On the 15th of May of 1,939, Ravensbrook opened its doors as the first and largest concentration camp specifically designed for women in the Nazi system. Located 90 km north of Berlin near the village of Fenberg, the camp began to receive prisoners transferred from Likenberg, the previous SS women’s camp that had reached its full capacity.
From the first day, the German women who arrived to work as alsan supervisory guards established a regime of systematic brutality [music] that would define the following six years. Among the first guards was Dorothia Bins, who volunteered for kitchen duty in August of 1,939. She was 19 years old, came from a lower middle-class family from Dust Lake near Templan, and had attended school only until 15 years old.
In September of 1,939, just 1 month after her arrival, she was promoted to Alserin. Johanna Langangerfeld, who had previously worked in Likenberg, arrived at Ravensbrook in May of 1,939 as the first Oberin, the chief guard. Langangerfeld was 39 years old and had grown up in a nationalist and Lutheran family.
She had been widowed young and unemployed for years before finding work as a guard in correctional institutions in Ravensbrook. Langangerfeld organized the hierarchical structure of the female staff, established punishing procedures, and supervised the training of new guards. The system that Langangerfeld implemented placed the female guards under the formal authority of the male Shutz Haft Lagafura, the preventive custody leader of the camp.
But in daily practice, the Alserinan exercised absolute control over the prisoners. They supervised the morning and evening roll calls, directed the forced labor detachments, assigned food rations, determined punishments, and decided who would be confined in the punishment block. Max Kogal, the first camp commander who served from May of 1,939 to August of 1,942, established from the beginning a regime of terror.
He created a punishment block where women were sent for infractions such as repeatedly arriving late, not making their [music] beds properly, refusing an order, or insulting the furer. Prisoners sentenced to aggravated arrest were locked in dark cells without mattress or blanket, just a bucket. Kogal decided who went to the punishment block without consulting Langangerfeld.
The commander actively encouraged brutality among his guards. Several guards who came from Likenberg left in those early days because they were unhappy with the extreme conditions. One guard was specifically dismissed for being considered too kind to the prisoners. This dismissal sent a clear message to the rest of the female staff.
Compassion would not be tolerated. During 1,940 and 1,941, Ravensbrook expanded rapidly. [music] The camp population grew from a few thousand to more than 10,000 prisoners. Women arrived from all over German occupied Europe, German and Austrian political prisoners, [music] Polish resistance members, Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to serve the Nazi regime, Romani, women classified as associal for being prostitutes or homeless, and increasingly Jewish women.
With the expansion of the camp came more female guards. Emma Zimmer briefly served as Oberovin. The young women arriving for training mostly came from workingclass or peasant backgrounds. The salaries offered were significantly higher than what they could earn in factories as domestic workers or in agricultural work.
They received lodging, food, uniforms and benefits as employees of the Reich. They did not have to wash their own clothes, clean or cook as prisoners were forced to do it for them. Some Alsia Inan considered this a luxury. Hera Alert stated in her postwar testimony, “Well, I want to be quite honest. I never had such a good life as at the beginning in Ravensbrook when I arrived.
Training in Ravensbrook was brief but effective. The new recruits were trained to treat prisoners with a constant stream of vulgar language and threats, slaps to the face, head, and body using fists or clubs, kicking them with their boots, or setting their dogs on the prisoners to bite their legs. As they entered through the gates, these new arrivals looked with horror and disbelief at the carts of corpses, the emaciated figures crouching around the kitchen block and the smoking crerematory ovens. One prisoner noted
how it took only 4 days for a new female guard to transform from an ordinary person to someone capable of extreme brutality. Nazi ideology was reinforced through propaganda films like Jud Seuss that were shown during the orientation period. The female guards learned to see the prisoners not as human beings but as subhumans as racial threats that had to be eliminated or exploited.
In 1,942 crucial developments occurred that would intensify the terror in Ravensbrook. That summer, Hinrich Himmler ordered the beginning of medical experiments in the camp. 74 Polish prisoners were selected for experimental surgeries supposedly designed to develop treatments for war wounds.
The group of doctors responsible came from the Hoen Hospital located near Ravensbrook. Professor Carl Ghart led the team assisted by doctors Fritz Fischer, Ludvig Stumpfagger, and Hera Oberhoer. Oberhoer, born on the 15th of May, 1,911 in Cologne, was a dermatologist who had voluntarily arrived at Ravensbrook to work in the camp.
She saw her position as her life’s work. The economic restraints caused by the war had hindered her career prospects, [music] and working for the SS offered her stability and a salary that she could not obtain by establishing her own private practice. The sulfanomide experiments began on the 20th of July. 1,942. The operations involved making 5 to 8 cm long incisions on the victim’s legs, infecting the wounds with bacterial cultures mixed with dextrose, inserting foreign objects such as wood, glass, rusty nails, dirt, and sawdust, and then
closing the wounds. They then tested treatments with sulfanomides. Oberheiser supervised the post-operative care which frequently consisted of prolonging the suffering by deliberately denying them morphine while they screamed in pain. A survivor, Isabella Recre, stated that Oberheiser initially promised to dress her wounds and smiling walked out of the room and never returned that day.
