Ex-SS guard apologizes to Holocaust victims ahead of verdict

A 93-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard apologizes to Holocaust victims at a Hamburg court Monday, ahead of the verdict in a high-profile trial over his complicity in World War II atrocities.

“Today I would like to apologize to those who went through the hell of this madness, as well as to their relatives. Something like this must never happen again,” says Bruno Dey from the dock.

In what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards, Dey stands accused of complicity in the murder of 5,230 people when he worked as an SS tower guard at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland.

The court is expected to issue its verdict on Thursday.

Prosecutors have sought a prison sentence of three years.

But in his summary on Monday, Dey’s defense lawyer Stefan Waterkamp asks the court for an acquittal or a suspended sentence, saying his client “would not survive” jail.

Dey himself has denied any guilt for what happened at the camp, and said that the trial had “cost a lot of strength.”

“I would like to stress again that I would never have voluntarily signed up to the SS or any other unit — especially not in a concentration camp,” he says in his final statements before the court delivers its verdict.

“If I had seen an opportunity to remove myself from service, I would have done so.”

— AFP