93-Year-Old Auschwitz Guard Dies A Week Before Trial
Image by Getty Images
A former SS guard died a week before he was scheduled to go on trial for his alleged role in the murder of more than 1,000 people at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Ernest Tremmel’s death was announced Thursday, The Jerusalem Post . Tremmel, 93, was scheduled to go on trial in Hanau, Germany, on April 13. He was a member of the Auschwitz SS guard team from November 1942 to June 1943.
According to EFE Agency, Tremmel is believed to have died two days ago of natural causes.
Two other men and one woman in their 90s are accused of being accessories to the murder of hundreds of thousands of people at Auschwitz.
Two others — former paramedic Hubert Zafke, 95, and former guard Reinhold Hanning, 94 — are currently on trial.
A 92-year-old woman who worked as a radio operator at Auschwitz is also expected to go on trial soon, but no date has been announced yet. She is accused of being an accessory to the murder of 260,000 people.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
