94 year old former Auschwitz guard goes on trial in Germany

February 11, 2016 at 3:00 a.m. | Updated February 11, 2016 at 4:23 a.m.

by Associated Press

Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Leon Schwarzbaum presents an old photograph showing himself, left, next to his uncle and parents who all died in Auschwitz during a press conference in Detmold, Germany, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016. Reinhold Hanning, a 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp is going on trial this week on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder, the first of up to four cases being brought to court this year in an 11th-hour push by German prosecutors to punish Nazi war crimes. (Bernd Thissen/dpa via AP)
Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Leon Schwarzbaum presents an old photograph showing himself, left, next to his uncle and parents who all died in Auschwitz during a press conference in Detmold, Germany, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016. Reinhold Hanning, a 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp is going on trial this week on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder, the first of up to four cases being brought to court this year in an 11th-hour push by German prosecutors to punish Nazi war crimes. (Bernd Thissen/dpa via AP)

DETMOLD, Germany (AP) - A 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard is going on trial on 170,000 counts of accessory to murder in western Germany, accused of serving in the death camp at a time when hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were gassed.

Former SS Sgt. Reinhold Hanning maintains that he served in a part of the Auschwitz camp complex where no gassings were taking place. Prosecutors argue that all guards helped the camp function, and that during the so-called "Hungarian action" in 1944 almost all were called upon to help deal with the vast numbers of people arriving at the killing complex in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Leon Schwarzbaum, a 94-year-old Auschwitz survivor from Berlin, is scheduled to testify Thursday, the opening day of the trial. It is unclear whether Hanning will first make a statement.

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