Posted on 06/18/2014 6:39:36 PM PDT by re_tail20
Johann Breyer, 89, shuffled unsteadily into a federal courtroom here on Wednesday morning, using a cane for support as he sunk slowly into a chair at the defense table.
The retired toolmaker from what was then Czechoslovakia, who immigrated to the United States in 1952, was thin and pale and dressed in a green jail uniform after a night spent in lockup following his arrest at his home in Philadelphia. He looked confused at times, too, but when the judge asked him if he understood why the German authorities wanted to put him on trial there, he answered simply, “Yes.”
Nothing about his demeanor suggested the long-ago secrets that the authorities in both Germany and the United States say Mr. Breyer has carried with him for 70 years. As an armed guard at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz and a member of the notorious SS “Death’s Head” battalion, the authorities charged Wednesday that Mr. Breyer was complicit in the gassing of 216,000 Jews brought there in 1944 from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
The Germans, seeking to have him extradited to the Wieden district to stand trial, have charged him with 158 counts of “aiding and abetting” in murder — one count for each of the 158 trainloads of Jews brought to the killing center at Auschwitz in a six-month span. Most of the so-called deportees, including many thousands of women, children and old people, were killed in gas chambers almost immediately after arriving at Auschwitz, then cremated.
Mr. Breyer acknowledged two decades ago, when first questioned by the American authorities, that he had worked as a guard at Auschwitz, but he said that he did so “involuntarily” and that he had nothing to do with the gassings....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Too bad he wasn’t a guard at Stalins Gulag, liberals would have ran him for POTUS.
Yes, it happened. Yes, it was horrible. The guy is 89 years old. Just leave him alone. He cannot pay for the sins of a whole evil regime. Have him apologize for his part in the mess and be done with it.
There...I said it.
Eastern Europe in the 30’s and 40’s... every choice you had was a bad one.
No statute of limitations on crimes like this
Send his sorry a$$ back to Germany as soon as possible before he dies here and stains the soil.
I think you are right.
I’m not saying that time has healed this wound... I’m saying that to me it seems wrong to prosecute a very old man for something he did so very long ago.
I’m from German Jewish stock on my father’s side of the family.... I say leave this alone. To put this old man through the legal system at this late date seems a bit Les Miserables to me.
Give him the “red pill” that Zero likes and let him get it over with.
So? Why does living long enough make a difference in consequences? He was 69 when he lied about it....too much of a pansy to own up to it then. Karma is a b*tch....now he’s 89...so what?
C’mon
The guy’s retired!
/s
We aren't...and the guy was too much of a pansy to pony up the truth. Sucks to suck....he lived a helluva lot longer than anyone he shoved into an oven. Not crying a river at all. He can reap what he has sown.
Verdict first, then trial?
Nobody said, "Oh, it was so long ago. He's 89 years old. What's the harm now?"
Crimes against humanity require the whole generation who participated to pay.
-PJ
When does George Soros go to jail?
Dude, that was like 70 years ago!
Damn right! I’ll never understand these folks who think old nazis should get a pass. We should have executed everyone who ever wore an SS uniform.
You are wrong. “Mr. Breyer acknowledged two decades ago, when first questioned by the American authorities, that he had worked as a guard at Auschwitz, but he said that he did so “involuntarily” and that he had nothing to do with the gassings.”
In other words, “what difference does it make”?
Thank you for appearing for jury duty.
You’re dismissed.
AMEN !! I ask the same question.
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