The woman, named by German media as Irmgaard Furchner, is accused of being an accomplice in the murder in more than 11,000 cases when she was a stenographer and typist in the commandant’s office at the Stutthof camp. in Nazi-occupied Poland. According to the court’s indictment, he is accused of assisting the people in charge of the camp in the systematic killing of prisoners between June 1943 and April 1945.
Furchner’s trial in Itzeho, northern Germany, which began on Tuesday, was postponed until September 30, when she was on the run for several hours before being caught by local authorities. The charges against her could not be read until she was present. She is one of the first women to be tried in decades for alleged crimes during the Nazi era.
Since the 96-year-old was a juvenile at the time of the alleged crimes, Farchner faces trial before the Juvenile Court Chamber. The court’s press office confirmed to CNN that she appeared on Tuesday, and did not speak as the charges were read. TV footage showed him being taken to court in a wheelchair, with his face barely visible behind a white mask and a scarf tied over his eyes.
CNN has contacted one of the defendant’s attorneys for comment.
According to the central office in Ludwigsburg, which is responsible for investigating Nazi crimes, approximately 65,000 people died in the Stutthof concentration camp and its sub-camps, as well as in so-called death marches at the end of the war.
In July 2020, the Hamburg Regional Court sentenced Bruno D. to two years’ probation to the then-93-year-old former guard in Stutthof.
The former guard supervised prisoners at Stutthof from August 1944 to April 1945 and was charged with 5,230 counts of murder during his time as an SS guard at the camp. When he was serving there at the age of 17, he faced a juvenile court.