German Trial of Former SS Auschwitz Medic Postponed Again

BERLIN (AP) —
FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2012 file photo the entrance with the inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Sets You Free) gate of the former German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz is pictured at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial in Oswiecim, Poland. A 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp is going on trial Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016 on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder, the first of up to four cases being brought to court this year in an 11th-hour push by German prosecutors to punish Nazi war crimes. Reinhold Hanning is accused of serving as an SS Unterscharfuehrer _ similar to a sergeant _ in Auschwitz from January 1943 to June 1944, a time when hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were brought to the camp in cattle cars and were gassed to death. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)
The entrance with the inscription “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate of the former German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)

The trial of a former SS medic who served at the Auschwitz death camp has again been postponed after a doctor said the 95-year-old remains unfit to appear before the court.

The Neubrandenburg state court said a doctor had determined before the scheduled opening Monday that Hubert Zafke was suffering multiple ailments including high blood pressure, the DPA news agency reported.

The trial’s opening was already postponed two weeks ago for similar reasons. The court is now asking that Zafke undergo a full exam in a hospital.

Prosecutors asked that doctors also check whether Zafke might be taking something causing his blood pressure to spike.

Zafke is accused of 3,681 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly helping the Nazi camp function. His attorney says he did nothing criminal.

 

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