A 94-year-old German man will face trial in November charged with complicity in the mass murders at the Stutthof concentration camp during World War II, a German court in Münster said Friday.
A former guard in the SS, the paramilitary wing of Adolf Hitler's military, he is accused of being aware of the killings of hundreds of people during the three years he served in Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk, in what is now Poland.
Between 1942 and 1945, hundreds of prisoners were killed in gas chambers or injected with poison, while others died of exposure or cold, Der Spiegel newsmagazine quoted Münster prosecutors as saying.
Read more: 'Never Again': Memorials of terror
Among the victims were more than 100 Polish prisoners who were gassed to death on June 21 and 22, 1944, as well as "probably several hundred" Jewish prisoners murdered in the same way from August to December 1944 as part of the Nazis' so-called "Final Solution" operation.
Prosecutors believe that the man "knew about the killing methods" at the camp and that guards were an essential part of the camp system.
An estimated 6 million Jews were killed during the Nazi Holocaust carried out under Hitler.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism in 16th-century Prague
One of Germany's most famous silent films, "The Golem: How He Came Into the World," was made in 1920. Paul Wegener directed and played a leading role in the film set in 16th-century Prague. The Jewish ghetto is in danger and the emperor order the Jews to leave the city. Only the mythical Golem can help. It's one of the earliest films to address the persecution of Jews.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Persecution of Jews in 1920s Vienna
Based on a novel by Hugo Bettauer, "The City Without Jews," is an important example of how films have taken on anti-Semitism. The Austrian-made film is set in Vienna in the 1920s and shows how the residents held Jews responsible for all social ills. Critics, however, have lamented the film's use of anti-Semitic cilches.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Fine line between tolerance and clichés
Four years earlier in 1916, the American director DW Griffith had created the monumental historical film,"Intolerance." The story explains historical events over the course of four episodes, taking intolerance to task. Yet in a scene showing the crucifixion of Jesus, Griffith employed Jewish stereotypes. As a result, critics have also accused "Intolerance" of demonstrating anti-Semitic tendencies.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Ben Hur through the decades
"Ben Hur" was first made in 1925, but has been reinvented many time since then. It tells the story of a conflict betweet Jews and Christians at the beginning of the 1st century. Jewish prince Judah Ben Hur lives in Roman-occupied Jerusalem as a contemporary of Jesus Christ. The way the Jewish-Christian relationship is showed in the Ben Hur films remains a topic of discussion today.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
A trial and pogrom in 1880s Hungary
Although hardly known today, GW Pabst's "The Trial" (1948) is an astounding early example of how the cinema reacted to the Holocaust. Filmed in Austria just three years after the end of the war, Pabst tells a true story set in 1882 in Hungary. A young girl disappears from her village and Jews are blamed. Tragically, a pogrom follows.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Broaching the truth
"The Trial" remained an exception. After the war, it took the film industry in Europe quite some time to deal with the subject. The French director Alain Resnais was the first to address the Nazi genocide in 1956, in the unsparing 30-minute documentary "Night and Fog."
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Bringing the Holocaust to TV
It wasn't until the 1978 television mini-series "Holocaust" was made that the genocide was brought to the broader public. The four-part US production directed by Marvin J. Chomsky tells the story of a Jewish family that gets caught in the cogs of the Nazis' genocidal policies.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List'
Fifteen years later, American director Steven Spielberg was able to accomplish on the big screen what "Holocaust" had done for television audiences. "Schindler's List" portrayed the brutal reality of the Nazis' anti-Semitism in Germany, but also in Eastern Europe, spotlighting the unscrupulous SS offcer Amon Göth.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Claude Lanzmann and 'Shoah'
French director Claude Lanzmann harshly criticized Spielberg's drama. "He did not really reflect on the Holocaust and cinema. The Holocaust cannot be portrayed," he said in an interview. Lanzmann himself took up the subjects of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in a completely different way - through long documentaries and essay films such as "Shoah" and "Sobibor."
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Humor and the Holocaust
Italian comedian and filmmaker Roberto Bengini took a daring approach in his film on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. In 1997, "Life is Beautiful" premiered, telling the fictional story of Jews suffering in a concentration camps. The humor he wove throughout had a liberating effect.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Roman Polanski's 'The Pianist'
An equally moving film by Polish-French director Roman Polanski was released in 2002. In "The Pianist," the fate of Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman during the war years of 1943-44 was brought to the big screen. The project allowed the director, whose mother and other relatives were deported and murdered by the Nazis, to work through his own family's past.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism and Jesus the Jew
Films about the life of Jesus Christ often come up in discussions about anti-Semitism in cinema. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), for example, has been accused of reinforcing anti-Semitic clichés, particularly in scenes in which Jews are indirectly associated with greed.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Mel Gibson's scandalous 'The Passion of the Christ'
Much more controversial was the film that Australian Mel Gibson released two years later. Both Christians and Jews accused Gibson of explicit anti-Semitism in the film, saying he didn't counter the implications in the New Testament that Jews were to blame for the death of Jesus (who himself was Jewish). In public, Gibson likewise used anti-Semitic speech.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Turkish anti-Semitism
Audiences and critics alike decried the anti-Semitism in the Turkish film, "Valley of the Wolves." The action-packed movie version of a TV series of the same name showed a battle between Turkish soldiers and Israel. The film employed "anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic stereotypes and was inciteful," according to several organizations.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
WWII still a challenge for filmmakers
Just how difficult it can still be to address the subject matter of World War II is evident in the response to a three-part German TV series from 2013, "Generation War." The series follows a handful of German soldiers fighting on the eastern front. It was criticized in Poland for anti-Semitism and was said to have represented the Polish resistance.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
Hannah Arendt and 'the banality of evil'
Margarethe von Trotta's film about Hannah Arendt was well received in 2012. The director sketched a balanced portrait of the philosopher and publicist who, in the 1960s, grappled with a figure who was largely responsible for the Nazi genocide: Adolf Eichmann. Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to explain anti-Semitism clothed in seemingly harmless bureaucracy.
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Anti-Semitism in film before and after the Holocaust
The 'Wonder Woman' controversy
Because the protagonist of the current Hollywood super hero hit "Wonder Woman" is played by Israeli Gal Gadot, the film was not shown in a number of Arab countries. Gadot herself had served in the Israeli army and defended her experience. Not showing "Wonder Woman" is anti-Semitic, according to the public sentiment in Israel.
Author: Jochen Kürten (ct)
Old age hinders court process
The extreme old age of many people accused of Nazi crimes tends to make prosecution difficult, with many suspects saying they're no longer in a fit physical state to face trial. In the Stutthof case, hearings will last a maximum of two hours a day because of the suspect's poor health.
In another case, prosecutors have filed charges against a 93-year-old man from Wuppertal who was also a former SS guard, but it is unclear whether the trial will go ahead as it is yet to be determined if he is fit for trial, the court in Münster said.
Last year, a court ruled that Oskar Gröning, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" due to his job counting the money taken from victims at the camp in German-occupied Poland, must serve time after years of dispute over whether his health and age permitted a prison term. However, he died in March, aged 96, before starting his four-year sentence.
Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at Auschwitz, was also sentenced at age 94 and died before his sentence started.
law/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
