A former 94-year-old SS guard holds his walking stick at the beginning of a trial in Muenster, Germany, Tuesday, Nov.6, 2018. He is charged of accessory to murder for serving at the Nazis' Stutthof concentration... (Associated Press) 
 
 A former 94-year-old SS guard holds his walking stick at the beginning of a trial in Muenster, Germany, Tuesday, Nov.6, 2018. He is charged of accessory to murder for serving at the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp. (Guido Kirchner/dpa via AP) (Associated Press) 
 
 MUENSTER, Germany (AP) — A 94-year-old former SS enlisted man went on trial Tuesday in Germany, facing hundreds of counts of accessory to murder for alleged crimes committed during the years he served as a guard at the Nazis' Stutthof concentration camp. 
 
 Johann Rehbogen was pushed into the Muenster state court trial in a wheelchair, a wooden cane at his side and briefcase on his lap. He appeared alert and attentive as presiding judge Rainer Brackhane asked him questions, answering in slow, concise sentences. 
 
 Rehbogen is accused of working as a guard at the camp east of Danzig, which is today the Polish city of Gdansk, from June 1942 to about early September 1944. 
 
 There is no evidence linking him to a specific crime, but over 60,000 people were killed at Stutthof and prosecutors argue that as a guard, he was an accessory to at least hundreds of those deaths. 
 
 The retired civil servant showed no reaction as prosecutor Andreas Brendel read the accusations against him, detailing the horrific way prisoners at Stutthof were killed. Some were given lethal injections of gasoline or phenol directly to their hearts, shot or starved. Others were forced outside in winter without clothes until they died of exposure, or put to death in the gas chamber. 
 
 "Anyone who heard the screams from outside the gas chamber would have known that people were fighting for their lives," Brendel said. 
 
 Rehbogen, a former SS Sturmmann — roughly equivalent to the U.S. Army rank of specialist — does not deny serving in the camp during the war, but has told investigators he was unaware of the killings and did not participate in them. 
 
 No pleas are entered in Germany and Andreas Tinkl, one of Rehbogen's attorneys, would not comment on his client's defense. He said Rehbogen would address the court at some point during the trial, which is scheduled into January. 
 
 Rehbogen lives in Borken, near the Dutch border. In deference to his age and health, the trial is being restricted to a maximum of two hours a day, on no more than two non-consecutive days a week. At the same time, because he was under 21 at the time of his alleged crimes, he is being tried in juvenile court and faces a maximum 10 years in prison if convicted. 
 
 Seventeen Stutthof survivors or relatives of victims have joined the trial as co-plaintiffs, but Brendel said it was unclear whether any would testify in person due to their ages. 
 
 In one of several statements read by their attorneys, survivor Judy Meisel remembered being forced by the Germans into a ghetto at age 12, where she said she endured hunger, daily humiliation and terror. 
 
 "But I was not prepared for what came next," said Meisel, who today lives in Minneapolis. "Next came Stutthof and I experienced the unimaginable, the hell organized and executed by the SS." 
 
 Rehbogen, who was given headphones so he could clearly follow the testimony, showed no reaction as Meisel said the last time she saw her mother, they were both standing among a group of naked women about to be forced into the gas chamber, before she herself was able to break away. 
 
 "Stutthof was organized mass murder through the SS, made possible through the help of the guards," she said. 
 
 Ben Cohen, Meisel's grandson who came from New York to attend the trial, said hearing her statement with one of her former captors in the same room was both important and moving. 
 
 "I know her story so well it is emotional every time I hear it, but it takes on more importance than my own emotions now," he said. 
 
 The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which helped locate Stutthof survivors for the case, stressed that even more than 70 years after the end of World War II it is not too late to pursue justice. 
 
 "The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of Holocaust perpetrators and old age should not afford protection to those who committed such heinous crimes," said the center's head Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff. 
 
 Even though the number of suspects is dwindling, the special federal prosecutor's office that investigates Nazi war crimes still has multiple cases ongoing. 
 
 The legal reasoning that being a camp guard is itself enough to be found guilty of accessory to murder, even without specific evidence of a crime, was first used successfully against former Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk in 2011. 
 
