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Nazi Concentration Camp Secretary Convicted of War Crimes Dies at 99
Irmgard Furchner, a 96-year-old former secretary to the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, is pictured at the beginning of her trial in a courtroom, in Itzehoe, Germany, Oct. 19, 2021. Photo: Christian Charisius/Pool via REUTERS
A German court on Tuesday announced the death of 99-year-old Irmgard Furchner, a former Nazi concentration camp secretary.
Furchner is believed to likely be the final person convicted of war crimes committed during the Holocaust. She died on Jan. 14, a fact that came to light this week as the result of an investigation by Der Spiegel.
During World War II, Furchner joined the infamous Nazi SS. At 18, she went to work as a secretary for Lieutenant Colonel Paul Werner Hoppe, the commandant of the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland, where between June 1943 and April 1945 she performed conventional clerical tasks like stenography and transmitting reports to SS headquarters.
In 2022, Furchner received a two-year suspended sentence following her conviction for war crimes — specifically complicity in the murder of more than 10,000 people at the Stutthof camp.
Historians estimate between 63,000 and 65,000 prisoners, including 28,000 Jews, died at the camp. Her conviction came as a result of a change in German law which enabled prosecutions of those who assisted in supporting work at concentration camps.
Jurors did not accept Furchner’s defense of ignorance of the atrocities at the camp. “She is guilty even if she just sat in an office and stuck the stamp on my father’s death certificate,” survivor Josef Salomonovic said.
Furchner would ultimately apologize for her role in mass murder. “I am sorry for what happened. I regret having been in Stutthof in those days. I cannot say more,” she said at her trial. A court shot down Furchner’s appeal that she filed in August 2024.
“Furchner’s carefully couched expression of regret minus an admission of guilt is noteworthy mainly for its timing shortly before sentencing. That’s an opportune time to try and gain the sympathy of the judges, and it’s only natural,” Holocaust historian Efraim Zuroff, then serving as director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote for the Times of Israel before her sentencing. “Yet Furchner’s refusal to accept any criminal responsibility throughout all the previous proceedings and her feigned ignorance regarding the mass murders tell a different story: no shame, no acceptance of guilt.”
At the time of her conviction, Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said that the prosecution was “not about putting her behind bars for the rest of her life” but instead seeking to hold Furchner responsible to “answer for her actions and acknowledge what happened and what she was involved in.”
Schuster said that “the legal system sent an important message today: Even nearly 80 years after the Holocaust, no line can be drawn under Nazi crimes.”
One survivor of Stutthof who worked as an enslaved laborer in the camp questioned the potency of the message.
“My only disappointment is that a two-year suspended sentence appears to me to be a mistake,” Manfred Goldberg said. “No one in their right mind would send a 97-year-old to prison, but the sentence should reflect the severity of the crimes. If a shoplifter is sentenced to two years, how can it be that someone convicted for complicity in 10,000 murders is given the same sentence?”
Zuroff explained in 2022 that Furchner’s age at the time of her crimes and subsequent conviction in a juvenile court had impacted the seeming lightness of her sentencing.
“Today’s verdict is the best that could be achieved, given the fact that she was tried in a juvenile court since she was under the age of 21 during her service in the camp,” Zuroff said. “In view of Furchner’s recent statement to the court that she ‘regretted everything,’ we were concerned that the court might accept her defense attorney’s plea for an acquittal. Yet given her claim that she had no knowledge of the murders being committed in the camp, her regret was far from convincing.”
Goldberg also insisted that Furchner must have known of the slaughter she aided from her seat at the typewriter. “Everything was documented and progress reports, including how much human hair had been harvested, sent to her office,” he said.
In response to Furchner’s 2024 appeal, judges wrote that “the principle that typical, neutral professional activities of an ‘everyday nature’ are not criminal does not apply here, since the defendant knew what the main perpetrators were doing and supported them in doing it.”
Lawyer Onur Oezata represented three people who survived Stutthof.
“The secretary was rightly convicted of aiding and abetting murder in several thousand cases,” Oezata said. “The now legally binding guilty verdict is particularly gratifying for my clients. They never wanted revenge or retribution.”
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Iran Executes Man Accused of Spying for Israel Amid Rising Crackdown, International Outcry
An Iranian protester waves an Iranian flag while participating in an anti-Israeli multinational rally at the holy mosque of Jamkaran near the holy city of Qom, 156 km (97 miles) south of Tehran, Iran, on April 15, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Iran has executed a man accused of spying for Israel despite international condemnation over what human rights groups called an “unfair trial,” marking the latest escalation in the regime’s crackdown on dissent.
On Wednesday, a 41-year-old man named Pedram Madani was hanged outside Tehran following his transfer earlier this week from a prison in the capital.
“After identification, arrest, and judicial proceedings against Pedram Madani, who was spying in favor of the Zionist regime, and following the complete process of criminal procedure and the final confirmation and upholding of the verdict by the Supreme Court, he was brought to justice and executed,” a report from the Iranian judiciary news outlet Mizan stated.
Arrested in 2020, Madani was accused of transmitting classified information on strategic Iranian sites to Israel and obtaining money through illicit means.
He is the second individual Iran has executed on espionage charges linked to Israel in just two months, with activists warning that the rising executions are part of a broader campaign to intimidate the population.
Human rights groups and Madani’s family have condemned the case against him as deeply flawed, emphasizing that he was even denied the right to appoint his own lawyer throughout the legal proceedings.
Madani “was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court without access to a lawyer of his choice, through an unfair and non-transparent process orchestrated by security agencies,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights (IHR) — a Norway-based NGO which tracks the death penalty in the country — told AFP.
