95-year-old Holocaust denier sentenced to prison

Haverbek is considered a prominent figure in far-right circles, and the same court sentenced him to ten months in prison in November 2015. Haverbek appealed the ruling, and approximately nine years later the case appeared again in court.

Anyone who publicly espouses, denies or downplays the extent of the genocide of Jews faces up to five years in prison in Germany.

The statement that convicted Haverbeck was made Wednesday during the trial of a former SS guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Haverbeck told reporters that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp, but a labor camp.

She also denied the genocide of people that occurred there. About 1 million Jews and 100,000 other people were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland during World War II. A total of 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis during the war.

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“I never denied the Holocaust,” Haverbeck claimed in court, saying she only asked questions, before repeating one of the statements she was accused of.

Haverbeck previously served more than two years in prison for Holocaust denial, and was sentenced to a year in prison for the same in 2022. She has yet to serve that sentence. The court said in its ruling issued on Wednesday that four months of this sentence are considered to have been served as a result of the long delay in the legal procedures. The ruling can be appealed.