Bruno Dey, a former guard at the Stutthof concentration camp, hides his face as he is wheeled into a courtroom in 2020. The 93-year-old Dey was convicted of complicity in the murder of 5,230 people at the German-run camp during World War II (1939-1945).
Credit: © Christian Charisius, AFP/Getty Images

In July 2020, a 93-year-old man was found guilty of helping Nazis murder thousands of people while serving as a guard at a concentration camp in Poland during World War II (1939-1945). The former Nazi guard, Bruno Dey, was convicted (declared guilty) of 5,230 counts of accessory to murder, meaning that he aided in over 5,000 deaths. The number of charges represents the number of people believed to have been killed in the Stutthof concentration camp.

The Nazis, led by the dictator Adolf Hitler, controlled Germany from 1933 to 1945. The Nazi government operated concentration camps at which people—many of them Jews—were imprisoned and forced to work. In some cases, these people were killed without legal proceedings. The imprisoned people also included socialists, Communists, priests, homosexuals, and political prisoners, among others.

Although Dey is 93, he was tried in a juvenile court, because he was 17 when he committed the crimes. Juvenile court is a special court that handles cases involving children accused of crimes. During the trial, Holocaust survivors spoke of their horrific experiences in the Stutthof camp. The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II.

Such survival stories are not restricted to courtrooms. Rather, stories, possessions, and photographs from the Holocaust have been collected in museums throughout the world. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., features films, photographs, eyewitness accounts, and various objects from the Holocaust. The museum is devoted to teaching the history of the Holocaust.

Given his advanced age, Dey is perhaps one of the last participants in the Holocaust to be convicted. In recent years, German courts have tried many people who participated by either rounding up Jews or operating concentration camps. These efforts have become urgent, because many of these participants are now in their 90’s.

Trials to convict Nazis began soon after the end of World War II. Chief among these were the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1949). These trials were the first successful war crimes trials conducted against senior Nazi officials. Another prominent trial was that of Adolf Eichmann, a lieutenant colonel in the Nazi secret police. In 1961, he was convicted and executed for his part in the killing of about 6 million Jews during World War II.

July 6, 2016

On Saturday, July 2, Romanian-American author Elie Wiesel died at age 87. Wiesel dedicated his life to describing the horrors he witnessed during the Holocaust and to helping victims of oppression and racism. The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II (1939-1945). Wiesel won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel, seen here in 2015, died in New York City on July 2, 2016. Credit: © Gary Cameron, Reuters

United States President Barack Obama was one of several world leaders to pay tribute to Wiesel on Saturday: “He raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry, and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other and to make real that pledge of ‘never again.’” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also spoke highly of Wiesel: “In the darkness of the Holocaust in which our brothers and sisters—6 million—were murdered, Elie Wiesel was a ray of light and greatness of humanity who believed in the good in man.”

Eliezer Wiesel was born on Sept. 30, 1928, in Sighet, Romania. In 1944, he was sent with his family and the town’s other Jews to a camp at Auschwitz (now Oswiecim), Poland, near Krakow. He was later sent to a camp at Buchenwald, Germany, near Weimar. Wiesel’s parents and a sister died at these camps. After Buchenwald was liberated in 1945, Wiesel settled in France. He later studied philosophy at the University of Paris, became a journalist, and moved to the United States. In 1976, Wiesel became a professor of humanities at Boston University. President Jimmy Carter appointed him chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust in 1979. In 1980, Wiesel was named head of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Wiesel’s humanitarian efforts earned him the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel citation reads in part: “Wiesel is a messenger to mankind. His message is one of peace, atonement, and human dignity. His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief.”

Wiesel wrote more than 35 books. His first book, Night (1958, revised edition 2006), is a memoir of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps. Dawn (1960) and The Accident (1961) are novels about survivors of the Holocaust. Wiesel’s other books include The Jews of Silence (1966), A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968), The Testament (1980), Wise Men and Their Tales (2003), and A Mad Desire to Dance (2009).