{"id":39466,"date":"2015-04-23T10:14:36","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T15:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=39466"},"modified":"2015-04-23T10:14:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T15:14:36","slug":"who-caught-the-bookkeeper-of-auschwitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/who-caught-the-bookkeeper-of-auschwitz\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Caught the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gronig\"Anything but the banality of evil.<\/p>\n

This week, Oskar Gr\u00f6ning, 93, nicknamed \u201cthe bookkeeper of Auschwitz,\u201d went to trial in Germany for his complicity in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews over the summer in 1944. The trial is different from previous trials of Nazis since it isn\u2019t about proving that Gr\u00f6ning was a part of the German war-machine that killed one million Jews in Auschwitz alone; he has already admitted it. As The New York Times<\/a> describes his statements in the courtroom:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018It is beyond question that I am morally complicit. This moral guilt I acknowledge here, before the victims, with regret and humility.\u2019 He asked for forgiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most interesting element of the whole trial is how Gr\u00f6ning\u2019s actions came to light. Elizabeth Kolbert, journalist and recent Pulitzer-prize winner<\/a>, details the story in an article in the New Yorker<\/a> about Germany\u2019s failure to bring war criminals to justice. Gr\u00f6ning, a devoted philatelist, met a fellow stamp collector who was a Holocaust denier. When the Holocaust denier sent him a pamphlet called \u201cThe Auschwitz Lie,\u201d Gr\u00f6ning felt \u201cfelt compelled to point out that the supposed \u2018lies\u2019 were true\u2026 He should know, since he was there.\u201d Eventually, his comments appeared in an extreme right-wing magazine and after receiving angry calls from neo-Nazis, he wrote a manuscript about his experiences and then sat for interviews with Der Speigel<\/em> and the BBC.<\/p>\n

Gr\u00f6ning claimed that he tried to transfer out of Auschwitz three times. After his third attempt he was sent into combat where he was shot in the foot. Once during his time in the camp, a young child was found in the garbage. From the New Yorker<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cA guard pulled the child by the legs, and \u2018when it screamed, like a sick chicken, they bashed it against the side of a truck, so it would shut up.\u2019”<\/p>\n

He claimed that he complained\u00a0to his superior in that case but nothing was done.<\/p>\n

The Guardian caught this stunning exchange<\/a> during the trial:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen minutes later the judge, Franz Kompisch, adjourned the proceedings for lunch, Gr\u00f6ning unpacked his plastic box and removed a cheese sandwich from its foil. As he ate, he was approached in the virtually empty courtroom by a woman pushing a walking frame.<\/p>\n

Eighty-one-year-old Eva Mozes Kor, an Auschwitz survivor and writer who had travelled from Terre Haute in Indiana for the trial in the north German town, said to him: \u201cMr Gr\u00f6ning, I have much sympathy for you. I know this is mentally, physically and emotionally hard for you and I think you are courageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t really much to be done \u2014 even if he is convicted, at 93, Gr\u00f6ning won\u2019t survive very long. One survivor recommended that he be sent to schools to talk about his experiences during the war. But his case does shine a light on post-War Germany\u2019s willingness to forget about the culpability of its citizens. In a life where he abetted the murder of more than 300,000 innocents, Gr\u00f6ning\u00a0coming forward is only moral and courageous thing he has done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anything but the banality of evil. This week, Oskar Gr\u00f6ning, 93, nicknamed \u201cthe bookkeeper of Auschwitz,\u201d went to trial in Germany for his complicity in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews over the summer in 1944. The trial is different from previous trials of Nazis since it isn\u2019t about proving that Gr\u00f6ning was a part<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":730,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nWho Caught the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz? - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/who-caught-the-bookkeeper-of-auschwitz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who Caught the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz? - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anything but the banality of evil. 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