Former Nazi concentration camp secretary faces indictment 0:48
(CNN) --
A 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard has been sentenced to five years in prison by a German court for being an accessory to the murder of 3,518 people.
The man had been charged in 2021 with "knowingly and deliberately" aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, from January 1942 to February 1945, according to the prosecution. Neuruppin, in the northeastern state of Brandenburg.
He was sentenced by the Neuruppin Regional Court tribunal on Tuesday, a court spokesman told CNN.
Former Nazi concentration camp guard sentenced in Germany
"The verdict is late compensation for the relatives and a very important signal from Germany," Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee told CNN on Tuesday.
"The reasons for the verdict and the sentence clearly show how much the German judiciary has failed in recent years," said Heubner, who followed the trial, criticizing the number of years it took for German courts to bring charges.
"Now the wound of the relatives can be taken care of," he said.
The condemned man had always denied having been active in the concentration camp, according to Heubner.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany welcomed the verdict.
"Even if the defendant will probably not serve the full prison term due to his advanced age, the verdict should be welcomed," Central Council of Jews President Josef Schuster told CNN.
"The thousands of people who worked in the concentration camps kept the killing machine going. They were part of the system, so they should be held accountable for that too," Schuster said.
"It is bitter that the defendant denied his activities at the time to the end and showed no remorse."
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The man's name has not been released, in accordance with German privacy laws.
The charges included participation in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942, and complicity in the murder of prisoners through the use of poison gas, as well as shooting and murder of prisoners by creating and maintaining hostile conditions in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. .
Sachsenhausen was built by prisoners and opened in 1936. Of the approximately 200,000 prisoners who passed through the site, around 100,000 are believed to have died there.
During World War II, the camp's inmate population fluctuated between about 11,000 and 48,000 people.
Approximately 6 million Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
Hundreds of thousands of Roma, political opponents, homosexuals, and people with physical or learning disabilities were also killed.
Nazis World War II