Inside of Stutthof Concentration Camp, there were many female guards who inflicted such misery,
death and suffering on a daily basis. Many of them never were brought to trial for
their crimes, and they escaped any form of justice at the end of the Second World War.
But there were a series of executions that took place on Biskupia Gorda, a huge hill in Gdansk and
this dealt with the criminals of Stutthof that were condemned to death. Amongst those were a
number of women, including Ewa Paradies who at just the age of 25 was executed on a huge gallows
structure in front of around 20,000 people. She was one of many young women in their 20s who were
ardent Nazis, who inside of the concentration camps would treat prisoners horrifically.
But she paid the ultimate price for her crimes. Join us today as we look at the execution of
the sadist of stutthof, remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Stutthof Concentration Camp opened almost straight after the Second World War broke out, as the
initial prisoner population were sent to the camp to establish it and build the different buildings.
However in 1944, the number of inmates at Stutthof rose sharply, and most of the newcomers were
Jewish prisoners who came from other camps such as Auschwitz. Around 24,000 prisoners were sent
there from the largest concentration camp, and to deal with the sheer amount of people who were
transferred. There were because of this a number of guards who were recruited to work at Stutthof,
and the conditions there were terrible. It was a very harsh concentration camp, and thousands of
prisoners succumbed to starvation and disease, and many died from epidemics such as Typhus which took
the camp to its knees. The prisoners were from many different countries, and executions were
carried out on a daily basis there with different people being shot inside the firing range.
The gas chambers were also used at Stutthof, and some inmates almost drowned in mud and were
clubbed to death by the prison guards. In total around 65,000 people were killed in the camp,
and many were killed by the forced labour they were made to complete.
However one of those women who worked at Stutthof and was drafted to work at the
camp was Ewa Paradies, who had a terrible reputation amongst the prisoner population.
She was born on the 17th December 1920 in Lebork in the Weimar Republic, and it’s not known
completely what her early life was like. It’s believed that she was an ardent NAzi, and she
then in August 1944 arrived at Stutthof for her training alongside a number of other women. She
was training to become an Aufserein or an overseer of the women’s camp and the women prisoners.
When she finished her training, she became a wardress. Whilst at Stutthof she was known for
being immensely brutal and barbaric, and she often beat inmates with her whip and with other weapons.
One witness said of one incident that, ‘she ordered a group of female prisoners
to undress in the freezing cold of winter, and then doused them with ice cold water.
When the women moved, Paradies beat them.’ This sort of punishment was
very common inside of the concentration camps and was often linked to punishing many inmates
at once inside of a barrack, if one person committed a slight infraction to the rules.
But Ewa Paradies continued to brutalise and beat inmates, and then she was at some point
transferred to the Bromberg Out sub camp, for a brief period until she was then transferred
back to the main Stutthof camp. But then in April 1945, she was part of the mass
transports of prisoners out of Stutthof as the Allies and the Red Army were on the horizon.
Paradies was part of the last transport of women prisoners to the Lauenburg concentration camp,
but during the death march she fled and she knew that she would be brought to trial at the end of
the Second World War. She tried to hide out for as long as she could, but she was then captured.
She was imprisoned and interrogated for a short period, and was then transferred to the Stutthof
trial, and she was one of 16 defendants who were accused of being involved in horrors at the camp.
The courtroom imposed a number of death sentences on a number of women who had served at the camp,
and Ewa Paradies was one woman who was condemned to death.
On the 4th July 1946 at the age of just 25, Ewa Paradies was taken to Biskupia Gorda in Gdansk.
On a huge hill, a huge set of gallows were created and were standing to take the lives
of those guards who worked at Stutthof. The former guards were brought out in front of
20,000 people who had gathered to witness the executions, and on a huge central triple gallows,
Johann Pauls the former commandant and another female guard Gerda Steinhoff were hanged.
But on a gallows to the side, Ewa Paradies and Jenny Wanda Barkmann, two young women who were
known for their brutality were brought out on a truck. The pair had been sat on a stool on the
truck, and then the exeuctioners came forward. One of them placed a noose around Ewa Paradies neck,
and then the final preparations were made with the noose around her neck. She was stood on a stool
and then slowly the truck drove off, and Ewa was left hanging from the gallows. It took a number
of minutes for her to be pronounced dead as she slowly strangled to death as the crowds looked on.
Ewa Paradies was just 25 years old when she was executed by the short drop method,
and with her were 10 other guards from Stutthof and kapos who were put to death that day.
She was a woman who struck fear into the hearts of the prisoners of Stutthof,
and her actions contributed to the large death toll at the site.
But along with women such as Jenny Wanda Barkmann, Elisabeth Volkenrath and Irma Grese
she was one of a number of young women who turned to brutality inside of the concentration camps.
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