In a statement concerning the current appeal procedure in the Auschwitz trial in Lüneburg against the former SS man Oskar Gröning, Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said in Berlin:

“In July 2015, the sentence was handed down in Lüneburg in the trial against Oskar Gröning, the so-called ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’. The appeal lodged by the defence and some of the joint plaintiffs’ lawyers has been awaiting a decision for more than a year: the Federal Supreme Court is also taking its time. Its decision in this particular case will have ground-breaking consequences. They affect both the realistic assessment of the system of mass murder in the concentration camps and the role of all participating SS personnel, as well as the verdict in the Auschwitz trial in Detmold, the ongoing proceedings in Neubrandenburg and all other legal actions concerning Nazi crimes that are currently under way. Meanwhile, this state of affairs is outraging the survivors of the concentration and extermination camps, and is giving them cause to level harsh criticism against the German judicial system and its almost non-existent activity concerning the sentencing of SS perpetrators, which they have been compelled to follow over many decades. Whilst the survivors regarded the trials in Lüneburg and Detmold as the sign of a new way of thinking and a new attitude on the part of German courts, the current prolonged delays in the appeal process are confirming their fundamentally negative experiences.”

In New York, the Auschwitz survivor and President of the International Auschwitz Committee, Roman Kent, stressed:

“Auschwitz survivors do not have as much time as the German judicial system. Our time is limited. We are all old and have had to experience that the vast majority of the SS perpetrators from Auschwitz and other camps have never seen the inside of a German courtroom. The new trials in Lüneburg and Detmold represented a changed attitude in Germany. For this reason we want to know within our lifetime, whether the highest German court will finally manage to gain a realistic view of the murder machinery created by the German Nazis and the joint responsibility of all of the SS members involved in it.”