An
89-year-old man, living in Philadelphia, has been ordered by a judge to be held
without bail. The arrest warrant from Germany charges him with aiding and
abetting the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children during the time
that he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp.
But
the retired toolmaker Johann “Hans” Breyer, claims that he “didn’t do
anything wrong.”
“I’m an
American citizen, just as if I had been born here,” he said. “They can’t deport
me.”
“I
didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t rape anybody, and I don’t even have a traffic
ticket here,” he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
He said he knew
what was going on inside the death camp, but since he didn’t witness it
himself, he believes he should not be held responsible for his role in
defending the camp. “We could only see the outside, the gates,” he claimed.
Breyer was
arrested by U.S. authorities Tuesday night and appeared in a detention hearing
in federal court Wednesday, wearing an olive green prison jumpsuit and carrying
a cane.
Legal
filings unsealed Wednesday in the U.S. indicate the district court in Weiden,
Germany, issued a warrant for Breyer’s arrest the day before, charging him with
158 counts of complicity in the commission of murder.
Each
count represents a trainload of Nazi prisoners from Hungary, Germany and
Czechoslovakia who were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau between May 1944 and
October 1944, the documents said.
Attorney
Dennis Boyle argued his client is too infirm to be detained pending a hearing
on his possible extradition to Germany. Breyer has mild dementia and heart
issues and has previously suffered strokes, Boyle said.
“Mr.
Breyer is not a threat to anyone,” said Boyle. “He’s not a flight risk.”
But
Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice ruled the detention center was equipped to care
for Breyer, who appeared to comprehend questions about the nature of the
hearing.
A
law enforcement officer also testified Breyer and his elderly wife grasped what
was happening during his arrest Tuesday outside their home in northeast
Philadelphia.
“They
both understood,” deputy marshal Daniel Donnelly said. “It wasn’t news to
them.”
Breyer
has been under investigation in Germany for years, where they claim he knew
very well what was going on in the Polish death camp, and protected it
regardless.
Thomas
Walther, a former federal prosecutor with the special office that investigates
Nazi war crimes in Germany, represents some of the family members of Breyer’s
victims as co-plaintiffs in the case. He has called for a quick extradition.
“The
German court has to find late justice for the crimes of Breyer and for the
victims and their sons and daughters as co-plaintiffs,” Walther wrote in an
email to the Associated Press. “It is late, but not too late.”
Breyer’s
extradition hearing is scheduled for Aug. 21.
The
head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, Efraim
Zuroff, said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem, that ”Germany
deserves credit for doing this — for extending and expanding their efforts and,
in a sense, making a final attempt to maximize the prosecution of Holocaust
perpetrators.”
Source:countercurrentnews.com
