A 93-year-old former concentration camp guard went on trial in Germany Thursday for abetting in the murder of more than 5,000 people.
Bruno Dey was 17 when he began working as a guard at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, and is now Gdansk in Poland.
Dey stands accused of being an accessory to murder in the deaths of 5,230 people.
While he does not deny being a guard at Stutthof, his lawyers argued that Dey told investigators that he "felt sorry for what he did."
"It was also clear to him that (the inmates) were not in there because they were criminals, but for anti-Semitic, racist and other reasons," his lawyer Stefan Waterkamp told the court. "B he did not see himself in a position to free them."
In deference to his age, Dey's trial will only last two hours each day and will only be held twice a week.
If convicted he could face six months to 10 years in prison.