Another victim testified that Oberheiser told them herself that she could not give them anything to relieve their pain. The prisoners who underwent these experiments were nicknamed the Ravensbrook rabbits. A prisoner named Lily Undon recalled that if the women refused to be experimented upon, they were locked up in bunkers and then the operations were carried out by force.
The experiments continued until September of 1,943. Five of the 74 women died as a direct result. Six more were executed later to silence them despite promises that their participation would result in commutation of [music] their death sentences. Barbara Petrazik survived five different operations.
Maria Kusmmechuk not only survived the experiment but Ravensbrook itself living to testify at Nuremberg. In addition to the sulfanomide experiments, the [music] doctors conducted a second series to observe bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration and the possibility of transplants. Also in 1,942, Johanna Langangerfeld was temporarily transferred to Avitz.
The Ashvitz concentration camp had opened a women’s section in March of 1,942. Initially located in the main camp and later moved to Burkanau in the summer of 1,942. Langangerfeld was appointed as Oberav Zerin of the new women’s camp. There she made selections that sent prisoners to the gas chambers.
Rudolfph Hurse, the commander of Ashvitz, had constant conflicts with Langerfeld. [music] On a visit from Himmler on the 18th of July of 1,942, Langangerfeld tried to speak to him to reverse the order that a man oversee the women’s camp. Hurse admitted after the war that Himmler absolutely refused to change the order, insisting he wanted a women’s camp commanded by a woman.
That same month, the women’s camp was moved to Burkanau. Shortly after, Langangerfeld suffered a meniscus injury and went to have surgery at the SS sanatorium in Hoen. During her stay, she visited Oswald Pole, head of the SS main economic and administrative office in Berlin and convinced him to transfer her back to Ravensbrook.
In October of 1942, Maria Mandal was assigned to Ashvitz Burkanau to replace Langangerfeld. Mandal had been born on the 10th of January of 1912 in Munich, Austria, Hungary. the daughter of a shoemaker. She had to leave school on the 20th of July of 1924 at the age of 12 to help on the family farm. After the Anelas in 1938, she moved to Munich.
On the 15th of October of 1938, she joined the staff of the Listenberg camp as Alerin. On the 15th of May of 1939, she was transferred along with other female guards and prisoners [music] to the newly opened Ravensbrook. She quickly impressed her superiors. After joining the Nazi party on the 1st of April of 1941, she was elevated to the rank of SS Oberov Zaherin.
In April of 1942 in Ashvitz Burkanau, Mandal succeeded Langangerfeld as SS Laga Furerin, commander of the women’s camp, [music] the highest position a woman could reach in the camp staff hierarchy. She reported directly to Commander Rudolph Hurse, who thought very highly of her. On the 27th of March of 1944, H arranged for her to receive a bonus of 100 Reichmark in addition to her monthly salary.
Mandal also received control of all women’s camps and subcamps of Avitz including Hindenburg, Liktoverden and Riceco. As a woman, Mandal could never outrank a man, but her control over female prisoners and her female subordinates was absolute. She personally participated in selections for the gas chambers. She signed lists of prisoners, sending them to death.
Based on the number of lists she signed, it is estimated that she was complicit in the deaths of approximately 500,000 prisoners during her time in Burkanau. In 1,943, the concentration camp system underwent a massive transformation driven by the needs [music] of total war. On the 18th of February, the propaganda minister Yseph Gerbles delivered [music] his sport palist speech declaring total war against the Allied forces.
This meant the mobilization of every able German woman for the war effort. Labor offices began to assign women to various war positions, including as concentration camp guards. In December of 1,942, the age range for recruiting female guards, which had been from 20 to 40 years, was expanded to 17 to 45 years due to increasing tensions with the advance of the Allied forces and the loss of the Ober commando de Vermacht in the battle of Stalingrad.
The need for female guards in concentration camps became critical. Ravensbrook was consolidated as the main training center for all the alerinan of the rich. Approximately 3,500 women worked as Nazi concentration camp guards between 1,939 and 1,945 and all began their training in Ravensbrook.
Many later worked in extermination camps like Avitz Burkanau, Bergen Bellson, Maidanic and numerous sub camps. The SS announced positions. Healthy female workers sought between the ages of 17 and 45 for military service. Some women came voluntarily, attracted by the wages. Others were assigned by labor offices. Johanna Langangerfeld stated in her testimony that there were also cases in which women were sent by one of the labor offices to work as guards in Ravensbrook.
