Former Auschwitz Guard Asks God for Forgiveness at Trial
A 94-year-old former SS sergeant who served in Auschwitz says he helped the death camp function in his role sorting cash and valuables seized from Jews after they arrived in cattle-cars.
In a statement read by his attorney, Oskar Groening told the Lueneburg state court Wednesday that his blind obedience to the Nazi system meant that he never rebelled against the killings at the camp in German-occupied Poland, the news agency reported.
He said: "I can only ask my God for forgiveness."
Pleas are not entered in the German system. But as his trial on 300,000 ｃounts of accessory to murder opened in April Groening said he felt a moral guilt for what he had done.
He faces a possible three to 15 years in prison if convicted.
VOCABULARY:
1. Auschwitz - was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
2. blind obedience - if a person in authority makes a decision or gives a command, that decision or command should be followed without question simply because a person in authority gave it
3. moral guilt - a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.
DISCUSSION:
1. If someone did you wrong, do you think time would make it easier to forgive that person?
2. For sins committed that changed the lives of a lot of people, do you think time that had passes somehow lessen the grief that it caused?
3.What are your views on forgiveness?
