Justice and Sympathy: Opinions are Divided on Whether to Jail Groning, an Ex-Nazi Nonogenarian

Oskar Gröning, 94, known as the Nazi Bookkeeper in his heyday faces trial for abetting the Holocaust seven decades ago. Opinions were divided about the verdict on him - on one side were those that stood for justice; arguing that he should be dully punished even when he has openly pleaded for forgiveness. The justice divide considered his plea for forgiveness immaterial since the 300 000 Hungarian Jews that were killed with his accomplice were not granted any sympathy. On the other divide were people who argued that punishing a nonagenarian for an offence he was only an accomplice while most of the Holocaust kingpins went unscathed, would be wrong.

The Wiesenthal centre’s chief Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroffthose have asked those who question the point of jailing nonogenarian ex-Nazis,  not to picture Oskar Gröning as he was now, but as he was then. In 1944, Gröning told Der Spiegel magazine a decade ago, he was a young man who felt “nothing” when he saw Jews being herded towards the Auschwitz gas chambers.

It is said that even if he did take active part in the heinous crime, Groning oiled the mass murder mechinary by searching the belongings of the condemned Jews and sending them back to Berlin to finance the next round of the killings in Auschwitz gas chambers.