A German court on Tuesday convicted a former Nazi concentration camp typist known as the “Secretary of Evil” for being complicit in the murders of over 10,500 people during the Holocaust.
Irmgard Furchner, 97, worked as a shorthand typist at the Stutthof concentration camp from 1943 to 1945, when she was 18 and 19 years old, the BBC reported. Because Furchner was under 21 at the time, she was tried in a special juvenile court, and the judge gave her a two-year suspended jail term. (RELATED: 93-Year-Old Former Nazi Concentration Camp Guard Convicted Of Aiding The Murder Of 5,232 People In Juvenile Court)
The judge found Furchner guilty of aiding and abetting the murder of 10,505 people and the attempted murder of five others at Stutthof. Even though Furchner was a civilian worker, the judge argued she knew about what was happening at the camp, the BBC reported.
Irmgard Furchner, a stenographer and typist to the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, was accused of being a key member of a death camp that murdered 10,505 people while she was there during World War II. https://t.co/4PZUc9nCnS
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 20, 2022
Located in Poland near the modern-day city of Gdansk, many methods were used to murder detainees at Stutthof, one of which included gas chambers. About 65,000 people, including Jewish prisoners, non-Jewish Poles and captured Soviet soldiers, are believed to have died at Stutthof.
After the war, Furchner married SS squad leader Heinz Furchstam, whom she likely met at the concentration camp, the BBC reported.
Furchner fled her retirement home at the start of the trial in September 2021, according to the outlet. Police later found her on a street in Hamburg, Germany.
“I’m sorry about everything that happened,” she said during the trial after staying silent for 40 days, the BBC reported.