Former Nazi who rounded up Jews as they arrived at Auschwitz complains of the hell HE is enduring… because his pension has been cut by £47 a month

Jakob Wendel, 91, complained that he was being punished 70 years after the Holocaust and insisted that he bears no responsibility or guilt for his role in the atrocity
Erstveröffentlicht: 
03.11.2014

- Former SS guard Jakob Wendel, 91, claims he was a victim of the regime too - He insists he bears no responsibility or guilt for his role in the Holocaust - Wendel served just five years for the part he played in mass exterminations - Father-of-three lives in a large apartment on an affluent estate near Stuttgart

 

One of Hitler's former SS henchman who rounded up Jews at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp has insisted that he is a victim - after his pension was cut by £47 a month.

Jakob Wendel, 91, complained that he was being punished 70 years after the Holocaust and said that he bears no responsibility or guilt for his role in the atrocity.

A law was passed making it possible to dock the pensions of those who violated 'principles of humanity' during the period of Nazi rule.

 

Wendel, who served just five years for the part he played in the mass exterminations, spoke to a German magazine about his role unloading the trains at Auschwitz on condition of anonymity.


But The Sun has named the former Nazi, and he complained to the newspaper about losing the £47 of his pension.

 

He said: 'I was a victim of the regime too.

'I was robbed of ten years of my life by the German army. Around here, not many people know about it - I don't want them to know about it.

'Why should I be held responsible after 70 years?'

 

The father-of-three now lives with his wife in a large apartment on an affluent estate near Stuttgart, in southern Germany.

He was one of 30 surviving Nazis targeted in 2013 as accessories to multiple murder, because the former SS man's role in the the selection committee at Auschwitz was deemed so significant.

But German prosecutors were forced to abandon the case last month because Wendel had already served five years over the part he played in the Holocaust after he was sentenced by a Polish court in 1948.

 

The punishment would have been greater but Jewish survivors sent to identify their captors after the war did not pick him out from the ranks of PoWs.

Wendel, who is originally from Germany grew up near Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and was drafted into the SS in 1942 when he was 19. 

He was posted at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for two and a half years until 1945.

The former Nazi avoided justice in the 1970s when he lied to prosecutors and failed to mention he was part of the selection committee at Auschwitz.

The infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was originally used to house Polish political prisoners, but from spring 1942, it became the largest site for the murder of Jews. More than 1.1 million men, women, and children lost their lives there.

But Wendel remained unrepentant when he spoke to The Sun.

 

He said: 'I sleep soundly because I did not do anything wrong. I knew it was a gas chamber. I never saw what happened inside, but you knew what they were.

'Many people arrived in trains and no one left. I never saw how they were killed in there but I knew no one came out.

'I can remember the smoke and the smell. I knew it was people burning. I never thought it was good, but I couldn't do anything.'

Campaigners last night called for him to pay for the crimes he committed at the concentration camp.

Dr Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center human rights organisation, said: 'I would like to see him put on trial and to end his miserable life in a prison cell.'

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October 1, 2014      


Wiesenthal Center Submits Names of 80 Youngest Nazi Death Squad Members to German Authorities in Hopes of Expediting Einsatzgruppen Investigations


Jerusalem–The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced here today that it had submittedto the German ministers of justice (Heiko Maas) and the interior (Thomas de Maiziere) a list of 80 persons (76 men and 4 women) who had served in the notorious Nazi Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads), which murdered more than a million Jews by shooting in areas of the Soviet Union during the Holocaust.

In a statement issued here today by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. EfraimZuroff, the Center explained that the suspects in question were the youngest members of the mobile killing squads listed in documents in the Center's possession.

According to Zuroff:

"The individuals whose names we submitted to the German ministers were all born between 1920 and 1924 and constitute the suspects most likely to still be alive and healthy enough to face prosecution. The list was submitted in the hope of encouraging the German judicial authorities to expedite the efforts to bring these killers to justice and to offer the Center's assistance in this important project."

Background: Following the May 2011 conviction in Germany of Sobibor death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk solely on the basis of his service in the camp, German prosecutors began searching for death camp guards and death squad members, who could now be brought to trial without proof that they had committed a specific crime against a specific victim (as had been the case in Germany for the previous fifty years). During the past year, German prosecutors had announced locating more than fifty death camp guards, but not a single member of a death squad.

For more information call 00-972-50-721 4156
www.operationlastchance.org       www.wiesenthal.com