Prosecutors have rejected a clemency plea by a 96-year-old former Auschwitz guard who was convicted for his role in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews and ordered to serve four years in prison.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that the plea filed by Oskar Groening was denied, Reuters reported, citing German media.
Groening could still appeal his clemency request to the Justice Ministry of Lower Saxony, the northern German state where his 2015 trial took place, the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported. He is expected to go to prison by the end of the month.
Groening, known as the “bookkeeper of Auschwitz,” was convicted and sentenced in July 2015 for his role in the murders of Hungarian Jews at the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. A federal appeals court rejected his appeal a year ago. He had remained free while waiting for a determination of his fitness to serve time in prison after requesting that the sentence be suspended.
Groening was linked as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 prisoners. One survivor, Kathleen Zahavi, 86, who had lost 100 members of her family, told Groening: “I hope the images of what went on stay with you for the rest of your days.”
Germany’s constitutional court, the country’s highest court, rejected Groening’s appeal, ruling last month that he could receive appropriate health care in prison, and that his jail sentence could be “interrupted” should there be a change in the nonagenarian’s health.
Groening had admitted to being tasked with gathering the money and valuables found in the baggage of murdered Jews and handing it over to his superiors for transfer to Berlin. He said he had guarded luggage on the Auschwitz arrival and selection ramp two or three times in the summer of 1944.
During the trial, Groening asked for forgiveness while acknowledging that only the courts could decide when it came to criminal guilt.
