Inside of the concentration camp systems there were a number of female guards who would inflict
such suffering and misery onto the inmates on a daily basis.
Women such as Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath and Maria Mandl would carry out executions
on a daily basis in front of thousands of terrified prisoners and they were greatly
feared.
Majdanek concentration camp was found on the outskirts of the polish city of Lublin, and
throughout its time in operation its believed that around 78,000 prisoners of the 150,000
who were held behind the barbed wire fence were killed.
It was an extermination site as well as a concentration camp where inmates were forced
to work very hard, and the conditions were very tough.
But after the war there were a number of female guards who had worked at Majdanek who were
brought to trial, and they faced the possibility of execution for their actions.
Join us today as we look at the execution of the female guards of majdanek.
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Majdanek concentration camp was established in October 1941 on the orders of Heinrich
Himmler, and it was planned to be a place to hold 25,000 prisoners.
However as the camp grew more prisoners came and the capacity was increased to 50,000.
Construction for the camp began in October 1941, and then plans to extend the camp to
allow for 250,000 soviet pows were drawn up.
150 workers were brought to build the camp, and then a bigger workforce was brought to
Majdanek, but in July 1942 Himmler visited different extermination camps to eliminate
the jews of Poland.
But then Majdanek was made into a secondary place to carry out the exterminations, and
it was made a killing centre.
Gassings of people were performed in view of the other prisoners, and executions were
carried out in front of other prisoners too to inspire fear.
The prisoners of Majdanek were brought from other countries such as Austria, Italy and
Ukraine, and the size of the numbers inside the camp are debated.
But from October 1942, Majdanek had female overseers and women guards who were based
there.
At the time there was a call by the SS who were wanting women to join the SS and to become
concentration camp guards.
Some women who answered the call were hairdressers and they had other normal jobs before they
trained to become concentration camp guards.
Many women who applied to work at Majdanek were sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp
for a period of training.
Whilst here senior women guards such as Maria Mandl trained women in how to be brutal and
barbaric, and they would be schooled in how to instigate a reign of terror.
Women such as Else Ehrich, Hermann Boettcher-Brueckner, Hermann Braunsteiner, Hildegard Lachert, Rosey
Suss, Elizabeth Knoblich-Ernst, Charlotte Klara Maya Wollert, and Gertrud Heise were
sent to Majdanek to work there.
These women would later be taken to war crimes trials, and they would be condemned as war
criminals.
The women were taken to the camp to deal with the increasing number of female prisoners
who would be sent there.
The first women arrived at Majdanek on the 1st October 1942, and this was the date of
the creation of the women’s camp in the prisoner field 5.
The first women who were held at Majdanek were polish prisoners who had been taken from
the Lublin ghetto, and when they arrived the women were forced to go through the admission
process.
When they got there, their personal belongings and clothes were taken away and their personal
data was written and recorded and they were then given prisoner numbers.
The registration was similar to the mens registration, but their records were held separately.
Then the humiliating disinfection and bathing process came.
Women were forced to undress in front of the SS men and the prisoners who were employed
inside of the bathhouses.
One former prisoner stated, ‘One of the first things that shocked us entirely was
the necessity to strip, right under the eyes of that whole personnel.
They were all males, mostly the Germans, though there were also a few prisoners there.
Resistance was our first, automatic reaction – we did not want to strip, though we had
to do so eventually, because they started to yell and beat us.’
Following the bathing and disinfection progress, women and to get dressed very quickly.
The clothes were then distributed to the women, and the SS men would take the women to the
women’s camp.
They were subjected to the brutal rules and regulations, and one woman said of her experience,
‘Early in the morning; the Germans surrounded the whole Wieniawa quarter.
They ordered everyone to leave their homes and gather at the square.
They announced that all who refuse to abandon their apartments would be executed.
Sheer panic broke out inside the homes.
People were hastily packing whatever they could before marching off to the rally point.
We took our bags and walked to the square.
It was swarming with fully armed Germans dressed in green-and-grey uniforms.
Between 2 and 3 p.m. some trucks arrived at the square, and everyone was forced to climb
onto the back of the lorries.
We were taken to Majdanek, where our names were registered near the bathhouse.
Women were placed at field V and for some time were allowed to keep their clothes.
Men were placed at field IV and they were all wearing striped uniforms.
I could see my husband across the barbed wire fence.
We were employed at the camp maintenance and were forced to carry desks.
The barracks at field V were still under construction at that time.’
The head female overseer or the oberaufseherin was in charge of the female camp, and this
position throughout the whole time of operation was held by Elsa Ehrich.
She would answer to the commandant, but Ehrich and her deputy Hermine Braunsteiner were responsible
for holding the roll call and assigning women to labour groups.
Braunsteiner would later be promoted and she ran the female camps office.
She oversaw the new prisoners coming to the camp, but further women were transferred to
guard the women prisoners.
Overall around 30 women were employed at Majdanek and they were responsible for law and order
as well as driving the women to work heavily.
In terms of the brutality of Majdanek, the SS would dispose of the remains of the inmates
by burning them inside of the huge crematoria that were there.
It was where many war crimes were concealed, for example during Operation Harvest Festival
18,000 jews were shot in a single day.
These were then exhumed and dealt with in the crematoria.
There was also a gas chamber there and thousands were killed there, but executions by firing
squad continued also at the site and hundreds were slaughtered by the guards.
At the end of the war, the camp was liberated and many former guards were brought to trial
for their evil.
A number of women were brought to the majdanek trials, but shockingly very few women despite
being brutal were brought to courtrooms for their work at the camp.
Elsa Ehrich who was the female commandant of the camp would be executed for her actions.
She it’s believed was responsible for thousands of prisoners being sent to the gas chambers,
and she would then be taken to a small execution chamber inside of Lublin Prison where she
was executed.
Inside of the chamber were a number of meathooks with nooses attached to them, and she was
placed on a stool and the noose was put around her before the stool was removed.
But it was in the third Majdanek trial in which more women were brought to trial for
their crimes.
But none of these were executed.
The most serious punishment was given out to Hermine Braunsteiner, and she was given
life imprisonment.
Alice Orlowski a brutal guard would die during the trial of old age, but other women such
as Hildegard Lachert were given serious time in prison.
Other women such as Charlotte Mayer or Rosa Suss were linked to the camp working in maintenance,
but they were then acquitted and were released.
These trials took place decades after the war.
Hermine Braunstiner who worked at the camp would be known as the stomping mare and she
was seen executing inmates with her jackboots, stamping poor prisoners to death.
She was a beast who would also execute young prisoners and throw youngsters on trucks to
go to their deaths by their hair.
But after the end of the Second World War, there was only one female guard of Majdanek
who was executed.
The rest were given time in prison or they were acquitted decades after the conflict
had come to an end.
But Majdanek was a horrific site of slaughter where dozens of thousands of people were killed
inside of the barbed wire fences.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel please make sure to subscribe
Once again thanks for watching