99‑year-old Nazi camp secretary denied early release by German court
99-year-old Irmgard Furchner will remain in prison. A German court has rejected her appeal for early release. The woman was convicted of aiding and abetting over 10,000 murders at the Nazi concentration camp in Sztutowo (KL Stutthof) during the Second World War. She worked at the camp as a secretary.
According to the Associated Press news agency, the Federal Court of Justice upheld Irmgard Furchner's conviction in December 2022 by the regional court in Itzehoe, resulting in a two-year suspended prison sentence.
The 99-year-old was accused of being part of the apparatus that helped run the camp in Sztutowo, about 25 miles from Gdańsk. She was convicted of aiding and abetting murder in 10,505 cases and aiding and abetting attempted murder in five cases.
Deutsche Welle reports that the woman worked at the camp from 18 to 19. She was employed as a secretary and stenographer in the concentration camp administration between 1943 and 1945. Her defenders demanded acquittal, arguing that it couldn’t be proven that the 99-year-old knew about the systematic killings in the camp.
This request was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice. Judge Gabriele Cirener stated that although Irmgard Furchner was not the main perpetrator, she was still guilty. The woman voluntarily worked as the secretary of the concentration camp commandant. She typed numerous internal camp letters and instructions from the commandant on a typewriter - writes the portal dw.com.pl.
For Holocaust survivors, it is enormously important for a late form of justice to be attempted - quotes AP News the statement of Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews. - The legal system sent an important message today: even nearly 80 years after the Holocaust, no line can be drawn under Nazi crimes.
The camp in Sztutowo in Pomerania operated from 2 September 1939 to 9 May 1945. It was the first and longest-existing German camp in Poland. About 110,000 prisoners from 28 countries passed through the camp during this time. Among them, Jews constituted the largest ethnic group. The largest national groups were successively Poles, Soviet citizens, Hungarians, and Germans. It is estimated that nearly 65,000 prisoners died due to disease, hard labour, physical abuse, and malnutrition.
