Groning, clad in a striped shirt and beige pullover, struggled into court with the help of a walking frame and two orderlies. He faces charges of complicity in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz during the summer of 1944. He is one of a handful of elderly former Auschwitz guards whom German justice authorities are hoping to prosecute before they die.
So far, however, only Groning, who joined the SS as a 20-year-old during the opening stages of World War II, has been declared fit enough to stand trial. Legal experts have described him as "probably the last Auschwitz guard to face justice".
Groning sat slumped opposite two elderly women, both Auschwitz survivors, and 20 relatives of the 1.1 million Jews estimated to have been murdered in the camp.
He described himself to the presiding judge, Franz Kompisch, as an unwilling SS guard and claimed he knew nothing about what went on at Auschwitz before he arrived there in 1942. He said he had joined the SS because he wanted to be a member of a "smart, elite" unit that "looked down on ordinary soldiers".
Groning said he realised things were different at Auschwitz shortly after he arrived because all the guards were given extra rations of vodka.
"When we got drunk in the evening, the other guards told me that this was the place where the enemies of the German people were disposed of. I didn't at first understand what they meant," he insisted. "Then I began to realise that Auschwitz was very different from the concentration camps in Germany."
Soon afterwards, Groning was sent to the ramp at Auschwitz to sort out the belongings left by prisoners who were being sent to the gas chambers.
"Then I saw what my comrade did with the baby," he told the court. "I told him I thought what he did was wrong, but my comrade replied: 'What did you want me to do - run after the mother and give her back her baby? You can't do that. I had to kill the baby'."
Groning said he experienced other horrors at Auschwitz first-hand.
"Because of my job in Auschwitz, I am without question morally complicit in the killing of millions of people, most of whom were Jews. I ask them for forgiveness," he told the court. But he added: "Whether I am legally guilty is a matter this court must decide."
The former guard, who said he was weaned on anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda, has been described as the "book-keeper of Auschwitz". He maintains he never injured a prisoner and insists that he has "never found inner peace" since the nightmare he experienced at Auschwitz.
Holocaust survivors and their relatives have stressed that it is important a German court is putting Groning on trial. "Punishment is not the issue at stake," Hedy Bohm, an 87-year-old Auschwitz survivor, said yesterday. "We just want Groning convicted for what he did."
- Independent
