Former Majdanek camp guard, 96, charged in Germany

German prosecutors have charged a former guard at the Majdanek concentration camp located in Poland with being an accessory to murder for allegedly working there during a period when at least 17,000 Jews were killed.

The 96-year-old Frankfurt resident is alleged to have served at the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland between August 1943 and January 1944.

Prosecutors allege that as a 22-year-old member of the SS’s Death’s Head division, the man worked as a perimeter guard and in the camp’s guard towers.

His name was not released on privacy grounds, in accordance with German law.

Frankfurt prosecutors said “according to the known evidence, the suspect, as well as all other SS members of the camp, knew of the cruel and organised mass murder”.

No trial date has been set.