Inside of the concentration camps established by the Third Reich and by Hitler’s SS, there
were scores of evil guards who would conduct horrific violent attacks on the prisoners.
After the Second World War, many war crimes trials took place to bring the perpetrators
of crimes against humanity to justice, but a number of female guards who expressed great
barbarism and violence in camps such as Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen.
Guards such as Irma Grese became known for their beastly behaviour, in which they beat
prisoners to death, shot at them randomly and instilled such terror.
Some guards were never ever brought to justice for their crimes and because of this some
ex-members of staff at camps are being processed by the courts whilst the defendants are in
their late 90s and early 100s.
However Jenny Barkmann was one concentration camp guard who was brought to trial and she
found herself on the hangman’s gallows being executed in a huge spectacle for her involvement
at Stutthof Concentration camp.
Join us today as we look at, ‘The DISGUSTING Crimes Of Jenny Barkmann,’ remember to support
our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
As Hitler took over control of Germany, many younger people were captivated by the Fuhrer
and dictator and became indoctrinated by their support of him and also by the Nazi policies.
Jenny Barkmann was one of these women who greatly supported the Nazis, and at just the
age of 22 she began to search for work inside of the sadistic and brutal concentration camps.
It’s believed that she was involved in the Nazi youth groups such as the league of German
Girls, but she entered the concentration camp system late in the war for a female guard.
In 1944 she joined Stutthof Concentration Camp, and whilst here she became an Aufseherin
or a female guard.
Most of the 55,000 guards who worked inside of various concentration camps were men, but
women were needed especially to oversee women prisoners at camps such as Ravensbruck.
Ravensbruck was a main training area for women wanting to become brutal guards and they were
schooled here in sadistic acts of violence and how to persecute and instil reigns of
fear and terror.
The Nazis were not too selective over who they wanted to become a guard, and any woman
without any formal work experience was considered to become a concentration camp guard.
Because of this many women came to the camps from very different jobs, some were former
cooks and waitresses, and some were even hairdressers who had seen advertisements in newspapers.
The SS Retinue for Women led many to work in the camp, and Jenny Barkmann came to stutthof
at the time in the war where things would start to turn against the Germans.
Stutthof was a concentration camps set up by the Nazis in the marshlands around the
city of Danzig, and after Poland was invaded and taken, it was a site where many of the
former polish leaders were held.
It is remembered as the first concentration camp established outside of German borders,
and it also was the last camp to be liberated by the allies.
Despite this, the horrors of Stutthof were very similar to camps such as Bergen-Belsen
and Auschwitz where huge killing took place, and where conditions were dire and awful.
Punishments were administered also which often led to prisoners being beaten to death by
the guards who worked there.
65,000 prisoners died inside of the camps walls because of murder, hunger, disease and
forced labour.
Many others were also forced on death marches, and 110,000 people passed through the gates.
Around 28,000 jews were executed inside the camp, and it was also filled with members
of the polish resistance and underground who also met a bloody end.
Thousands of prisoners were succumbing to disease and starvation, and typhus in particular
caused by problems it went through the camp very quickly.
Selections took place in which anyone deemed ill or weak were sent straight to their deaths
inside the camps small gas chamber which constantly was in operation in 1944.
But Stutthof had a long history of death and execution, and prisoners were beaten to death
and even drowned in the boggy mud surrounding the camp.
A day at the camp would usually lead to someone being forced to work incredibly hard inside
workshops and factories based there or nearby, and the prisoners had to do this on very little
food.
Jenny Barkmann when she arrived at the camp would be ruthless and brutal with her treatment
of the prisoners, and this led to many prisoners being haunted by her actions.
She became known for sadism and immense cruelty, and often beat prisoners to death with her
bare hands.
As soon as she got to Stutthof she got involved in the mass murder, and was involved in the
selections when she would be playing god with people’s lives.
Barkmann decided who would live another day and who would be sent to their deaths inside
the gas chambers, and it was noted how she sent many women and children to their deaths.
Because of her reputation, she was known as ‘the beautiful spectre,’ and she would
regularly whip and beat prisoners with her bare hands for only the slightest infringements
of rules.
She was responsible for a number of deaths, and despite only being inside a concentration
camp a year or so, she had a horrifying legacy.
As the war turned against the Germans, Jenny Barkmann tried to get away and hide.
She arrived in the besieged city of Gdansk, and tried to evade capture under a false name
but in May 1945 she was arrested.
She was brought to trial along with other guards who worked at Stutthof, and she stood
alongside 12 other defendants including 6 women.
At her trial, it was noted that she did not care of take the proceedings seriously, and
that she was more bothered by her appearance or by her hair than her crimes.
She wore a different hairstyle each day, and flirted with guards as they came near her.
She was sentenced to death, and in front of huge crowds in Gdansk on the Biskupia Gorka
Hill, she was executed.
200,000 people came out to see the executions of those who worked at Stutthof and inflicted
such suffering and Jenny Barkman was forced to stand on a truck under a huge gallows.
A noose was then placed around her neck, and the truck drove off leaving her hanging, and
within minutes she was killed.
Jenny Barkmann’s crimes were very common during the Holocaust especially with the women
guards who worked at some of the horrific sites of slaughter.
She is remembered for being only a young woman when she was executed, and she is remembered
alongside other guards such as Elisabeth Volkenrath and Irma Grese who inflicted such suffering
to others at a young age.
The crimes of Jenny Barkmann are endless despite the fact she only worked at a concentration
camp for 1 year, and today many of her crimes remain untold.
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