Holocaust survivor wants 'Bookkeeper of Auschwitz' spared prison time

A Holocaust survivor has become the unlikely ally of a former Nazi bookkeeper sentenced to serve years in prison this week decades after he worked at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.

A German court sentenced 94-year-old Oskar Groening to four years in prison Wednesday for 300,000 counts of accessory charges for crimes at the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1942 to 1944.

Eva Mozes Kor, an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor, told the German court Groening shouldn't be thrown behind bars, according to The Telegraph.

"His value is not in sitting in jail at age 94. His value to society is in speaking to students in person or even via Skype about what happened," she said. "I don't think it is an easy thing for him to deal with. In jail he doesn't have to talk about it — he can just rot away."

See images of the trial:

Groening has expressed "moral guilt" about his past involvement at Auschwitz. He says he never killed anyone but did observe killings.

Auschwitz was one of the largest concentration camps during the Holocaust. In the camp's five years of operation, the Nazi regime reportedly deported at least 1.3 million people to the camp — 1.1 million of those were killed.