I did get that. One likely story: he was at the time a 19-year-old Polish-Ukrainian, pressed into service as a guard, most likely on pain of being inside the wall he was guarding. There are many possible stories, and it would take a court to sort them out. Because of the passage of time, it is virtually impossible to convene such a court. Whether he is an oppressor who deserves punishment, a victim of an oppressive regime, or (most likely) some mixture of both, is a question that most likely cannot be answered at this late date by a human tribunal. But I find it hard to imagine that a teenaged inhabitant of a conquered nation, compelled to serve the occupying power, can be rightly held fully responsible for his actions, either legally or morally.
Punishing him without such a tribunal would be an affirmative offense against the rule of law, and strikes me as a greater danger to the public order than letting a very small fish escape the net.
