Former concentration camp secy, 97, convicted of Nazi war crimes

BERLIN [GERMANY]: A 97-year-old woman who worked as a Nazi concentration camp secretary was convicted on Tuesday for her role in the murder of thousands of people, in what could be one of the country's last trials for World War Two crimes.

The district court in the northern town of Itzehoe handed Irmgard Furchner a two-year suspended sentence for aiding and abetting the murder of 10,505 people and the attempted murder of five people, a court spokesperson said.

The indictment had originally charged Furchner with aiding and abetting the murders of 11,412 people. Furchner was wheeled into court wearing a cream-colored winter coat and beret, and with a blanket over her lap.

In a closing statement at the trial earlier this month, Furchner said she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been in Stutthof at the time. Furchner worked at the Stutthof concentration camp, near Gdansk in today's Poland, between 1943 and 1945.

The start of Furchner's trial was delayed in September 2021 when she briefly went on the run. She was caught hours after failing to turn up in court.

Some 65,000 people died of starvation and disease or in the gas chamber at Stutthof. They included prisoners of war and Jews caught up in the Nazis' extermination campaign.