the sessions, Zafke did not deny his service at Auschwitz, but claimed:
“I heard nothing, saw nothing, killed no-one.”
Zafke’s trial will begin on February 29.
What are your thoughts on Zafke’s statement?