This occurred more frequently with women who had refused one or even two times to accept the job that had been assigned to them, which meant that they would likely be arrested the next time they refused to accept the assigned job. In Ravensbrook itself, 1943 brought changes in leadership.
Doraththa Bins was unofficially promoted to Stelv Titender Oberavirin, Deputy Chief Warden [music] in July of 1943. The promotion was made official in February of 1944. Although she worked under wardens of higher rank, Bins was known as the true star of the camp. The chief warden was completely overshadowed by her deputy. As a member of the command staff between 1943 and 1945, Bins directed the training and assigned duties to more than 100 female wardens simultaneously.
Her abuse was described as unrelenting. She was known for watching the weaker or more fearful prisoners whom she then covered with whips or blows. Witnesses testified that when she appeared in the appelplat the roll call square, silence fell. She carried a whip in one hand and the leash of her German shepherd in the other.
At any moment she could kick a woman to death or select her for execution. Bins trained some of the systems most cruel wardens, including Ruth Clausius. Clius was known as one of the most ruthless female wardens. A former French prisoner, Genevieve de Gaul Antonio, commented after the war that she had seen Clius cut a prisoner’s throat with the sharp edge of her shovel.
Bins reportedly had a boyfriend in the camp, the married SS Uber Edmund Brining. The two supposedly walked romantically around the camp to see women being whipped, after which they would walk away laughing. In March of 1,943, Ima Graaser was transferred from Ravensbrook to Ashvitz Burkanau. Graaser was born on the 7th of October 1,923 in Vreen.
She had begun her career as a warden in Ravensbrook in July of 1,942 at 19 years of age. Her father was known in the community for speaking out against the Nazi party, but Irma herself joined the system with enthusiasm. In Ashvitz, [music] Graze rose quickly. Maria Mandal promoted her to the rank of Oberavirin, senior SS supervisor, in the autumn of 1,943.
At only 20 years of age, she had daily control over approximately 30,000 prisoners, mainly Polish and Hungarian Jewish women. She was the second highest ranking female warden in Avitz. Mandal gave Graaser control of the Hungarian women’s camp in Burkanau. Gracer actively participated in selections for the gas chambers.
When new transports arrived, Grace was on the ramp deciding who was considered fit to work and who would be sent directly to the gas chambers. Survivors testified about her specific brutality. She used a whip made of cellophane to lash prisoners. She wore heavy boots with which she kicked victims. She set dogs upon exhausted prisoners.
According to a witness at her eventual trial, Gre killed approximately 30 prisoners a day. She had a particular reputation for cruelty towards women who still retained some of their previous physical beauty despite hunger [music] and hardships. These women became special targets of her attention. During selections, she wielded her whip liberally, lashing whomever she wanted.
The contortions of pain and the spilled blood made her smile. Elizabeth Fulcanrath was also active in Avitz during this period. Born on the 5th of September 1919 as Elizabeth Muau in Shao under [music] Katsbach Clesia, she had been an unskilled worker when she volunteered for service in concentration camps.
In October of 1941, she began working in Ravensbrook as a guardian. In March of 1942, she was sent to Ashvitz where she worked in the same role. In Ashvitz, she met SS Rottenfurer Hint Falconat who had worked there since 1941 as an SS block furer. The couple married in 1943. Falconrath participated in selections of female prisoners for the gas chambers.
In November of 1944, she was promoted to Oberavarin, supervising guardian for all sections of the female prisoners camp in Ashvitz. In April of 1943, Maria Mandal along with HDMura France Hler began organizing the women’s orchestra of Ashvitz. After seeing the success of the men’s orchestras in the main camp, Mandal instructed the block leaders and other prisoners assigned to internal work details to recruit prisoners who could play an instrument.
She selected Zofiachikovska who had been a music teacher as the first conductor of the orchestra in part because her surname sounded like. The orchestra played at the entrance of Burkanau as the prisoners left and returned from work. It also played in the hospital block and in the showers. Concerts were held for SS members every Sunday.
During the winter season, orchestra members were not required to be outside for roll calls and were instead counted inside their barracks. A prisoner of Achvitz, Lucia Adelsburgger, later described the orchestra. The women returning from work exhausted had to march to the rhythm of the music. Music was ordered for all occasions, for the speeches of the camp commanders, for the transports, and every time someone was hanged.
The grotesque contradiction in Mandal’s personality was manifested in her love for classical music, combined with extreme cruelty towards the prisoners. Survivors testified that Mandal took children in her arms when transports from the Soviet Union arrived, sang to them, gave them food packages from the deceased, and then sent them to the gas chambers after a few days. She personally escorted some.
