February 10, 2015 6:42 pm globalnews.ca
Exclusive: Toronto Holocaust survivor set to testify in final Nazi trial
By Sean Mallen

For decades Hedy Bohm could not bear to speak about her experience at Auschwitz, unwilling to probe the searing memory of how she was separated from her parents upon arrival in 1944, never to see them again.

But now at 86-years-old she is not only talking about it, she is ready to travel to Germany and testify under oath in what could be the final prosecution of a Nazi war criminal.

“My feeling was that too many of the most cruel ones and the most influential ones managed to escape,” she told Global News in an interview in her Toronto apartment.

Oskar Groening, a 93-year-old former SS officer, faces 300,000 counts of aiding and abetting murder, an estimate that corresponds with the number of Hungarian Jews killed at the death camp.  Nicknamed the “accountant of Auschwitz,” Groening did not participate directly in the slaughter—his role was to oversee the theft of belongings and money from doomed Jews upon arrival, and then tabulating the amounts.

“He has been a cog in the machinery,” said Thomas Walther, a German lawyer who is representing Auschwitz survivors at the trial.  “He should be convicted of aiding and abetting of murder.”

Only recently have cases like Groening’s come to trial in Germany. The prosecution of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-American who was extradited and convicted in 2011 of being an accessory to murder for his actions while a guard at the Nazi death camp near Sobibor, Poland opened the door to similar trials.  Demjanjuk died before his appeal could be heard, meaning technically he remains innocent, but a legal precedent was set, opening the door to charging Groening.

“If we would have had that (precedent) let’s say 50, 40, 30 years ago there would have been hundreds, maybe thousands of trials against former Nazi war criminals,” said Per Hinrichs, a reporter for the German newspaper Die Welt.

Walther was the lead investigator in the Demjanjuk case. Hinrichs said that he is given much of the credit for the change in German law that led to the prosecution of Groening.  Walther has spent the last nine years working on Nazi cases and said that, at most, there are two other people aside from Groening who could still be prosecuted, but given their advanced ages they may never go to court.

“The German justice system could do the right things after a long time when they did the wrong things. Justice,” said Walther, who was in Toronto last week to speak to Bohm and other Auschwitz survivors who are potential witnesses.

None of them actually met Groening, although they were at the camp at the same time.  Walther says their role will be to paint a “mosaic” of life and death at Auschwitz and, in a way, to honour their experience and that of the victims.

“Also giving back face, or giving back voice, honour, yes and dignity,” he said.

Bohm was attracted by the idea of pursuing those who previously avoided prosecution by claiming they had only followed orders.

“Then I decided, yes, definitely, I’d like to be part of this,” she said.

“It hurt to know that those people who did all these terrible things managed to escape and have a good life.”

Ironically, Oskar Groening has more recently gained prominence by speaking out against the lies of Holocaust deniers, giving interviews as an old man to affirm that he was a witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, expressing regret but insisting he was innocent of any crime. Walther said Groening’s actions could mitigate the severity of the sentence if he is convicted, but do not excuse him from prosecution.

As Hedy Bohm learns more about the former SS officer, her view of him has become more nuanced.

“From what I learned about the man I actually feel sorry for him and I think he probably is not one of the worst,” she said. “But he will have to pay the price.”

Groening’s trial is scheduled to begin April 21 in the small city of Lüneburg, near Hamburg. Bohm should know by the end of February whether she will be called to testify.

globalnews.ca