Alleged Auschwitz guard on trial

The Lüneburg state court said Tuesday that its review of the prosecution's case against Oskar G. determined that there was enough evidence to proceed with the trial. The starting date has not been announced.

State prosecutors have accused the man of working as a volunteer at Auschwitz over a two-month period in 1944, where he was employed to confiscate the luggage and money of prisoners who arrived at the camp.

During the two months in question, an estimated 137 trains arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp, carrying 425,000 people, mostly from Hungary. At least 300,000 of them were murdered immediately.

"The accused knew that, as part of the selection process, those not chosen for work and told they were going to the showers were really going to the gas chambers where they would be put to death in an agonizing manner," the court said in a previous statement issued in September.

Some 16 survivors or relatives of survivors have come forward, the court said, eight of whom have been accepted as witnesses.

Some 6 million Jews as well as Roma, homosexuals, the disabled and other opponents to the Nazis were put to death during Nazi rule between 1933 and 1945. 70 years later, however, most suspects are either unfit for trial or have died.

ksb/es (Reuters, AP, dpa)