SS-Aufseherinnen: Female Camp Guards 1938-1945

[sandgroper]

There are some very evil looking women in this footage, they really do make your blood run cold. It is a real shame that some of these women literally got away with murder.

[Larry C]

Elisabeth Volkenrath almost looks like Amon Goethe commandant of the Plaszow camp. Chilling just looking at the photos!

[Scout]

Elisabeth Volkenrath almost looks like Amon Goethe commandant of the Plaszow camp. Chilling just looking at the photos!

Goeth sure had lost a fair bit of weight by the time that pic was taken. By that point, I guess he didnt have much time left.

[mametz]

Bitches of Buchenwald - article
Bitches of Buchenwald: Which death camp guard is the evil inspiration behind Kate Winslet's role in The Reader? | Mail Online

Executions
ExecutedToday.com » jenny wanda barkmann

Light switches made from mummified thumbs that,s a new one

[CARL]

Interestingly, here is a quote from an SS recruitment advertisement asking for female guards...

"...da es sich ja lediglich um die Bewachung der Haftlinge handelt."

Translation, "...you only have to watch over prisoners."



Re-youth collector,

Wanda Klaff, née Kalacinski, is listed as being executed on 4th July 1946, following sentence at the KL-Stutthof trial. She was one of eleven defendants, five women and six men, who were executed following the Stutthof trial. The photograph of Klaff's execution in the video posted, is an interesting one. During the hangings of the eleven sentenced to death, four of the five women killed were hanged by a male former prisoner, yet the image of Klaff's execution appears to show that a woman performed the task. Klaff had been caught in late spring 1945, having been hospitalised with typhoid. It has been said, that the former SS-Aufseherinen of KL-Stutthof didn't take the trial too seriously, until the very end when they eventually realised the seriousness of it all. The executions were carried out in front of a crowd of several thousand onlookers near Danzig. Along with Klaff, former Aufseherinen Gerda Steinhoff, Ewa Paradies, Elisabeth Becker and Jenny Wanda Barkmann, dubbed "The Beautiful Spectre" by inmates at the camp, were all hanged.

Regards,

Carl

[CARL]

I knew that I had the image somewhere...

This is the image with a woman often identified as Hildegard Neumann, the SS-Oberaufseherin mentioned earlier in the thread, who fled Theresienstadt at the end of war, and was never prosecuted. Aged over 90, she died not long ago. Compare her fate to another Hildegard Neumann, born in Berlin during 1908, and transported to Theresienstadt during the summer of 1943. She was eventually transported to KL-Auschwitz in October 1944, where she was murdered.

Regards,

Carl

[Adrian]

I've seen the You Tube film before, a few weeks ago whilst researching a few things.

The thing that stood out for me were the faces of each of those women. You can place them today in everyday life. Nurses, shop assistants, teachers, waitresses, company managers, housewives and mothers, the faces of everyday people you would pass every day on the street and not bat an eyelid at.

I always wonder if war hadn't intervened with so many lives, what these people might have achieved and who they might have been.

[Paul D]

I knew that I had the image somewhere...

This image is often identified as Hildegard Neumann, the SS-Oberaufseherin mentioned earlier in the thread, who fled Theresienstadt at the end of war, and was never prosecuted. Aged over 90, she died not long ago. Compare her fate to another Hildegard Neumann, born in Berlin during 1908, and transported to Theresienstadt during the summer of 1943. She was eventually transported to KL-Auschwitz in October 1944, where she was murdered.

Regards,

Carl

Excellent info Carl , any idea on how she got away with it !!

[HPL2008]

Although the photo in post # 16 (I've posted it below in a larger size) is always identified as the SS guard Hildegard Neumann, I must say I am not convinced:

The uniform is definitely not an SS uniform, but that of a female Army auxiliary. The badge on the tie is the pin for employees and workers in the service of the German Armed Forces.

I have no biographical details on Hildegard Neumann; I guess it is possible that she may have had some service with the Army prior to that with the SS, but I have always had strong doubts that it is really her in the photo.

[CARL]

HPL, thanks for adding that information. I too noticed that she wasn't dressed in the correct attire, yet thought that it was perhaps, as you say, an earlier photograph. The image shown above, should it actually prove not to be her, is incorrectly named as her within various archives. The USHMM being but one of them, and the memorial museum at Terezín another. The fine work by Daniel Patrick Brown on the subject, also lists this image as being Hildegard Neumann. I was going to address this issue with my contact at TMM, but as they list this image as being Neumann, it would be a rather pointless exercise. I shall however, contact somebody at Ravensbruck instead, where Neumann was posted prior to her promotion and subsequent transfer as an Oberaufseherin at Theresienstadt, and hopefully report back with an update in the near future. I do know, that another Hildegard Neumann worked as an Aufseherin at KL-Ravensbruck, along with the lady in question here, although she actually started working there late in 1944, whereas the Hildegard Neumann we are concerned with, began at Ravensbruck much earlier.

Regards,

Carl