Oskar Groning Former German SS Unterscharführer who worked as an accountant at the Auschwitz concentration camp Date of Birth: 10.06.1921 Country: Germany

Biography of Oskar Groening

Oskar Groening, a former SS Untersturmführer who worked as an accountant at Auschwitz concentration camp, was sentenced to four years in prison on July 15, 2015. Groening was born on June 10, 1921, in Lower Saxony, Germany, to a conservative family. His mother died when he was four years old, and his father, a proud nationalist, joined the "Steel Helmet, Front Fighter's Union" after Germany's defeat in World War I.

In 1930, at the age of 9, Groening joined the "Steel Helmet" youth organization and three years later, he joined the Hitler Youth when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Influenced by his family, Groening believed that Nazism was beneficial to Germany and that the Nazis were working for the betterment of their country. At the age of 17, he began an apprenticeship as a bank clerk but was soon drafted into the army. Joining the Waffen-SS in 1940, Groening was satisfied with his role as an accountant, while his father was disappointed that he had become a desk rat.

In 1942, when Groening's position was given to a "disabled veteran," he was transferred to Berlin, where he was assigned to one of the SS economic departments. Later, Groening took an oath of secrecy, was put on a train, and sent to Auschwitz, a place he had never heard of before. One of the officers found Groening's banking skills useful and assigned him to the barracks where the belongings and money of the prisoners were stored. Groening was told that the money would be returned to the owners when they were liberated. However, it soon became clear that Auschwitz was not a regular internment camp but a place of systematic extermination of Jews.

Groening's duties included sorting and counting various currencies confiscated from incoming deportees. He claimed to be shocked when he learned about the process of mass extermination happening within the camp's walls. However, he later became somewhat desensitized and began to accept it as a normal part of his job. Despite his bureaucratic role, Groening could not escape witnessing the horrors of Auschwitz. Recounting one particular incident, he said, "A baby was crying. He lay on the ramp, wrapped in rags. The mother had abandoned him, probably knowing that women with infants are sent straight to the gas chamber. I saw an SS soldier grab the baby by the legs. The crying annoyed him. He smashed the infant's head against the iron edge of a truck, and it fell silent."

Shocked by what he saw, Groening went to his superior officer, stating that he could no longer remain at Auschwitz, and suggested that if the extermination of Jews was necessary, it should be done within certain limits. However, his senior officer ignored him. In 1942, Groening and his fellow soldiers woke up in their SS barracks on the outskirts of Birkenau to an alarm. Several Jews, who were prepared for the gas chambers, had escaped and were hiding in the forest. Groening and others were ordered to arm themselves and track down the escapees. When they arrived at the area where the usual execution of prisoners took place, Groening witnessed SS officers and the dead bodies of seven or eight escaped prisoners. Later, he was instructed to disperse to the barracks, but Groening and others decided to wander in the shadows of the forest. They witnessed an SS officer putting on a gas mask, opening a canister of the pesticide "Zyklon B," and throwing it into the mesh of one of the buildings' walls. Groening immediately heard the noise from inside, which turned into a horrifying scream that subsided after a minute. Later, one of his comrades showed him the remains of the burned bodies in a pit.

After this incident, Groening went to complain, but his boss, an SS Untersturmführer, reminded him of his oath. In 1944, Groening joined the Waffen-SS combat unit in the Ardennes. He was wounded and sent to a field hospital before returning to his unit, which surrendered to the British on June 10, 1945, Groening's birthday.

To conceal his involvement with Auschwitz, where "human rights were not always observed," Groening pretended to be a member of the WVHA unit, which oversaw all SS economic activities. He and his comrades were imprisoned in a former Nazi concentration camp, from where he was taken to Britain in 1946 as a "forced laborer."

In Britain, Groening lived a comfortable life, earned money, and traveled around the Midlands and Scotland. For four months, he performed in concerts, singing German anthems and English folk songs to the delight of the British audience. Upon gaining his freedom, Groening returned to Germany in 1947 or 1948.

Reuniting with his wife, he said, "Darling, do me a favor: don't ask me about anything." Groening was unable to find work in a bank due to his involvement with the SS, so he settled for a job at a glassworks factory. Eventually, he became the head of the personnel department at work and an honorary judge in the labor court.

After the war, Groening tried to lead a normal life. He collected stamps and belonged to a philatelist club. More than forty years later, at one of the club's annual gatherings, Groening heard someone lamenting that Holocaust denial was being criminally prosecuted in Germany. The person argued that it was impossible to burn so many bodies and that such volumes of gas would have killed everything within a few kilometers.

Unable to remain silent any longer, Groening openly spoke about his experiences. He stated, "I have seen everything. Gas chambers, cremations, the selection process. One and a half million Jews were killed at Auschwitz. I was there." Groening received calls and letters from strangers trying to convince him that what he had seen was a "big mistake, a terrible hallucination."

Finally coming out of the shadows, Groening openly acknowledged his experiences. He confessed that the screams from the gas chambers still haunted him. He acknowledged his guilt towards the Jewish people and asked for forgiveness from God and the Jews. Groening claimed that he never personally participated in any of the crimes.

However, in September 2014, it was revealed that Groening was being charged with complicity in the murders at Auschwitz – specifically, for aiding in the processing and confiscation of prisoners' personal belongings. On July 15, 2015, the elderly Groening was found guilty of being an accessory to the mass murders and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of experiments at Auschwitz, expressed her dissatisfaction with the court's decision, saying, "The court tried to teach a lesson: if you commit this kind of crime, you will be punished. But I don't think the court did the right thing by sentencing him to four years in prison. It's too late for that punishment."

She added, "I would have preferred him to be sentenced to community service, which would involve speaking out against neo-Nazis. I would like the court to explain to me, a survivor of the concentration camp, who and what will benefit from four years of his imprisonment."