GERMAN PROSECUTORS USE 3D MODELS OF NAZI DEATH CAMPS TO TRY FORMER GUARDS FOR MURDER

For some reason there has been a surge by German prosecutors in charging former Nazi death camp guards with complicity in the slayings at the camps - Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. And the prosecutors are using 3D models of Auschwitz to show that the guards could see exterminations being committed, and they can do the same with the other camps in future cases.

COULD 3D MODELS PPROVE NAZI GUARDS KNEW ABOUT GAS CHAMBERS? PROSECUTORS CREATE VIRTUAL AUSCHWITZ TO REVEAL WHAT WAS VISIBLE FROM WATCHTOWERS
Models provides a 360° view of the death camp and can be set to show what guards would have seen from watchtowers, proving they knew about the slayings

By Victoria Woollaston

Mail Online
May 7, 2014

Decades after the last concentration camps of the Second World War closed their doors, many guards who were in charge of overseeing them are now being tried for suspected war crimes.

To secure convictions, prosecutors are using a mixture of testimonies and archived paperwork alongside modern techniques, including 3D modelling.

One model of the iconic Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland could even reveal exactly how much the guards were aware of during their time at the death camps, although images of this are yet to be released to the public.

The surge in cases follows a landmark ruling in 2011 that set a precedent for guards to be tried for murders that happened during their watch, even if they weren’t individually involved in the deaths.

John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Sobibor camp in Poland, was convicted for being an accessory to the murder of 28,060 people who died during 1943.

Up until then, cases required evidence linking suspects explicitly to specific killings.

Many guards have previously claimed the camps were so large they couldn’t possibly have known what was going on in individual rooms and sections.

While building a case into suspect Hans Lipschis, now 94, Stuttgart prosecutor Ralf Dietrich, used 3D modelling software to reconstruct Auschwitz and its outbuildings.

His model provides a 360-degree view of the camp and it can be set to show what was visible from individual watchtowers.

Lipschis was a cook at Auschwitz and the model also reveals what was visible from the kitchen.

‘Many former guards say that they didn’t know anything because they couldn’t see from where they were serving,’ Dietrich told Melissa Eddy at the New York Times.

‘This allows us to go in and look at whether that is true. What could one see from a watchtower? Could you see the chimneys of the crematoria? Could you see smoke?’

The model can also be used with online virtual tours of the the camp, as well as other information, including the years guards served, and any changes that were made to the layout of the camps.

In February, the case was dismissed due to the age of the defendant but Dietrich claims its model could be used in future cases.