Polish priest who was oldest surviving prisoner at Dachau concentration camp dies aged 100

Leon Stepniak was interned at Dachau from 1940 to end of WWII in 1945

Made speech urging reconciliation rather than anger over camp's legacy



Survivor: Father Leon Stepniak was interned at Dachau and has now died at the age of 100

The oldest surviving inmate of the Dachau concentration camp has died at the age of 100.



Leon Stepniak, a Polish priest, was arrested by the Gestapo in 1940 in the village of Klebowiec.



He spent the next five years in Dachau, a site in south-east Germany which was the first concentration camp to be opened by the Nazi goverment.



After being released at the end of the Second World War, he returned to Poznan in Poland, where he died over the weekend.



The clergyman was well-known for a speech he made at a commemoration to mark the liberation of Dachau.



He told the audience that the camp's legacy should not be as a demand for revenge or recrimination, but as a sign of reconciliation.



Mr Stepniak also said that Dachau's continued existence should serve as a reminder to ensure that no similar atrocity ever happens again.



KZ-Dachau was established near the town of Dachau in Bavaria in March 1933.



Heinrich Himmler, then Munich's chief of police, described the site as 'the first concentration camp for political prisoners'.



During the war, it was a leading centre for the extermination of the Nazis' enemies, with around 32,000 people believed to have been killed there in total.



Slave labour: Jewish prisoners at Dachau working at a nearby Nazi ammunition factory Inmates: French prisoners celebrate after the liberation of the camp by U.S. troops in April 1945

The camp was originally set up to hold political prisoners and Jews, but after the annexation of Poland it began to hold more Poles than any other category of prisoner.



It was also the main centre for Christian prisoner who were arrested because of their opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime.

Mr Stepniak was one of at least 3,000 Catholic priests and bishops imprisoned at Dachau.



The camp was liberated by U.S. troops in April 1945.

