Inside of the Concentration Camps, there were many different guards and members of staff
that inflicted great suffering and pain onto those prisoners inside of the camps.
At some of the most evil places used by the Nazis during the Second World War to carry
out the Holocaust, there were female guards who would live on in the memory of the survivors
for their barbarism and great violence.
One such woman was Johanna Borman, a woman who was executed after the end of World War
2 for her involvement at camps such as Auschwitz and also Bergen-Belsen.
She was placed on trial at the Belsen Trials after she was arrested in the terrible camp
along with a number of other prominent SS guards such as Irma Grese and Josef Kramer.
Bormann’s crimes were endless, and she was noted for her immense brutality.
Join us today as we look at ‘The Disgusting Crimes Of Juana Bormann.’
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Johanna Bormann joined the Auxiliary SS shortly before the start of the Second World War in
1938, around the age of 45.
She claimed that she joined the SS initially as she knew she could earn more money inside
of the evil regime than a normal civilian job would pay, and she began work inside of
a kitchen.
However she first came into a concentration camp at the Lichtenburg Concentration Camp
found in Saxony.
This camp in particular was one of the first to be constructed by the Nazis and had been
opened by the SS in 1933, and it held in it’s most busy period over 2000 prisoners, but
then as time went on it became a women’s prison.
The camp closed when the women were transferred to the newly opened Ravensbruck Concentration
Camp, a specialist camp for women.
Bormann went with these prisoners to the new camp, and Ravensbruck was seen as a brutal
place where many female concentration camp guards would learn their violent craft.
They were schooled by evil women such as Maria Mandl, and most of the female guards went
through Ravensbruck’s gates and learned how to treat prisoners cruelly and barbarically.
They were schooled in how to effectively beat prisoners to submission, and Bormann would
use what she learned to carry out horrendous acts of cruelty.
Whilst at Ravensbruck, she oversaw a work crew there, but then in March 1942 she was
transferred along with a number of other women to move to the rapidly expanding Auschwitz
in occupied Poland.
Auschwitz would become the largest killing site of the Holocaust, and as it expanded
to take more inmates and ultimately prisoners who would be killed, there was a need also
for staff to travel across.
Johanna Bormann whilst there would be vicious, and she was known for her small size but for
her evil treatment of prisoners.
She was nicknamed the Weasel, or the woman with the dogs and she would use her dog viciously
on victims.
At her trial, she was asked several questions which related to her having a dog inside of
the camp.
She was asked, ‘A large number of witnesses have said that they remember seeing you with
a dog, did you have a dog?’
She responded, ‘Yes I brought him with me.’
She lent her dog to other guards, who took him hunting, but the real bloodshed regarding
the dog occurred inside of Auschwitz with Bormann holding the lead.
Two witnesses claimed that they saw her dog attacking a woman, and that Bormann boasted
to a number of SS men after she had encouraged the dog to attack the prisoners.
In another account, by Mrs Vera Fisher, she said that Bormann was in charge of women prisoners
outside the camp, and that she set her a large dog onto them if they became weak and refused
to work properly.
She even went further saying that a number of the women prisoners attacked by Bormann’s
dog actually were taken to the hospital and they died of blood poisoning from infection
and the fact they were denied proper medical care.
Also a number of women who were injured by the dog were sent to the gas chambers.
Johanna Bormann denied this, but the accusations continued.
A lady Helena Koper said that inside of Auschwitz, Bormann as the most hated person in the camp,
and whilst she oversaw the clothing store she encouraged her dog to attack prisoners.
On one instance, Bormann noted a prisoner taking something, and she grabbed her by her
hair, threw her to the ground and then let the dog bite her which caused an injury so
great that there was a huge pool of blood.
A doctor then arrived to examine her, and there was no movement, and the woman was then
sent straight to the gas chambers to be killed.
The dog also attacked a woman so badly that she was sent to the hospital where she stayed
for six weeks.
Bormann’s violent streak also was on display without the dog.
She was known for striking women and other prisoners very hard.
One woman, Dora Silberberg recalled at trial how Bormann struck a woman who felt so sick
that she could not walk to the work site.
When she got there she sat down as she was so weak, and Bormann hit her across the face
so hard that she knocked out two teeth and then she ordered the dog to attack.
This woman who had been bitten severely was then taken to the infirmary where she died.
Bormann claimed at trial that there were other women in Auschwitz with dogs, and denied all
allegations against her.
But they continued.
She was seen beating prisoners for wearing good clothes, forcing them to undress and
then participate in brutal strenuous exercises, and she admitted to striking the faces of
the female prisoners who did not listen.
Another accusation that emerged against Johanna Bormann was that she was present at a number
of the selections.
As prisoners went to Auschwitz, they would go through selection.
Those fit enough to work were allowed to be admitted into the camp, but those who were
considered too weak were sent straight to their deaths in the gas chambers.
Bormann was present at selections and regularly played god with people’s lives, deciding
if they lived or died.
During her cross examination, it also emerged that the guards at Auschwitz were treating
the pigs better than the prisoners, giving them adequate food when the Jewish prisoners
inside the camp were starving.
As the war went on, Bormann was transferred to Budy a sub camp nearby Auschwitz where
she continued to be incredibly violent to prisoners.
However as the war was turning against the germans, she was transferred a number of times.
In 1944 she was sent to help keep order at an auxillary camp at Hindenburg, before in
January 1945 being sent back to Ravensbruck.
However she was then sent to Bergen Belsen where she would serve under the Beast of Belsen
Josef Kramer.
Belsen as a camp swelled in it’s numbers massively towards the end of the Second World
War as huge numbers of prisoners were transferred there.
The camp could not cope with the massive amount of prisoners being sent there, and because
of that there was a huge strain on resources.
There was very little food if any, and the sanitation in the camp was non existant, to
the point where disease was around every corner.
The dead bodies stacked up inside the camp, and when the British Army liberated Belsen
on the 15th April 1945, they found over 10,000 unburied corpses and 60,000 survivors, many
who were disease ridden and close to death.
Inside the camp during liberation were a number of SS staff, including Johanna Bormann who
did not flee the allies, but instead remained to ensure law and order was maintained.
She along with the other SS personnel and the female guards were forced to carry the
dead and bury them in mass graves, as they were seen as the ones who caused the depravity.
At trial, Johanna Bormann was sentenced to death as the Belsen Trials for her role in
the mass murder and evil of the Holocaust.
It was clear that she was a dangerous and violent woman, with sadistic tendencies that
would come to fruition very often.
Her executioner Albert Pierrepoint wrote of her execution that, ‘She limped down the
corridor looking old and haggard.
She was 52 years old, standing only a little over 5 feet.
She was trembling as she was put on the scales, and in German she said ‘I have my feelings.’
She went to the gallows a war criminal, and was hanged alongside other guards such as
Irma Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath.
But what is different about Johanna Bormann is the fact she was much older, she had been
like so many indoctrinated against the Jews by Hitler’s policies, and for a woman who
initially claimed she worked for the SS as she could earn money, she showed her true
colours.
Johanna Bormann’s crimes at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbruck were huge in their numbers
and incredibly barbaric, and today many of her crimes remain untold.
Thanks for watching.
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Once again, thanks for watching.