Former concentration camp guard deported to DE

Amazing story. 84-year-old widow sent back to Germany after it was discovered that she had worked as a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her husband was a German Jew who fled the Holocaust.

Guardian: Shameful secret of the Nazi camp guard who married a Jew

I actually think that is a really sad story.

I agree.

I was discussing this with my Ma yesterday (she leaves near San Francisco). It appears that the authorities say that this woman may be buried in the US, just not live there. So what happens when she dies? Her husband bought the plot for the two of them - should his wishes be respected or the feelings of the relatives of those buried there and of her victims who don't know where their relatives are buried?

all a bit knee-jerk if you ask me. Did any one bother to actually find out if she joined the SS volunarily or whether she was one of the thousands of women from all over Germany who were conscripted into it to replace the men who had to go off to fight the ruskies?

It is not always so black and white.

I daresay such things were looked into OG. But these things happened 50 years ago. I really wonder whose life is made better by exposing this old lady and causing such pain to her relatives who have lived presumably quite happy for years in ignorance.

That's a really difficult question.. do you think her family feels betrayed? I mean, she had children and grandchildren that loved her their whole lives, along with her husband.. Would you feel betrayed as her child/grandchild?

This quote is really interesting at the end of the article:


It's like that book Der Vorleser/The Reader.. A lot of people regret what they did, which was often involuntary or forced upon them, and just want to move on with their lives.. do people have to serve time in order to be forgiven? I don't know.

I think she has suffered enough. Being made to live in America for 60 years I think was sufficient punishment, and it is only fair that she is now allowed parole to come home to die.

The main message of the survivors of concentration camps is that they have forgiven the SS guards but they don't want future generations to forget how they suffered. What has happened does not seem to promote this motto. As the article states, due to the statute of limitations in Germany, she can't be "brought to justice" for her crimes anyway. I'm not too sure what purpose her deportation from the U.S. actually serves.

Same logic that barred Austria's president Waldheim from returning to the US - he had belonged to a criminal organization 50 years ago. The US didn't (and doesn't) want to become a safe haven for war criminals.
(Yeah, I know, they have their own)

and the Americans and the Australians and the Canadians and hey, even the British.

hmm, I've always thought it odd odd that the US didn't notice Waldheim's Nazi past for any of the nine years he was resident in New York as the Secretary General of the UN

I think that if they had made a big thing about it - this was during the last years of the Cold War - the Eastern Block would have pointed out how many more former Nazis made brilliant political careers in Germany and Austria.
Austria or better an Austrian politician was a "safe" choice for the office at the time due to the "declaration of neutrality" clause in the Austrian constitution.

as Secretary General of the UN he would have diplomatic immunity so there would have been toss all the americans could have done, so why bother stirring up a hornets nest.

Interesting discussion, and obviously a tragic case for the family and any one else who is personally involved. Good to see victors justice alive and well after 60 years

*******

A slightly exaggerated parallel for you to consider...

in 2051 lively old Osama who has long ago forsaken his errant youthful global jihad is found living well into old age with his loving doting family around him in the sticks of Pakistan

Do we nail his ass or let him be?

i guess that depends on whether he married a 11/9 survivor or not.

That isn't even close to a parallel. Absolutely ludicrous.

Osama parallels to Hitler, not to some lowly guard who might very well have been shot for refusing to be a guard.

i agree, an entirely ridiculous parallel. I'm not in any way trying to judge what she has or has not done - if the rest of the country is joining in the war effort why shouldnt she (voluntarily or otherwise)

However the basic underlying point remains the same. If she would have been nailed for it in 1945, should she be nailed for it in 2006?

If the answer is no... at which point do crimes stop counting? 10 yrs after, 20 yrs after? When they become nice cuddly people and get on with a peaceful quiet life?

Look at all the lovely committed Christians you find on Death Row 20 years after their crime. Are they a danger to society? Not at all. Are many of them full of remorse and committed to making up for their errors? You bet they are

But they are there because they crossed the line, and society needs to show people that if they cross the line there is no way back. Otherwise the deterrent effect of the consequence of doing wrong disappears.

So what about camp guard equivalents from Bosnia, Rwanda etc? When are you happy to stop chasing them? 2015? a little bit later?

he also had diplomatic immunity as President of Austria though surely?

