Former Nazi Guard, 89, Dies Before Trial in Germany

[Behind the Aegis]

BERLIN — A former Nazi guard accused of aiding in the murder of 430,000 Jews at the Belzec death camp — and of personally shooting dead 10 people — died in his home near Bonn before he could stand trial next year, German court officials announced Monday.

The former guard, Samuel Kunz, 89, died on Nov. 18 while under indictment on charges related to his actions at the death camp, in occupied Poland, from January 1942 through July 1943. A statement by the district court in Bonn, where Mr. Kunz was to go on trial, said the death certificate was presented on Monday to the prosecutors in Dortmund and to the court.

“At least he was exposed and charged, and that is a measure of justice,” Efraim Zuroff, the lead Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said from his office in Jerusalem. “His family knows. His neighbors know. The whole world knows who he was and what he did.”

Mr. Kunz’s death served as the latest reminder that time is forcing shut a door in history. And it comes amid a growing sense of concern within the Jewish community here that remembering the Holocaust will become less of a priority as there are fewer of the living with direct experience of the Third Reich and its crimes.

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[azurnoir]

1. It's too bad he passed away

before the trial, hopefully there will be a special place in hell or he'll be reborn as a KolKata beggar who's value as such needs to be raised