“The Islamic Republic’s goal in executing Pedram Madani and others who are hanged daily is solely to instill fear within society and to conceal the regime’s widespread corruption and systemic failures,” he continued.
According to IHR, there have been at least 478 executions in Iran this year, including more than 60 hangings in the past 10 days. Most of those executed were accused of collaborating with Mossad — Israel’s national intelligence agency — and aiding covert operations in Tehran, such as assassinations and sabotage targeting the country’s nuclear program.
Among other activists condemning Madani’s trial, Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, currently on temporary release from prison, also denounced the regime’s escalating repression.
“The Islamic republic uses the death penalty as a tool to instill fear and intensify repression against the people,” Mohammadi said in a video statement.
“There was not even a chosen lawyer on the case. Pedram’s cellmates testified he confessed falsely and under pressure. In Revolutionary Courts, these false confessions serve as the basis of death sentences,” she continued.
The regime’s growing crackdown unfolds amid rising tensions with Israel over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Iran — the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the terrorist groups with weapons, funding, and training — has consistently pledged to destroy Israel.
For its part, Jerusalem has declared it will never allow the Islamist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as the country views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.
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Monroe Milsten, Founder of Burlington Coat Factory, Dies at 98
Burlington Coat Factory exterior. Photo: Flickr
Monroe Milstein, the enterprising businessman who transformed a modest New Jersey coat store into the national retail powerhouse Burlington Coat Factory, passed away earlier this month at the age of 98 from dementia.
Monroe Gerald Milstein was born on Jan. 14, 1927, in the Bronx, New York, to his mother, Ann Milstein, and father, Abe Milstein — founder of Amherst Fashions. When Monroe was 11, the family moved to Manhattan. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and earned a bachelor’s degree in business from New York University in 1946.
In 1949, Milstein married Henrietta Haas, an elementary school teacher who had fled the Holocaust. Henrietta later played an integral role in shaping Burlington’s children wear division. She passed away in 2001.
In 1972, Milstein and his wife purchased a defunct factory in Burlington, New Jersey, for $675,000 with the goal of transforming it into a retail destination. The venture became Burlington Coat Factory, selling discounted designer and brand-name coats for women, men, and children. Eventually, the store’s offerings grew to include home linens, menswear, baby clothes, and shoes, laying the foundation for a nationwide retail empire.
Three years after the initial purchase, Burlington Coat Factory opened its second location in Copiague, Long Island. According to Family Business Magazine, Milstein’s eldest son, Lazar, was the store manager and, as an Orthodox Jew, would not open the store on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.
In 1982, Milstein shut down Burlington’s wholesale operations and reoriented the company’s focus entirely to discount retail. Just a year later, in 1983, he took the company public when it operated only 32 stores — injecting the capital needed to fuel a rapid retail expansion.
In 2006, Bain Capital bought the company for $2.06 billion, with the Milstein family cashing out its stake for $1.3 billion. Milstein exited the business., and two of his sons, Andrew and Stephen, continued in executive positions for a period. The company returned to the public market in 2013.
“I’m a very average fella,” Milstein said on his 80th birthday regarding his business ventures. “I got lucky.”
During Milstein’s tenure, Burlington Coat Factory carved out a niche in the retail world by delivering brand-name goods at significant discounts. By the early 2000s, when he transitioned out of day-to-day management, the business had evolved into a national chain with hundreds of stores and a customer base numbering in the millions annually.
Burlington has grown to become the third-largest off-price retail chain in the US, following industry leaders TJX Companies (which operates TJ Maxx and Marshalls) and Ross Stores. Today, Burlington operates around 1,100 locations across the US, raking in roughly $10.6 billion in sales over the past 12 months.
He is survived by his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, many of whom continue to carry forward his values of hard work and integrity.
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Trump Says He Told Israel’s Netanyahu Not to Act Against Iran
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb/ 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week not to take actions that could disrupt nuclear talks with Iran.
“I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution now,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. “That could change at any moment.”
Israel earlier rejected a report in the New York Times that Netanyahu has been threatening to disrupt talks on a nuclear deal between the United States and Iran by striking Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities.
Citing officials briefed on the situation, the newspaper said Israeli officials were concerned that Trump was so eager to reach a deal with Iran that he would allow Tehran to keep its nuclear enrichment facilities, a red line for Israel.
Israel was particularly concerned about the possibility of any interim deal that would allow Iran to maintain its nuclear facilities for months or even years while a final agreement was reached, the paper reported.
US officials were concerned Israel could decide to strike Iran with little warning and said US intelligence estimated that Israel could mount an attack on Iran in as little as seven hours, the paper reported.
Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in response to the article which said simply: “Fake news.”
The New York Times said it stood by the report.
“The New York Times reporting on this matter is thorough and based on discussions with people directly familiar with the matter. We remain confident in what we published,” a spokesperson said in an email.
The paper said Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, and David Barnea, head of the foreign intelligence agency Mossad, met Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Rome on Friday.
The two then traveled to Washington for a meeting on Monday with CIA director John Ratcliffe, before Dermer met Witkoff again on Tuesday.
One of the main sticking points in the talks between US and Iranian officials has been US insistence that Iran give up its nuclear enrichment facilities, a demand Iran rejects.
On Monday, US Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said she had a “very candid conversation” with Netanyahu on the negotiations with Iran.
She said she told the Israeli prime minister that Trump had asked her to convey “how important it is that we stay united and let this process play out.”
Trump bypassed Israel on his trip to the Middle East this month and has made policy announcements that have shaken Israel‘s assumptions about its relations with the US.
Netanyahu has dismissed speculation about a falling out with the US administration, while Trump has also brushed off any suggestion of a break.
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