Stutthof Concentration Camp was one of the most brutal at terrifying camps opened by
the Third Reich during the Second World War.
Inside of the camp were a number of female guards who would on a daily basis inflict
execution, death, suffering and misery.
The majority of the guards of Stutthof were never brought to trial, and they escaped justice
at the end of the conflict.
However there were a number of executions that occurred on Biskupia Gorda, a large hill
and mound in Gdansk, where a number of large gallows were situated.
These huge gallows were where a number of female and male guards who had been condemned
to die following a war crimes trial were executed.
There were 20,000 people who had gathered to witness the executions of the guards of
stutthof, and one woman who was led out in front of the crowd was Wanda Klaff, who at
the age of just 24 was executed on the gallows.
She was a horrific guard, and despite only being at the camp a year before the end of
the war, she was a sadist.
Join us today as we look at the execution of the sadistic female torturer of Stutthof,
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Stutthof Concentration Camp opened its gates almost as soon as the Second World War broke
out with the German invasion of Poland.
The camp was established by a number of Polish prisoners who had been listed as needed arrest,
and these first victims became the people who made the buildings and the different barracks.
They even had to build where they would sleep.
But as the war went on, there were a large amount of prisoners who would be transferred
and sent to Stutthof, and especially as the war turned against the Germans the prisoner
population would grow.
In 1944, the number of inmates rose and many of those new prisoners were Jewish inmates
who had been sent from camps such as Auschwitz.
24,000 prisoners were sent from Auschwitz, and to cope with the large amount of people
transferred more guards were brought to the camp.
Some SS guards of Stutthof had been conscripted into the war effort, so officials looked towards
the local area to recruit guards and staff who would become brutes inside of the camp.
This included a number of women, but the conditions as the camp numbers grew broke down.
There was a huge overcrowding problem, and disease spread quickly around the site killing
many inmates, and also there was a huge lack of food and starvation was a problem also.
The prisoners came from many different countries, and the guards were carrying out killings
and executions on a daily basis.
Prisoners were being executed on the gallows in front of the other inmates, and the conditions
of the camp were made worse with the fact mud was everywhere.
Some inmates even drowned in the mud, and beatings were administered by a number of
the guards, who brutalised prisoners.
But in total around 65,000 prisoners were killed in the camp, and many were exterminated
through the forced labour they were made to do.
Wanda Klaff was born on the 6th March 1922 and she was from Danzig or Gdansk, where Stutthof
was situated near.
She was born Wanda Kalacinski, and her parents were both German and her father worked on
the railways.
At some point, the family changed their name to Kaiden in 1941 during the Second World
War for some reason, but Wanda it’s believed had a very normal schooling and upbringing.
After she finished school at the age of 16 in 1938, she then worked inside of a jam factory
even as the war was waging on.
She remained there until 1942, and at the age of 20 she then married a man named Willy
Klaff, and she then left work and became a housewife for a brief time.
But as they needed money, Wanda went back to work as a streetcar operator.
However in the local area of Gdansk, the SS put out advertisements looking for men and
women to go to work inside of the concentration camps.
They would not take everyone, and they were picky and wanted Aryans to work inside the
camp, but Wanda Klaff then answered the call and she was in 1944 sent to Stutthof.
She completed her training here with more senior guards schooling a number of other
women in how to become brutes.
Klaff following her training was then sent to Stutthof’s sub camp named Praust, which
was found in a small town nearby.
This was where many women prisoners were based, and whilst here she would beat, whip and assault
many of the women that were based there.
Following a short stint at Praust, she was then on the 5th October 1944 transferred to
the Russoschin sub camp, which was found in a small village.
This small sub camp imprisoned around 300 women, who were forced to conduct hard labour.
If the women could not complete their work, then Klaus and the other female guards would
often beat them brutally and the women were savaged by other guards.
It was only a very small camp, so a very select number of guards were held there.
But as the Soviet Forces were approaching stutthof, a large number of evacuations took
place.
The remaining prisoners of around 50,000 were marched towards different places, and many
were marched towards the sea where they were then shot in the water by machine guns set
up on the shore.
It’s believed that around 25,000 prisoners were killed during the evacuations of Stutthof
and the other sub camps.
But for some of the guards, the evacuations served as a means of escaping the site and
also escaping the crimes that they had committed inside of the concentration camp.
It was likely that they knew that after the war, trials would be brought against those
who treated the inmates horrifically and committed crimes in various concentration camps.
Wanda Klaff used the evacuations in early 1945 as a way of escaping the camp and trying
to escape justice.
However on the 11th June 1945 she was arrested and was held inside of a Polish prison.
However the conditions at this site were also poor, and because of this she became very
ill in prison from typhoid fever.
But she did survive, and she was then brought to the Stuthof Trials to stand against charges
of crimes against humanity.
Alongside Wanda were a number of other women including Jenny Wanda Barkmann, Gerda Steinhoff
and Elizabeth Becker.
All of these women were accused of crimes against humanity, and of treating the inmates
of Stutthof brutally and horrifically.
Wanda Klaff was accused of hitting and beating inmates on a daily basis, and she admitted
her crimes at the trial, and was incredibly smug about what she had done.
She said, ‘I am very intelligent and very devoted to my work in the camps.
I struck at least two prisoners each day.’
It’s not known why she admitted this, and it may have been a brag, as it would have
been unlikely that the judges would have seen her favourably with this admission.
However along with many other former guards and a number of other women, Wanda Klaff was
sentenced to death in the Stuthof Trials and she was condemned to death at the age of 24.
After the war many authorities found it strange how such young women could become such brutes.
On the 4th July 1946, she was taken from her prison cell to Biskupia Gorka, a huge hill
in Gdansk.
Inside this area, 20,000 people had gathered to witness the executions of the former guards
of Stutthof.
At the age of just 24, Wanda Klaff was led out and was then ordered to climb onto the
back of a truck.
On these trucks were a number of guards and officials, and there was also a stool.
Wanda Klaff was told to sit onto the stool, and the truck then reversed back under the
huge gallows that had been placed on the hill.
These gallows were massive, and allowed everyone in the crowd to get a glimpse of the proceedings.
Wanda Klaff was then stood on the stool as the noose was thrown over the gallows, and
then it was secured around her neck.
Slowly then the officials got off the truck, and then the truck went forward and Wanda
Klaff swung from the gallows.
Within minutes she was executed, and she was left hanging for a while until she was then
declared dead by a doctor.
Wanda Klaff was a woman who at the age of 24 was sentenced to death, and she was a woman
who just worked inside of a concentration camp for around a year.
There were longer serving guards and women at other sites who were never brought to justice
for their evils, but on the hill on a huge set of gallows in Gdansk, Wanda Klaff was
sentenced to death.
She was one of a number of women at Stutthof who were condemned for their crimes, but the
huge crowd of 20,000 that day saw many executions.
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