A 96-year-old former Nazi secretary, who faces 11,000 counts of accessory to murder, has been caught after escaping her care home on the day of her trial

• Irmgard Furchner, 96, faces more than 11,000 counts of accessory to murder.
• She was due to go on trial on Thursday but she escaped her care home early Thursday morning, Der Spiegel reported.
• Furchner was later found and the court will now decide whether to place her in custody, according to Yahoo News.

A 96-year-old former secretary to a Nazi concentration camp commander who was due to go on trial in Germany on Thursday ran away from her care home but was caught hours later, according to AFP.

The woman, identified by German media as Irmgard Furchner, faces charges of more than 11,000 counts of accessory to murder, The Associated Press reported.

She was due to appear in the state court of Itzehoe, in northern Germany, on Thursday but never showed up, Der Spiegel reported.

She left her care home early Thursday morning and took a taxi to a nearby subway station, Der Spiegel reported. She was located soon after.

Now, the court will decide whether or not to place her in custody, AFP reported.

Christoph Heubner, vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, said the escape attempt showed "contempt for the survivors and also for the rule of law".

Last week, Furchner had written a letter to the judge, Dominik Gross, saying she did not want to appear in court for health reasons.

"I would like to spare myself from these embarrassments and not make a laughing stock of myself," she said in the letter, according to Bild.

Speaking to the court on Thursday morning, Gross announced that Furchner was missing, adding: "The defendant is now a fugitive, and the chamber has issued an arrest warrant," Der Spiegel reported.

Furchner was 18 when she started working as a secretary to the former Nazi SS commandant Paul Werner Hoppe at the Stutthof concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, Der Spiegel and the AP reported.

As camp commander, Hoppe wrote execution orders, deportation lists for the trains to Auschwitz, and instructions for mass killings in the camp's gas chambers, Der Spiegel reported. Furchner passed on his commands in the form of letters and radio messages, the report said.

Furchner, who had been questioned as a witness in past Nazi trials, previously claimed she was not aware of the killings that occurred at the camp while she worked there, The Associated Press reported.

She is the first woman in decades to stand trial over crimes committed by the Third Reich.