The Daily Beast
Old Nazis do not deserve a pass just because they are old
Photo illustration by The Daily Beast / Department of Justice In February, a 95-year-old man was deported to Germany, a year after he was found serving as a guard at Meppen, a Nazi concentration camp in Neuengamme. It was not one of the worst camps – it had no modern gas chambers, but rather relied on the old school’s help to kill the prisoners. A collection of Danes, Dutch, French, Italians, Jews, Latvians, Poles and Russians were forced by the guards to dig counter-tank fortifications during the winter of 1945, “to the point of exhaustion and death.” This particular guard, Friedrich Karl Berger, who has lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in comfort and safety since 1959, presumably enjoyed all the benefits of living in the U.S. for law-abiding citizens who hold heads, claiming that he 1.) only after orders, 2.) they made him do it, 3.) he was not there long, and 4.) he could not be linked to a specific murder. Elderly Nazis laugh as they recall the murder of Jews The defense, which has worked to the benefit of the death camp in the past, has been outdated and since John Demjanjuk, a death camp guard who lived his own version of the American good life as a motorist . near Cleveland, was convicted in 2011 on 28,000 charges of murder. This legal construction gave prosecutors an access as it was almost impossible to determine specific deaths on the surviving offenders, especially over the years. The last of these war criminals is now in their nineties, some older. One former guard under indictment in Germany is 100. Apologists for these old criminals claim that bygone times are over. That we let the people live in whatever peace they have conjured for themselves. That we ‘leave righteousness to God’. Photo illustration by The Daily Beast / US Department of Justice. This argument can flush better if there is evidence of moral reconciliation of the perps. But they seem to have mostly run away from the death camps and whistled a cheerful tune. Some were helped via the Ratline to South America, with our CIA paving the way. Josef Mengele, the sadist who found his spiritual home in Auschwitz and whose only regret was that the murder did not reach the final conclusion, lived pleasantly among friends and supporters in São Paulo until he was at ease. ‘ a beautiful beach has disappeared. That list goes on to exclude the commercial chiefs, most of whom benefit from slavery. Bayer, Siemens, IG Farben, Krupp, Mercedes and Volkswagen built their factories right next to the death camps and signed contracts with the SS, which would provide a specific supply of guards, dogs and whips, along with steady replacements for prisoners who, are understand, is worked to death. None of those responsible paid a significant price. In light of this, these last old Nazis currently being dragged to the music look like a little braai, as it indeed was and is. On the other hand, as Raul Hilberg noted in Claud Lanzmann’s film Shoah and elsewhere, it was these gears on which the whole death machine depended. Without the guards at the camps, or the schedules of the trains full of prisoners, running day and night with great efficiency, or the wholesalers of the scarcely used baby clothes flooding from Auschwitz in Berlin, none of it would have worked, or not nearly. not so seamless. Even a guard who did not personally put his dog on a faltering prisoner or hand over a beautiful young girl to Ilse Koch to make her skin in gloves was guilty if you stood back a little. And where there is guilt, there is also a need for justice. Without it, one sits with resignation, good for a Buddhist monk in a rhododendron forest, but not for a judge and jury in contemporary America – not to mention a general audience that Anne Frank and Night have already read do not have. Who last month had to watch homemade Nazis kill our own police officers with ‘Camp Auschwitz’ hoodies. As we search in Washington for justice for these mad haters of today, who by the way can easily see us standing shoulder to shoulder with the last of these accused Nazis, whip or club or fire extinguisher in hand, we are visually reminded why it is so important. As Hannah Arendt wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem, what we as a society say is: “Something has happened … with which we cannot reconcile ourselves.” Nor are we as Americans whose fathers and grandfathers fought and died to stop the Nazis, nor to reconcile ourselves to what happened to men, women and children at their hands, not while there is still some punishment should not be resolved. It is true that these last convicts are old, but “Justice has no expiration date”, as Christoph Heubner, Vice-President of the International Auschwitz Committee put it. Berger protests against his deportation to a judge. ‘After 75 years it’s ridiculous – I can not believe it. You force me out of my house. “Welcome to the Holocaust, Mr. Berger. Victoria Shorr is the author of the novel The Plum Trees, a story of loss and survival during the Holocaust. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now in! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you.Learn more.