German prosecutors have charged a 93-year-old man with being an accessory to murder in at least 300,000 cases while working for the Nazis at the Auschwitz concentration camp . The man , from the German state of Lower Saxony , is accused of having helped remove the luggage left by new arrivals to the camp at the Birkenau rail platform . The aim was to get rid of any clues to the mass killings going on at the camp for inmates arriving later , the state prosecutor 's office in Hanover said in a statement . The man , who was not named in the statement , was also tasked with counting the cash found in the belongings and sending it to Nazi headquarters in Berlin , it said . `` The accused must have known that those arriving , mostly Jews , inmates who were deemed as not being fit for labor after the selection process , would immediately be murdered in the purpose built gas chambers , '' the statement said . `` With his actions , the accused helped the Nazi regime gain economic profit and supported the killing that was going on . '' The charges are limited to a period that started with an operation by the Nazis to deport mostly Jews from Hungary in 1944 . `` Between May 16 and July 11 , 1944 at least 137 prison trains arrived at the camp Auschwitz Birkenau , carrying around 425,000 prisoners from Hungary . According to the charges at least 300,000 of those were killed , '' the statement said . The accused was previously charged in 1985 but that case was dropped because of a lack of evidence , it said . A regional court will decide whether the new charges are brought to trial , the state prosecutor 's office said . There are already 16 applications from survivors and relatives of survivors of the Hungary operation to be secondary plaintiffs in the case , it added . 89-year-old Philadelphia man accused of war crimes as Nazi death-camp guard . Suspected Nazi war criminal dies hours before court approves extradition .
A 93-year-old man is charged with being an accessory to 16 murders . Prosecutors in Berlin say he removed luggage left by new arrivals at Auschwitz . He was tasked with counting any cash found and sending it to Birkenau HQ in Germany . Prosecutors says the man must have known that those arriving would be murdered .