 Demjanjuk was convicted on allegations he served as a Sobibor death camp guard. He denied the accusation and died before his appeal could be heard. 
 
 The 2015 conviction of former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening using the same argument, however, was upheld by Germany's top criminal court on appeal. 
 
 The Stutthof case is the first use of this reasoning for a concentration camp guard instead of a death camp guard. But prosecutors have expressed confidence it can be applied, since tens of thousands of people were killed in Stutthof even though its sole purpose was not murder. 
 
 Stutthof was established in 1939 and was initially used as the main collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles removed from nearby Danzig. 
 
 From about 1940, it was used as a so-called "work education camp" where forced laborers, primarily Polish and Soviet citizens, were sent to serve sentences and often died. Others incarcerated there included criminals, political prisoners, homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses. 
 
 From mid-1944, it was filled with tens of thousands of Jews from ghettos being cleared by the Nazis in the Baltics as well as from Auschwitz, and thousands of Polish civilians swept up in the brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising. 

 Image copyright EPA Image caption Johann R is said to be mentally alert 
 
 A former SS guard has gone on trial in Germany accused of complicity in mass murder at a Nazi death camp during World War Two. 
 
 Named only as Johann R by authorities, the 94-year-old served in the Stutthof camp in what is now northern Poland from June 1942 to September 1944. 
 
 He denies knowing anything about atrocities committed there. 
 
 Because he was not yet aged 21, he is being tried in a juvenile court in Muenster, western Germany. 
 
 He faces a sentence of 15 years if convicted but is unlikely to serve any actual time in prison because of his advanced age. 
 
 His court appearances will be limited to two hours at a time for the same reason, Dortmund prosecutor Andreas Brendel told AFP news agency. 
 
 What are the accusations? 
 
 More than 100 Polish prisoners were gassed at the camp on 21 and 22 June 1944, as well as "probably several hundred" Jewish prisoners who were killed between August and December 1944. 
 
 The defendant is "accused in his capacity as a guard of participating in the killing operations", said Mr Brendel. 
 
 "Many people were gassed, shot or left to die of hunger," he added. 
 
 What was Stutthof? 
 
 Image copyright Stutthof Museum Image caption SS leader Heinrich Himmler (centre) visited Stutthof 
 
 Located near the city of Danzig (now Gdansk), it was originally an internment camp before being officially designated a concentration camp in 1942. 
 
 From June 1944, prisoners were murdered in a gas chamber. 
 
 More than 65,000 people died in Stutthof before it was liberated by the Soviet Army on 9 May 1945. 
 
 Who is the defendant? 
 
 Johann R was captured by the US Army after the war but returned to civilian life, working as a landscape architect for the North Rhine-Westphalia state authorities. 
 
 Questioned by police last year, he denied knowing about atrocities in the camp. 
 
 "If one looks at how many evil doings and crimes were perpetuated, one can understand why elderly people too have to face prosecution," said Mr Brendel. 
 
 "Germany owes it to the families and victims to prosecute these Nazi crimes even today. That is a legal and moral question."
– A former SS guard is on trial for allegedly serving as an accessory to hundreds of mass killings at a Nazi concentration camp, the AP reports. Johann Rehbogen, 94, isn't accused of a specific crime, but he served at Stutthof concentration camp in what is now Poland. More than 60,000 Jews and other Holocaust victims were killed there—by gas chamber, lethal injection, exposure, starvation, or simply being shot. Rehbogen, who was at the camp from 1942 to 1944, denies knowing about the killings. But others say he had to know: "Anyone who heard the screams from outside the gas chamber would have known that people were fighting for their lives," says prosecutor Andreas Brendel. As he was under 21 at the time, Rehbogen is being tried in juvenile court in Germany and faces a possible 15-year sentence—which he likely wouldn't serve if found guilty due to his age, per the BBC. He's only appearing in court for two hours at a time but seems alert when asked questions by the judge. For the grandson of one survivor, seeing Germany continue to prosecute Holocaust perpetrators is empowering: "Her being able to witness even some of this process, even from afar, is a sense of closure," says Ben Cohen of his grandmother, Judy Meisel. "To have Germany listening to her is very powerful for her." (A "hero" who foiled the Nazi's nuclear dreams is dead.)