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Germany Arrests 93-Year-Old 'Auschwitz Guard'

Barbed wire encloses the concentration camp of Aushwitz-Birkenau in Krakow, Poland.
Chris Jackson
/
Getty Images
Barbed wire encloses the concentration camp of Aushwitz-Birkenau in Krakow, Poland.

German authorities have arrested a 93-year-old man they say served as a guard at the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Hans Lipschis was deported from the United States to Germany after U.S. authorities found that he lied about his past.

The AP reports:

"Lipschis was taken into custody after authorities concluded there was 'compelling evidence' he was involved in crimes at Auschwitz while there from 1941 to 1945, prosecutor Claudia Krauth said.

"Lipschis has acknowledged being assigned to an SS guard unit at Auschwitz but maintains he only served as a cook and was not involved in any war crimes."

Krauth decided that there was enough evidence to hold Lipschis, while charges of on accessory to murder are filed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center listed Lipschis as one of its most wanted Nazi war criminal.

The BBC has a bit more on the case:

"[Lipschis] has told neighbors and reporters he worked only as a cook and saw nothing of the gas chambers and crematoria.

"One German newspaper has previously reported that Mr Lipschis, who was born in what is now Lithuania in 1919, finished World War II fighting for Germany on the eastern front.

"He moved to Chicago in the U.S. in 1956, where he lived until 1983, when he was expelled for having concealed his Nazi past. At the time it could not be proved that he was personally responsible for any killings."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.