Inside of the Concentration camps, there were many different guards who exhibited horrific
violence and brutality. The Third Reich established many different camps where the evils of the
holocaust were played out, and after the war only a very small percentage of former staff
were ever brought to justice. War crimes trials were held to bring the perpetrators of crimes
against humanity to justice, however there were many more former SS guards who escaped
any form of punishment. Still today a number of people in their late 90s are brought in
front of courts in Germany accused of committing terrible crimes during the Second World War.
But there was one female guard who would be sentenced to death for her involvement inside
of Ravensbruck, an all female concentration camp. However Carmen Mory would never be executed
for her crimes as she escaped the hangman noose. Join us today as we look at the Disgusting
Crimes of Carmen Mory, and remember to support our channel please make sure to subscribe.
Carmen Mory a Swiss national was impressed and attracted to the National Socialists and
the Nazi Party. She had been working before the war broke out as a journalist for what
today is The Guardian newspaper, and it’s considered that she had a very good upbringing.
However from the time when Hitler came into power to around 1937, she began to work as
a journalist inside of Berlin whilst the Nazi ideologies were being pressed onto the population.
Inside the German capital she would produce articles for the newspaper, however in 1934
she was approached by the Gestapo, the Secret Police to work as an undercover agent, and
she accepted this proposition. She would work under Bruno Sattler, and was tasked with spying
and keeping an eye on a publisher in Zurich and she was assigned other work for the Gestapo
in Paris spying on a politician. She would collect as much information as she could and
then pass it on to the Gestapo, and she even collected information on the Maginot Line,
the series of fortifications established by the French to repel a German invasion.
However in France, Carmen Mory was ultimately arrested and after being tried she was sentenced
to death on the 28th April 1940, but she was then pardoned as it was believed she accepted
a deal to become a double agent for the French. However soon after this Germany invaded and
occupied France and because of her capture, Mory was considered to have been not useful
now by the Gestapo. The Secret Police even suspected that she had been turned as a double
agent and because of this they arrested her, and she was released before being arrested
yet again in 1941. Following this she was then sent as a prisoner initially to Ravensbruck
Concentration Camp, however she then became a Kapo here.
Ravensbruck was an all female concentration camp established by the Nazis, and around
130,000 women would pass through the barb wire fences there, and it’s estimated that
between 30,000 and 90,000 were killed at the camp. The conditions there were very harsh,
and women were forced to conduct heavy and hard labour, and it was said of the camp that,
‘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.’ It was where there were many different medical experiments also
took place, but how did Carmen Mory a prisoner commit crimes there?
She was appointed to become a Kapo, which was a prisoner based inside the concentration
camps but they were given duties by the SS to oversee forced labour and to carry out
different jobs and admin tasks at the camp. Using Kapos cut down costs for the Germans,
and they sought to use some prisoners to oversee others, and the Kapos were involved with the
running of the camp. These were the ones who would ensure that all rules were to be followed
in an individual bank, and different capos were given different roles, such as a Room
Leader who would be involved in making sure hygiene was good inside the barracks, or the
Registrar who was involved in keeping records at roll call. After the Second World War had
come to an end, there were many accounts of Kapos being brought to war crimes trials,
for their cruelty and brutality in being complicit in the killing process at the camps.
Most knew what was going on, and many Kapos would use violence and some had blood on their
hands being responsible for killing prisoners and enforcing the conditions. Himmler would
state of the role of a capo that, ‘The moment he becomes a Kapo, he no longer sleeps with
them. He is held accountable for the performance of the work, that they are clean, that the
beds are well-built. [...] So, he must drive his men. The moment we become dissatisfied
with him, he is no longer Kapo, he's back to sleeping with his men. And he knows that
he will be beaten to death by them the first night.’
However, Carmen Mory worked as a Kapo at Ravensbruck, and she was involved in overseeing the conditions
and work which went on inside of her block. She oversaw the forced labour, and was described
as a real beast and she showed how much of a psychopath that she could really do. She
was seen by witnesses abusing and beating women who were inside of the infirmary. Many
of these prisoners were classed as mentally ill, and in one incident it was said that
a number of prisoners were naked and some wore short day shirts. They had their camp
number written in a chemical pencil on their chest, some of them dragged themselves off
the floor and huddled together in the centre of a room. The windowless room was only a
few square metres big. The terrified polish women were spotted by Mory, who took a syringe
out of her pocket and said, ‘I don’t advise you to be so sensitive, it calms you down,
forever my love. She then laughed and said, ‘Now I’ll show you something else, before
you see I have to explain to you that all the dung worms are dying.’ She would taunt
the patients with injections which could kill, and then went on to show off a bathroom filled
with naked women’s bodies lying on the floor,’ that she bragged she was responsible for.
Carmen Mory was also known for beating prisoners with a belt and a rubber hose very badly,
and would use this to drive prisoners to do more work. She was also known for pouring
cold water over them in the freezing conditions which could bring on hypothermia and kill.
Rather disturbingly, she was overheard saying about the conditions in her barracks, ‘I
do not give them anything to eat. Sometimes I throw a slice of bread. What happens then!
You have to see it! But I have the most fun when I see them eating their own feces.’
Mory had become one of those barbaric concentration camp members of staff, and she was proud of
it. However lets remember that she was an ardent Nazi and was attracted to the Nazi
way of life, so she probably felt that as she was working for the Gestapo she deserved
to be involved in the brutal and barbaric nature of the concentration camps. She was
known for being a monster, and was described as, ‘sadomasochistic, psychopathic, sexually
voracious and one of the camps’ most notorious Kapos.’
At the end of the Second World War, she was released from Ravensbruck, however many of
the other prisoners identified her as a beastly member of staff and she was arrested and placed
on trial. She was brought to trial and the media heard of her crimes and she was regarded
as a ‘third rate Mata Hari,’ and as a Belladonna, and for her crimes she would be
sentenced to death. However, before her execution, Carmen Mory decided to escape the hangman
noose by taking her own life on the 9th April 1947. The other defendants sentenced to death
alongside her would be executed less than a month later.
The crimes of Carmen Mory show us that even prisoners who were given some power inside
of the concentration camps could instigate a reign of terror and hate over others. It
was clear that she was attracted to the politics of the Nazi party and that she was a Nazi
who happened to find herself a prisoner at Ravensbruck for the fact she had been captured
as a spy. Today many of her crimes remain untold.
Thanks for watching
To support please make sure to subscribe
Thanks again for watching