Auschwitz Guard Makes Plea to Avoid Prison

Oskar Groening says he's too frail at age 96
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 1, 2018 1:02 PM CST
Auschwitz Guard, 96, Makes Clemency Plea
Former SS guard Oskar Groening.   (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP,file)

A former Auschwitz death camp guard has submitted a fresh request for clemency in a bid to avoid serving his sentence for accessory to murder. German news agency dpa reported Thursday that officials say former SS sergeant Oskar Groening has asked Lower Saxony's justice minister to spare him from going to prison, per the AP. The 96-year-old was convicted in Lueneburg in 2015 as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Jews and sentenced to four years in prison. He hasn't yet spent any time behind bars because of the appeals process, and his lawyer says Groening is too frail to go to prison. (He was known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz.")

(More Auschwitz stories.)

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