DETMOLD, Germany — An 88-year-old Auschwitz survivor who traveled from his home in California to Germany was denied the opportunity to testify at a former Nazi SS guard's trial Friday. 
 
 Joshua Kaufman, who lives in Los Angeles, had hoped to win permission to tell the court about how he removed bodies from gas chambers at the World War II death camp after victims had been killed with Zyklon B. 
 
 Joshua Kaufman, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor and father of four from Los Angeles, attends Friday's hearing with daughter Rachel Kaufman. Andy Eckardt / NBC News 
 
 Reinhold Hanning, 94, is on trial accused of being accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people. Although Hanning was not directly involved in any killings at Auschwitz, prosecutors accuse him of facilitating the slaughter in his capacity as a guard at the camp. 
 
 Around 1.2 million people — most of them Jews — were killed at the site, which is located in Poland. 
 
 More than a dozen witnesses have already testified in the trial and a verdict is expected on May 27. 
 
 At the start of Friday's session, Kaufman's German lawyer Markus Goldbach asked the court if his client could also be heard. 
 
 “He will be able to tell you that the bodies looked as if they were frozen and that he could see the horror of the death fight in their faces,” Goldbach said in his application statement. 
 
 "I lost my whole family, I survived five concentration camps and I represent the dead people. They should at least respect me." "I lost my whole family, I survived five concentration camps and I represent the dead people. They should at least respect me." 
 
 The lawyer argued that his client would be able to give evidence of the specific killing process. 
 
 Judge Anke Grudda agreed to consider the request but after a break in the proceedings ruled that Kaufman would not be allowed to testify. She stressed that the decision was based entirely on German law and was not out of "reasons of respect or disrespect." 
 
 Speaking before the Grudda announced her ruling, Kaufman said he "came to speak for those who can no longer be heard." 
 
 "I always think positive, if they don't want to hear me, I will just go home, but it is important that I came here to seek justice," the father of four told NBC News. ||||| 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp Reinhold Hanning, left, sits next to his lawyer Johannes Salmen, right, during his trial in Detmold, Germany, Friday, May 13, 2016. Hanning faces... (Associated Press) 
 
 BERLIN (AP) — A German court trying a 94-year-old ex-SS sergeant who served as an Auschwitz death camp guard has declined to hear evidence from an Auschwitz survivor who traveled from the U.S. 
 
 The 88-year-old Joshua Kaufman hadn't been invited to testify but some of the Holocaust survivors and relatives who joined the trial as co-plaintiffs hoped he could tell the Detmold state court about how he had to remove corpses from gas chambers. 
 
 However, the court already heard evidence about how victims died, news agency dpa reported. Presiding judge Anke Grudda said Friday: "No further evidence is needed. The court has no doubts on this aspect." 
 
 Defendant Reinhold Hanning is charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder over allegations that as a guard he helped Auschwitz function. Other survivors have testified.
– An 88-year-old Auschwitz survivor who traveled all the way from his home in Los Angeles to Germany to testify in the trial of a former Nazi SS guard will not be allowed to do so, a judge ruled Friday. "I lost my whole family, I survived five concentration camps, and I represent the dead people." Joshua Kaufman tells NBC News. Kaufman, who had to remove bodies from the gas chambers, had planned to tell the court about how victims were killed at Auschwitz. "He will be able to tell you that the bodies looked as if they were frozen and that he could see the horror of the death fight in their faces," reads a statement from Kaufman's lawyer to the court, per NBC. But a judge ruled that German law prohibited Kaufman from testifying. According to the AP, the court stated it had already heard evidence on how the victims died. "No further evidence is needed," judge Anke Grudda said. "The court has no doubts on this aspect." Other survivors had already testified in the trial of 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, who is accused of being an accessory to at least 170,000 murders in his role as an Auschwitz guard. Kaufman's lawyer says he's "shocked" at the judge's ruling, but Kaufman is trying to be positive. "If they don't want to hear me, I will just go home, but it is important that I came here to seek justice," Kaufman tells NBC. He says his four daughters and four grandchildren are his "revenge to the murderers."