A 97-year-old woman who worked as a secretary in a Nazi concentration camp was convicted on Tuesday of her role in the murder of thousands of people in what could be one of the last trials for crimes committed during World War Two. .
A court in the northern German city of Itzehoe has sentenced Irmgard Furchner to a suspended two-year prison sentence for aiding and abetting the murder of 10,505 people and the attempted murder of five others, according to a court spokesman. .
The prosecution originally charged Furchner with assisting in the murders of 11,412 people. She was brought into court wearing a cream-colored winter coat and beret, with a blanket over her lap.
In a statement at the conclusion of the trial earlier this month, Furchner said he was sorry for what had happened and regretted having worked, between 1943 and 1945, in the Stutthof concentration camp, located near Gdansk, Poland.
About 65,000 people, including prisoners of war and Jews captured in the Nazi extermination campaign, died of starvation and disease or in the gas chamber at Stutthof.
The start of Furchner’s trial was scheduled for September 2021, but was postponed after the accused briefly fled. She was caught hours after failing to appear in court. The former secretary was convicted under the juvenile law, because she was between 18 and 19 years old at the time of the crimes.
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