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11.12.2018

Majdanek trial in Frankfurt am Main: outrage at court’s inaction

 
 
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Holocaust survivors in the International Auschwitz Committee are carefully watching the Majdanek court proceedings in Frankfurt am Main. They are filled with incomprehension and growing anger by the court’s inactivity in the pending proceedings against a 90-year-old former member of the SS at Majdanek concentration camp. He is due to appear in court on charges of participating in the so-called "Aktion Erntefest" (Operation Harvest Festival).

During what was termed Operation Harvest Festival, the SS and the Reserve Police Battalion 101 murdered more than 43,000 Jewish people on a single day, 3 November 1943. The delay in proceedings is utterly inacceptable considering the age of the accused and that of the survivors, especially since the prosecution brought charges on 20 October 2017.

Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said in Berlin:

"It is incomprehensible why the district court has allowed more than a year to pass without making any public comment on the future of proceedings. For Holocaust survivors the term “Aktion Erntedankfest“ (Operation Harvest Festival) still remains one of the most cynical and repugnant labels created in the German language to mask the mass murder of Jewish people during the years of the National Socialist regime. It is for this reason in particular that the survivors regard the attitude of the Frankfurt District Court as ignorant and arrogant towards both the general public and towards themselves. Despite the positive experiences of recent years in the Nazi trials in Lüneburg and in Detmold, the inactivity of the Frankfurt District Court is simply adding to the long list of negative experiences with the German judiciary."