Oskar Gröning (born 10 June 1921) is a German former SS-Unterscharführer who was stationed at Auschwitz concentration camp. His responsibilities included counting and sorting the money taken from prisoners, and he was in charge of the effects prisoners had arrived with. On occasions he witnessed the procedures of mass-killing in the camp. After being transferred from Auschwitz to a combat unit in October 1944, Gröning was captured by the British on 10 June 1945 when his unit surrendered. He was eventually transferred to Britain as a prisoner of war and worked as a forced labourer.
Upon his return to Germany he led a normal life, reluctant to talk about his time in Auschwitz. However, more than 40 years later, he decided to make his activities at Auschwitz public after learning about Holocaust denial. He has since openly criticised those who deny the events that he witnessed, and the ideology to which he once subscribed.
