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“I lost 35 family members, how can you apologize for that?” the 95-year-old said. “I am not angry, I don’t want him to go to prison but he should say more for the sake of the young generation today because the historical truth is important.”

Hanning is charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder on allegations that as a guard he helped the death camp function, so can legally be found guilty of accessory to murder. Schwarzbaum is one of some 40 Holocaust survivors who has joined the trial as co-plaintiff as allowed under German law, though only one other was in court to hear Hanning.

I lost 35 family members, how can you apologize for that?

Prosecutor Andreas Brendel said there was good evidence already that Hanning served in the camp, but that his admission Friday could help win a conviction.

“Today’s statement contributed a little more to establish that he was there, because he admitted that, and more importantly to the fact that he knew about the killings in the main camp — that also is a crucial fact,” Brendel told The Associated Press.

Pleas are not entered in the German system and such statements to the court are not uncommon, and frequently help mitigate the length of a sentence. Hanning faces a possible 15 years in prison if convicted but at his age it is unlikely he will ever spend time behind bars given the length of the appeals process.

Ahead of the short statement he made himself, Hanning’s attorney Johannes Salmen read a 22-page statement from Hanning detailing how his client had joined the Hitler Youth with his class in 1935 at age 13, then volunteered at 18 for the Waffen SS in 1940 at the urging of his stepmother. He fought in several battles in World War II before being hit by grenade splinters in his head and leg during close combat in Kyiv in 1941.