A 97-year-old lady is contesting her sentence in Germany for helping to commit more than 10,000 killings while serving as the Nazis’ camp commander at Stutthof during World War II.
Irmgard Furchner received a two-year suspended sentence from the Itzehoe state court on December 20 for being an accessory to murder in 10,505 cases and in addition to attempted murder in five cases.
The defense and an attorney for a co-plaintiff both submitted appeals to the Federal Court of Justice, the court reported on Wednesday.
When the federal court will consider the case is not yet known.
Furchner was charged with participating in the system that made the camp in Danzig, today the Polish city of Gdansk, run well from June 1943 until April 1945.
The case was based on a recent German legal precedent that permits the prosecution of anyone who assisted in the operation of Nazi death camps and concentration camps as an accessory to the murders committed there, even in the absence of proof of involvement in a specific homicide.
Furchner’s defense attorneys had sought her acquittal, alleging that the lack of proof of intent necessary for criminal responsibility prevented them from proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Furchner was aware of the Stutthof camp’s systematic executions.
Furchner’s failure to detect the killings in Stutthof was described as “just beyond all imagination” by presiding Judge Dominik Gross when he delivered the verdict.
Furchner was 18 and 19 years old when the alleged offenses allegedly occurred, and the court could not prove with certainty her “maturity of mind” at the time. As a result, she was tried in juvenile court.
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