Auschwitz guard of 94 is charged

A MAN of 94 who served as a guard at Auschwitz has been charged as an accessory to the murder of more than 13,000 people.

The unnamed former SS man has been charged as a juvenile because he was 19 when deployed to the Nazi extermination camp in late 1942 and early 1943.

Using camp records, prosecutors calculate he was on duty when 13,335 people were gassed at the camp near Krakow in German-occupied Poland.

A court in Mannheim, south-west Germany, must now decide whether to order a trial of the 94 year old, a German national born in Serbia.

His prosecution is another late attempt to make surviving death camp personnel answer for their crimes. Last month former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening died aged 96 before he could serve a four-year jail sentence for his role as an accessory to the murder of 300,000.