When the statute of limitations says they stop counting, exactly the reason this woman can't be charged with whatever war crimes she may or may not have commited.

The minute that you can prove that you are truly rehabilitated. Sitting on death row and finding Jesus is not what I would call being rehabilitated. 20+ years of living as a model cititzen has to be taken into account and comes a hell of a lot closer to proving rehabilitation.

errrr no. Most legal systems have a statute of limitations for most, if not all, crimes. Her crime was limited by Germany's statute. However her residential status in the US was granted because she ommitted (and therefore lied) about where she worked. I believe it is standard practice for the US immigration authorities to revoke residency permits if the applicant lied. However, common sense would suggest that nothing is to be gained by making this woman pack her bags and leave the country.

errrr yes. I was answering a hypothetical question with my viewpoint as was requested.

As for the actual law, the statute of limitations is a fairly bogus concept when one continues to not be a model citizen.

a very forgiving approach to life. Do something bad, say sorry, I'll be a good boy for a wee while and that makes it alright then, no punishment required

statute of limitations - do war crimes fall into statute of limitations under the current international war crime legislation? (not specifically relevant to this little granny)

Jonnyboy, she hasn't been charged with a crime, she hasn't been tried in a court of law, she hasn't been found guilty of war crimes. You can't even prove she's done anything "bad" (as you put it) except lying on her immigration forms. It's too late to find evidence that will act as proof. That's one reason why the statute of limitations exists, after a certain period of time evidence will become inconclusive.

Nothing to do with repentence and catholicism. Stop stirring the pot.

I am still trying to figure out under what laws they are managing to try Saddam Hussein?

Like we can assume that he had immunity from prosecution under his own laws, and I don't see how you can try someone for a law that was not in place at the time.

Would be liking suddenly deciding we need to wear blue hats in public, and fining everyone for not wearing one yesterday.

He seem to be getting prosecuted under Iraqi law, so do they have a specially-backdated-law-just-for-dictators kinda ruling?

Then again Guantanamo is a bloody mystery as well, so I guess if you got loads of cash and nuclear weapons you just make the rules up as you go along.

It seems worse that known war criminals are apparently getting away with murder because of legal loopholes.

Soeren Kam, 84, was arrested yesterday at his home in the Allgaeu, and is currently locked up in Stadelheim while the Munich High Court decides whether he can be extradited to Denmark for trial.

Kam (German Wikipedia Entry) was born in Denmark and joined the Waffen-SS in 1941. In 1943 he was involved in the murder of a Danish journalist, but fled to Germany and, thanks to a measure introduced by Hitler, was granted German citizenship as a foreigner who had served in the Waffen-SS. This in turn has prevented him over the last decades from being extradited back to Denmark to face trial for the murder. (The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has been urging Germany to revoke citizenship granted in this way, but so far with little success).

Kam, the subject of a Danish documentary, “My Grandfather’s Murderer�, has been living in presumably relative peace and quiet in Bavaria, and was even spotted attending an NS event in Austria in 1995.

Previous attempts to have Kam extradited have proved unsuccessful: European Union legislation allows courts to call for the arrest and extradition of crime suspects from member states to attend trial in fellow EU countries. However the German constitutional court said it did not recognize the new European mandate, and ruled that Germany cannot extradite its nationals to other EU countries until Berlin introduces new legislation to that effect.

I’m not sure if new legislation has been introduced, so am curious to see what the Munich courts decide.

Doesnt EU law automatically override national law? I know that there is a window where the local government has time to actually enact the legislation, but after a while the EU law becomes law law

Jonnyboy, European directives need to be implemented into national law by the country's legislature before they become binding. EU regulations, by contrast, are immediately binding and do not require national legislation.

Direct effect vs. direct applicability.

Everyone knows that.

Nuts.

@ MTV
Yo man , good to see u back here , what's ur take on this ?

afik, I think they tweaked things a little when it all changed from the EEC to the EU. Now we have directives (need to be implemented in national law) and regulations (do not need to be implemented and are directly effective. Direct effective directives only comes into play when a member state has failed to implement the legislation within the agreed time-frame and the european court then rules the the directive to be direct effective.

so basically EU law becomes national law, it might just take a while?

well, with Directives each country normally has a little leaway as to how they interpret the directive so the laws don't actually always become identical bewteen member states.