Dr. Franz Bernhard Lucas (b. Sept. 15, 1911 in Osnabrück

Osnabrück

Osnabrück is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, some 80 km NNE of Dortmund, 45 km NE of Münster, and some 100 km due west of Hanover. It lies in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest...

, Germany , d. December 7, 1994 in Elmshorn

Elmshorn

Elmshorn is a town in the district of Pinneberg in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. It is located 32 km north of Hamburg at the small river Krückau, close to the Elbe river, is the sixth-largest city in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

, Germany ) was a German concentration camp doctor and SS Obersturmführer

Obersturmführer

Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

  who served at Auschwitz concentration camp

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

 during the same period of time as Josef Mengele

Josef Mengele

Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...

. Lucas expressed reluctance to perform selections on the ramp at Auschwitz and as deemed to be too compassionate towards the concentration camp inmates

In 1964 Lucas voluntarily accompanied an entourage of 16 West German lawyers and a judge from the Frankfurt Auschwitz war-crimes trial

Frankfurt Auschwitz trials

The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, known in German as der Auschwitz-Prozess or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, was a series of trials running from December 20, 1963 to August 10, 1965, charging 22 defendants under German penal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the...

(1963–1964). They had made a fact finding trip to Poland to check the veracity of testimony given at the trial of 21 former Auschwitz concentration camp personnel. According to Lucas "It was my duty to come. Everyone who has the opportunity should come here and see what racism can lead to."