On July 4, 1946, a massive crowd gathered on Biskupia
Górka hill overlooking the ruined city of Danzig. Estimates placed the number
at nearly 200,000 people. They came not to celebrate a holiday, but to witness
something unprecedented in postwar Europe: the public execution of former
concentration camp guards, including several women, convicted of crimes against
humanity.
The women brought to the gallows that day had served
at Stutthof concentration camp, one of Nazi Germany’s most brutal detention and
extermination sites. Their trials had already concluded. The verdicts were
final. What remained was the visible assertion of justice in a landscape still
marked by mass graves, forced labor sites, and uncounted trauma.
This was not spectacle for its own sake. It was a
legal and moral reckoning in a society emerging from occupation, genocide, and
systematic terror.
The Camp That Operated in
Plain Sight
Stutthof concentration camp was established in
September 1939, just days after the German invasion of Poland. Located east of
Danzig, it was the first Nazi camp built outside Germany’s prewar borders. Initially
designed as a detention center for Polish political prisoners and
intelligentsia, it rapidly evolved into a full-scale concentration camp
integrated into the SS camp system.
By 1944, Stutthof’s population exploded. Tens of
thousands of prisoners—many of them Jewish men and women transferred from
Auschwitz and other camps—were deported there as Nazi Germany scrambled to
maintain forced labor operations while retreating on multiple fronts.
Approximately 24,000 prisoners arrived from Auschwitz alone.
To control this influx, the SS expanded its guard
corps. Female guards, many recruited locally or from other parts of the Reich,
were deployed to oversee women’s sections of the camp and its subcamps.
Conditions were catastrophic. Prisoners endured
starvation, disease, overcrowding, and relentless forced labor. Epidemics swept
through the barracks. Executions were routine. Gas chambers were introduced
late in the camp’s operation. Historians estimate that more than 65,000 people
died at Stutthof and its satellite camps.
Within this system, certain guards developed
reputations that survivors would later describe in testimony as especially
cruel.
The Female Guards and the
Mechanics of Power
One of the most notorious was Ewa Paradies,
born in 1920 in what was then the Weimar Republic. Little is documented about
her early life, but witnesses described her as ideologically committed to
National Socialism. She arrived at Stutthof in August 1944 for guard training
and was soon assigned to the women’s camp.
Survivor testimonies later described her as aggressive
and volatile, frequently administering punishments and beatings. Such actions
were not isolated incidents but part of a broader system in which guards were
granted near-total authority over prisoners’ daily survival.
Paradies fled during the evacuation of the camp in
early 1945 but was eventually captured. At her trial, witness accounts and
documentary evidence led to a conviction for crimes against humanity. She was
executed in July 1946 at the age of 25.
Another guard, Elisabeth Becker, was born in
1923 near Danzig. As a teenager, she joined the League of German Girls, the
female branch of the Hitler Youth, where ideological conformity and loyalty to
the regime were emphasized. In 1944, she volunteered for SS service.
At Stutthof, Becker was involved in prisoner
selections—decisions determining who would be sent to forced labor and who
would be killed. During her trial, she admitted to participating in multiple
selections. Despite petitions for clemency, she was sentenced to death and
executed at 22.
Image, Ideology, and Denial
Perhaps the most infamous of the group was Jenny-Wanda
Barkmann, born in Hamburg in 1922. Before the war, she worked as a model
and shop assistant. In 1944, she joined the SS and was assigned to Stutthof.
Survivors remembered her for the stark contrast
between her appearance and her conduct, a duality that earned her the nickname
“the beautiful ghost.” During postwar interrogations, she attempted to minimize
her actions, claiming she treated prisoners humanely. Survivor testimony
contradicted her claims.
At trial, observers noted her lack of remorse and her
apparent focus on her appearance rather than the proceedings. She was convicted
and executed at the age of 24.
Advancement Within a System
of Violence
Gerda Steinhoff, born in
Danzig in 1922, came from a working-class background and held various civilian
jobs before joining the SS. At Stutthof, she rose to a senior guard position
and received commendations from the regime.
Prisoner testimonies later described her as an active
participant in selections and punishments. Her advancement illustrated how
institutional violence rewarded compliance and initiative. She was convicted
and executed in 1946, also at 24.
Wanda Klaff, another guard
from Danzig, joined the SS in 1944 after working in a factory. Assigned to
subcamps including Praust and Russoschin, she oversaw forced labor details and
discipline.
During her trial, her statements revealed little
remorse. She was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed alongside
the others.
The Trials and Their
Significance
The executions on Biskupia Górka followed formal war
crimes trials conducted by Polish authorities under international legal
standards emerging in the aftermath of World War II. These proceedings occurred
alongside the more widely known Nuremberg Trials and contributed to the
development of modern international criminal law.
The presence of female defendants challenged
assumptions that atrocities were committed exclusively by men. The trials
documented how ordinary individuals—many barely out of adolescence—became
active participants in systematic violence when empowered by ideology and
institutional authority.
Justice, Memory, and
Historical Record
The public nature of the executions reflected the
demand for accountability in a society devastated by occupation and mass
murder. For survivors and families of victims, the trials provided
acknowledgment of crimes that had been denied or minimized for years.
Today, historians continue to study the Stutthof
trials as critical evidence of how concentration camps functioned, how
perpetrators were recruited and rewarded, and how postwar justice
attempted—imperfectly—to respond.
The women executed in 1946 were not anomalies. They
were products of a system that normalized brutality and blurred moral
boundaries until violence became routine.
Their fate marked the end of their participation in that system—but it also marked the beginning of a historical record that refuses to forget what was done, who did it, and how easily it happened.
Post a Comment