How the Last Surviving Nazis Could Be Brought to Justice

Hubert Zafke, a 95-year-old former member of the Nazi SS who served as a medic at the Auschwitz concentration camp, is the latest to be prosecuted in a push by German authorities to hold the last living Nazis accountable for the Holocaust.

But so many years after the fact, the pursuit of justice in such cases is far more complicated than merely bringing a suspect to court. In fact, the legal precedent that allows such cases is less than a decade old.

Zafke, whose trial is set for Feb. 29 in in Northeastern Germany, is charged as an accessory to the murder of some 3,681 people, according to Reuters. His time at Auschwitz—between 1943 and 1944—would have coincided, as the Telegraph points out, with when Anne Frank was there. But Zafke is not charged with killing people. Rather, he is charged with contributing to their deaths by participating as a staff member at the camp.