Documents Raise Doubts Over U.S. Man’s Nazi Past
Documents Raise Doubts Over U.S. Man’s Nazi Past
The case of an 87-year-old Philadelphia man accused by Germany of serving as an SS guard at Auschwitz has largely centered on whether he was stationed at the part of the death camp used as a killing machine for Jews.
Johann “Hans” Breyer — while admitting he was an Auschwitz guard — insists he was never there.
World War II-era documents obtained by The Associated Press indicate otherwise.
The files provided by the U.S. Department of Justice in response to an AP request are now in the hands of German authorities, and could provide the legal basis for charging him as an accessory to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Nazi death camp.
The retired toolmaker told the AP in September, when German authorities confirmed he was under investigation, that he was always at Auschwitz I, a smaller camp used largely for slave labor, and never entered Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, where about 90 percent of the 1.1 to 1.5 million Jews and others killed in the camp were murdered.