Day: September 30, 2021

A 96-year-old woman who was due to go on trial for complicity in the murders of more than 11,000 people, and attempted murder of many others, has gone on the run, prompting German authorities to issue an arrest warrant.

On Thursday, a district court in Germany issued an arrest warrant for a 96-year-old woman who had worked as a secretary in a Nazi death camp between 1943 and 1945. The woman, Irmgard Furchner, was due to go on trial on Thursday on charges of complicity in murder at the Stutthof death camp, which sat on the Baltic coast in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. 

With the trial approaching, the elderly lady left her care home in a taxi and went to an underground station on Thursday morning, a spokeswoman for the district court said. Her whereabouts are now unknown. 

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Deutsche Welle reported that the announcement of her fleeing came as the court was preparing to start proceedings. If she is found, she will be brought to the court today and assessed to see if she is fit to stand trial, a Deutsche Welle reporter said, citing the arrest warrant.

She is charged with complicity in the deaths of 11,412 people and attempted murder of 18 others. The trial, if it goes ahead, will take place in the juvenile chamber of Itzehoe district court, close to Quickborn, north of Hamburg, as she was only 18 and 19 at the time of the alleged crimes. 

Prosecutors stated in their charge sheet that, between June 1943 and April 1945, Furchner “assisted those responsible at the camp in the systematic killing of Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war, in her role as a stenographer and secretary to the camp commander.”

She would be the first woman to stand trial in connection to atrocities committed by the Third Reich in decades. Her trial is partially the result of a 2011 verdict against camp guard John Demjanjuk, who was sentenced for aiding and abetting the murders of 28,000 people at the Sobibor death camp in Poland. The trial set the precedent that people could be held responsible for crimes committed at such camps, regardless of how small their role was.

It is understood that Furchner’s defense will argue that she was restricted to desk work.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he is willing to restore a hotline between the two Koreas, but he says Seoul must drop its “delusion” that its northern neighbor wants to cause it any harm or provoke.

North Korean state media KCNA reported on Thursday that Kim had expressed interest in reviving the severed telephone channels from October “as part of the efforts for realizing the expectations and desire of the entire Korean nation to see the earlier recovery of the north-south relations … and durable peace settling in the Korean peninsula.”

Speaking at the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim remarked that inter-Korean relations “stand at a crossroads”. According to him, ties must either take the course of advancing towards reconciliation and cooperation, or suffer national division “amid a vicious cycle of confrontation.”

Pyongyang refused to answer a routine call in August in protest over joint South Korea-US military drills being held, with Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, accusing Seoul of engaging in “perfidious behavior.”

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The refusal followed the reopening of the channel in June, after the connection had been severed a year earlier due to bad relations between the two countries. Following the decision to cut ties, North Korea blew up an inter-Korean border office in Kaesong that facilitated communication.

The North Korean leader now says that restoration depends on the attitude of Seoul’s authorities. He added that Pyongyang has “neither aim nor reason” to provoke its southerly neighbor.

“It is necessary for South Korea to promptly get rid of the delusion, crisis awareness and awareness of getting harmed that it should deter the North’s provocation.”

Kim also accused Seoul and the US of destroying the stability and balance of the peninsula and causing more complicated dangers through excessive military presence and activities.

Taking special aim at Washington, Kim accused the White House of proposing talks with Pyongyang without changing its “hostile policy” and even using “more cunning ways and methods.” However, the US rebuffed Kim’s claims and urged for the nation to return to dialogue, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

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North Korea has launched several projectiles in recent weeks, with Pyongyang firing a new “hypersonic missile” off its east coast on Tuesday. Earlier this month, one test reportedly involved deploying a long-range cruise missile, as well as a newly developed rail-borne warhead.

Seoul also recently fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile; Pyongyang blasted its southerly neighbor’s attempt as “sloppy” and “self-comforting,” warning that this could derail the peninsula’s peace. 

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