J. S. was one of the best-known residents of a small town in western Germany. At 105, he regularly featured in local media reports marking his birthdays, and the mayor honored him as a revered centenarian. What many of his fellow townspeople did not know was that he had also served as a guard at Germany’s largest prisoner-of-war camp during World War II: Stalag 326. At least 15,000 inmates, most of them Soviet soldiers, died there under inhumane conditions, although some estimates put the real death toll as high as 70,000.

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