Who is ex-Nazi camp secretary Irmgard Furchner? What was she found guilty of - how long is her sentence?

A German court has handed down a sentence to a 97-year-old former Nazi camp secretary in what is believed to be one of the “last of its kind” Holocaust trials. Imgard Furchner was found to have been complicit in the killing of more than 10,000 people during World War Two while she worked for the Nazi Party at the Stutthof concentration camp.

At the age of 96, Furchner was charged with more than 10,000 counts of accessory to murder in 2021. The trial was due to begin in September 2021 but was postponed for one month after she fled her retirement home to avoid taking part in the trial before being later arrested.

Throughout the trial, the court in Itzehoe heard evidence from Holocaust survivors. Some of those survivors who gave evidence have passed away while the trial was ongoing.

It is believed that Furchner’s trial could be the last Holocaust trial due to the age of those who would have been involved. There have been an increased number of trials since 2011, when Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk was found guilty of more than 27,000 counts of accessory to murder.

Furchner has been handed a sentence for her involvement in the historic killings - but what has she been given? Here’s everything you need to know.

Who is Irmgard Furchner?

Furchner was hired to work as a secretary and stenographer at the Stutthof concentration camp, located near modern-day Gdansk in Poland, in June 1943 when she was 18 years old. She would work at the camp until April 1945.

She went on to marry a former SS squad leader named Heinz Furchtsam. After the war, she worked in an administrative position in northern Germany.

What happened during her trial?

In 2021 she was charged with 11,412 counts of accessory to murder and a further 18 counts of accessory to attempted murder. The long trial process, which included trips to the camp grounds with historian Stefan Hördler, saw evidence that despite Furchner working in an administrative role, she knew what was happening at the concentration camp.

Mr Hördler told the court that the office Furchner worked in was the “nerve centre” of operations at Stutthof and that she would not be able to ignore the worst conditions in the camp from its location. It has been estimated that between 63,000 and 65,000 people were killed at the Stuffhof while it was active between 1939 and 1945.

One survivor told reporters that Furchner’s distance from the killings did not absolve her from being an accessory to the crimes. Josef Salomonovic said: "She’s indirectly guilty….even if she just sat in the office and put her stamp on my father’s death certificate."She was found guilty by the Itzehoe court.

It took 40 days for Furchner to break her silence in the trial. The former secretary had remained silent since her flee attempt at the beginning of the trial.

In her first words, she said: “I’m sorry about everything that happened. I regret that I was in Stutthof at the time - that’s all I can say.”

How long was Irmgard Furchner sentenced to?

For her crimes, Furchner was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence. The relatively small sentence may be down to her advanced age.

However, survivors have voiced their disappointment at the sentence. Manfred Goldberg told the BBC: "It’s a foregone conclusion that a 97-year-old would not be made to serve a sentence in prison - so it could only be a symbolic sentence. But the length should be made to reflect the extraordinary barbarity of being found to be complicit in the murder of more than 10,000 people."