BERLIN
(JTA) -- Former SS member Heinrich Boere was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison for killing three civilians in
Nazi-occupied Holland.
Boere, 88, had admitted to the district court in Aachen,
Germany, that he shot the three in 1944, but insisted he
was following military orders and could have faced imprisonment
in a concentration camp or the death penalty if he refused.
The shootings were ordered in reprisal for attacks carried
out by the Dutch resistance.
Lead judge Gerd Nohl said that the murders were of "practically
incomparable maliciousness and cowardice -- beyond the decency
of any soldier," according to German news reports. The
defendant, who is half German and half Dutch, was an enthusiastic
National Socialist and handed over fellow citizens to be
executed, the judge said.
Efraim Zuroff, Israel director and chief Nazi hunter for
the Simon Wiesenthal Center, praised the efforts of prosecutor
Ulrich Maas and said the trial proved that Holocaust perpetrators
could still be held accountable for their crimes.
“The conviction of Boere, who volunteered to join
the SS and openly admitted the crimes he committed, is an
important reminder that the overwhelming majority of the
murderers of the Holocaust did so willingly and without any
coercion whatsoever," Zuroff said in a statement.
"Despite the passage of decades, this trial clearly
shows that Nazi war criminals can still be brought to justice
if there is political will to do so, which unfortunately
is not the case in most European countries,” he said.
Zuroff has been among many observers of the ongoing trial
in Munich of John Demjanjuk, 89, for involvement in more
than 29,000 murders in the Sobibor death camp.
Boere had told Focus magazine last year that he was following
orders.
"It was not difficult: You just had to bend a finger," he
said.
After the war, Boere was found guilty of murder in Holland
and fled to Germany, where he took on German citizenship.
Meanwhile, the Dutch death sentence was commuted to a life
sentence.
jta.org
|