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89 year old arrested in US, charged over Auschwitz

An 89 year old man was arrested on Tuesday in the US, and charged by German authorities the following day with 158 counts of assisting in the genocide of Jews during the Holocaust, reports the New York Times.

The man, Johann Hans Breyer, was a Nazi guard at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, after reportedly joining the paramilitary Waffen-SS force at the age of 17.

According to the Associated Press, Mr Breyer admitted that he had worked as a guard, however, denied he had anything to do with the killings.

Attempts by his legal counsel to obtain bail, given his frailty, were denied by Judge Timothy R. Rice, due to the "serious nature of the crime".

The story first came to light in 2012, when Germany launched a war crimes investigation into Mr Breyer, who was by then a US citizen living in Philadelphia. See here for more.

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