Ex-Nazi Found Guilty of Wartime Murders

An 88-year-old former Waffen SS member, Heinrich Boere, was convicted on Tuesday of killing three Dutch civilians during the war.

Boere was number six on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s list of most-wanted Nazis, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Dolf Bicknese was present at the hearing, the son of one of the wartime murder victims. He had not seen the man who killed his father in person up until this point. “My interest is justice,” he told the Associated Press. ”The person hardly interests me anymore.”

The trial began in October, where Boere admitted to killing Bicknese’s father who had been a bicycle shop owner, in addition to a pharmacist and one other civilian.

Like most brought to justice for war crimes, Boere testified that he was simply following orders placed upon him by his superiors. “I knew that if I didn’t carry out my orders I would be breaking my oath and would be shot myself,” Boere told the court.

The judge argued, however, that there is no evidence of Boere ever having questioning his orders by army officials. He also called the murders “hit style,” as the assailants dressed in civilian attire in order to surprise the victims at their homes of places of work.

One German court previously refused to convict Boere because they thought he might have some German in him, as well as Dutch. Another court did not force him to serve his Dutch sentence in a German prison, because he had already fled to Germany and was thus absent from the trial at the time.

Gordon Christiansen, Boere’s current defence lawyer, said he would appeal to a German federal court. As such, Boere will remain free until the process is complete, which could take two to three years if the appeal goes to the European Court of Human Rights, as well.

Still, the verdict itself is a step in the right direction. “The verdict here is good,” said Teun de Groot, now 77, whose father was also killed by Boere.

Said Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center: “We welcome the conviction, we welcome the sentence and this is again another proof that even at this point it is possible to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.”

Boere stated in court that he had joined the SS as an 18-year-old, just as Germany has overrun The Netherlands. He had seen a poster that was signed by Heinrich Himmler that inspired him. He joined “Silbertanne”, a Dutch death squad responsible for 54 slayings in Holland after fighting on the Russian front.