Throughout the Second World War, there were many concentration camps which were used by the SS
and the Nazis to instigate a reign of terror onto prisoners. At sites such as Auschwitz
and Bergen-Belsen, death and deprativity lurked around every corner and there was a huge amount
of suffering. Many SS guards were brutes and were known for their murderous and violent actions,
for example Johanna Bormann was known as the woman with the dog as she encouraged her German Shepherd
to maul and savage inmates. One camp located in Poland was Majdanek, and here its estimated
around around 78,000 people were killed by the horror that was within the barbed wire fences.
The camp was found on the outskirts of the Polish city of Lublin which saw a lot of
suffering during World War 2. But there was one female guard who worked there who became known
for her brutality and crimes. Elsa Ehrich was after the war sentenced to death for her crimes,
and she was hanged inside of Lublin Prison at the age of 34. But what was her story, and what did
she do that was so barbaric? Join us today as we look at the justified execution of Elsa Ehrich,
the beast of majdanek. Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Elsa Ehrich’s early life prepared her ultimately for what she would later do inside of the
concentration camps. Before the war she worked in a slaughterhouse, and would probably see lots of
tough sights, however she would take this brutal mentality into the concentration camp system.
She volunteered on the 15th August 1940 to work inside of the camps, and initially
was sent to Ravensbruck, and all female guard. Here she learned how to become a female guard,
and how to violently instil a reign of fear and terror into the inmates. Ehrich was
taught by other terrifying women, and she then worked at Ravensbruck for a number of years.
Ravensbruck was an all female camp, and many of the women who were imprisoned here would
later recount their horrifying treatment at the hands of the SS women. One woman said,
‘They didn't shoot the women. We were to die of misery, hunger and exhaustion...when
we arrived at Ravensbrück, it was the worst. The first thing I saw was a cart with all the
dead piled on it. Their arms and legs hanging out, and mouths and eyes wide open. They reduced
us to nothing. We didn't even feel like we had the value of cattle. You worked and you died.’
Many of the most infamous guards such as Irma Grese initially went to Ravensbruck to train,
but over time Elsa then became a rapport leader there and she was then plucked from Ravensbruck to
work at a different camp. In October 1942 as the Final solution was expanding and the Nazis were
putting their destructive genocide into overdrive, many women were summoned from Ravensbruck to
work at other camps. Ehrich was summoned to go and work at Majdanek near to Lublin in Poland,
as the SS were short of workers to deal with the increase in transports and deportations. Majdanek
had a huge number of prisoners transported to it around 1942, and Majdanek operated as a sorting
and storage deport for many of the killing centres and extermination camps around Poland.
At this time a huge number of Jews were being deported to their deaths, as ghettos were being
liquidated and cleared, and around March 1942 Majdanek was refurbished as a killing centre and
camp. There were two identical buildings which were converted into gas chambers, and Zyklon
B was used. Also executions were carried out in barrack 41 using poison gas, and other women such
as Hermann Braunsteiner and Hildegard Lachert were transferred to Majdanek to work also Elsa Ehrich.
Thousands were murdered there, and the bodies of those killed were first buried in mass graves
but were later exhumed and burned inside of the crematoria there. As the camp got more deadly,
further killing facilities were added. Elsa served under the SS at the camp,
and she was known for being a violent guard who would use her whip and weapons, but also she took
part in the major selections of people to go to the gas chambers for their deaths. When new
prisoners arrived at the camp, many would never even make it through the gates to be processed,
as those who were too weak would be sent to their deaths. It was guards such as Ehrich who played
god with people’s lives, and they would decide who would live and who would not. For her work, Elsa
was promoted to become an SS Oberaufserehin. She was rather senior at Majdanek, and her assistant
was Hermine Braunsteiner, a woman who became infamous for literally stomping people to death.
Elsa also selected woman to go to their execution, and she would organise executions for this who
infringed on the camps rules. It’s believed that whilst at Majdanek, she was responsible
herself for the deaths of thousands of prisoners who died in the gas chambers,
and thousands who were selected who were women and also children. Children and their mothers were
often killed straight away, and Elsa Ehrich was the one who ordered these to die. She was a brutal
woman, and during the 34 months in which the camp operated, over 79,000 people were murdered inside
of the main camp, and within the sub camp system between 95,000 and 130,000 were killed in other
camps overseen by Majdanek. Elsa Ehrich was also there when on one single day, on the 3rd November
1943, around 18,000 jews were killed at Majdanek in the largest massacre of the Holocaust, which
was named Operation Harvest Festival. Along with two sub camps, 43,000 people were killed in this.
But in February 1943, as disease was spreading around Majdanek, Elsa Ehrich contracted Typhoid
herself and became very sick. But she did recover and in April 1933 she became an Oberaufseherin at
the Krawow-Plaszow concentration camp after she was transferred. The SS viewed her as trusted mass
murder who could work at other sites wherever she was needed, and then from June 1944 to April 1945
she was transferred to Neuengamme. At all of the sites she worked at she oversaw terror and evil,
but as the war was coming to an end, Elsa Ehrich was arrested by the British in Hamburg.
She was then transferred to American custody, and was held at Dachau for war criminals.
She shared a cell at the time with the barbaric SS guard Maria Mandel
who too it’s believed was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
As she had conducted a lot of her crimes in Poland, she was deported there and was
then brought to trial at the Second Majdanek trials which aimed to bring justice against
those evil guards who had worked at the site. Elsa was accused of war crimes and
crimes against humanity and on the 10th June 1948 was condemned to death for her evil.
She tried to appeal to the Polish president for clemency and a prison sentence as she had
a small child and she wanted to say sorry for her crimes and live a better life from then on.
But the president rejected this and her death sentence was confirmed.
Inside of Lublin Prison, Elsa Ehrich was led into the execution chamber on the 26th October 1948.
She had been confirmed to die, and inside the chamber were a number of hooks from
which nooses were found. She was told to stand under one and then on a stool,
before the executioner secured it around her neck. Following this the stool was kicked out
from underneath her and she was then killed in a few minutes strangling from the noose.
But Elsa Ehrich is remembered today alongside brutal female SS guards such as Irma Grese,
Elizabeth Volkenrath and Maria Mandel. She was responsible herself for the deaths of thousands
of women inside the camps where she worked, and she also made the lives of many a complete misery.
Lets remember that before the war she was a slaughterhouse worker,
and it seemed like this was an apt transition for her to work in the concentration camps,
as she was each day leading lambs to the slaughter. The true nature of her crimes
today remain untold, and there are many more untold evils that were committed by Elsa Ehrich.
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