She also went to the children’s block, took them on her lap, and gave them packages. She was capable of pulling a child out of the line to the gas chamber when they turned out to be musical. Mandal’s physical cruelty was legendary. She could smash jaws with a single blow. She violently hit abdomen. Such punishments could be earned, for example, by keeping a hand in the pocket or smoking a cigarette, by rubbing the nose with the hand, by tying a twisted handkerchief on the head, or because a handkerchief stuck out of the pocket.
She practically never parted from her whip and cane. She could ride a bicycle in front of a line of several thousand women and hit them in the faces simultaneously. Mandal liked being the owner of life and death. When groups of women returned from work, they went through a selection at the door.
Mandal held a stick at a height of 50 cm. Those who managed to jump over it kept their lives, while those who could not were sent to the gas chamber. A survivor testified at the eventual trial of Mandal. The accused mandal approached me, snatched my son from me, and threw the child onto an empty railway car so that the child injured his face and began to cry and call for me.
But I was moved to the group that would not be loaded onto the railway cars. When I tried to reach the crying child in the car, Mandal began to beat me so cruy that I fell down. Mandal continued to kick me even when I was lying on the ground, and she knocked almost all my teeth out with her shoe. In November of 1944, Mandal was awarded the War Merit Cross secondass for her services rendered.
Around this time, she was assigned to the Muddorf subc camp of the Dhaka concentration camp, and Elizabeth Falconrat was appointed head of the Avitz camp complex, which would be liberated at the end of January of 1945. Meanwhile, in Ravensbrook, conditions deteriorated dramatically [music] as the camp’s population soared.
By January of 1945, Ravensbrook and its [music] subcamps housed more than 45,000 female prisoners and more than 5,000 male prisoners. The overcrowding was extreme. Food rations were reduced even further. Diseases spread uncontrollably. The mortality rate increased drastically. Prisoners died of typhus, dissentry, starvation, exhaustion from forced labor, and direct executions.
The guards continued to apply systematic brutality [music] even as the Nazi regime crumbled around them. On the 27th of January 1945, Soviet forces liberated Avitz. The evacuation of the camp had begun days earlier. On the 18th of January 1945, Irma Graaser was sent with a transport of prisoners from Avitz to Ravensbrook.
Her stay there would be brief because the camp had to be evacuated at the start of March. Gracer departed with a transport of prisoners to Bergen Bellson. There she would work for another two months as Arbite’s Dinfurin labor service leader under commander Ysef Kramer with whom she supposedly had an affair. The population of the Bergen Bellson camp had increased to many tens of thousands, finally nearly 90,000 during the period when Graaser arrived.
It had become a collection camp for prisoners evacuated from Ashvitz, Bkhenvald and Ravensbrook. The overcrowded camp was also hit by a typhus epidemic due to the abominable conditions. Elizabeth Falenrat was also transferred to Bergen Belin when Ashvitz was evacuated. From February 1945, she was Obervirin in Bergen Bellson.
Maria Mandal fled from Mildolf in May 1945 to the mountains of southern Bavaria, intending to return to her birthplace, Munirken, but her father refused to help her hide. Mandal sought refuge with her sister in what was then Ukrainian territory. In Ravensbrook, the death marches began in early March 1,945. On the 8th of March, the SS commanders transported 2,100 male prisoners towards Saxonhausen.
By the end of April, approximately 20,000 female prisoners were forced to march northward to Meckllinburgg. The SS guards, including many of the most brutal ones, accompanied the marches with orders to shoot anyone who lagged behind. The women marched in inadequate clothing for the early spring weather without sufficient supplies of water or food.
Forced to keep pace for endless kilometers. Those who fell were left to die or executed on the spot. The advancing Soviet troops intercepted the march route and liberated the survivors. By that time, many guards fled, discarding their uniforms and blending in with German civilian refugees who were also fleeing westward. Dorothia Bins fled during the death marches.
Shortly before the final evacuation, the Germans handed over several hundred female prisoners, most of French nationality, to officials of the Swedish and Danish Red Cross. This humanitarian evacuation saved their lives. On the 29th of April, the remaining SS guards in Ravensbrook fled the camp. On the 30th of April, the vanguard of the Soviet army arrived at Ravensbrook.
On the 1st of May, regular units appeared and officially liberated the last female prisoners. They found more than 2,000 sick men, women, and children. The Soviets discovered evidence of atrocities, partially burned documents, medical experiment records, gas chamber installations. They forced the local population of the town of Fenberg to help clean up [music] the camp and bury the dead.
The camp was transformed into a temporary hospital to care for the remaining inmates before becoming a Soviet military base. On the 15th of April of 1,945, British troops of the 11th armored division liberated Bergen Bellson. A German envoy had negotiated a localized truce because typhus had taken over the camp and there was a danger that the disease could spread beyond its confines.
The British verified the truth of this statement and the area was declared a neutral zone. Soldiers of the 63rd anti-tank regiment of the Royal Artillery were the first to enter the Bellson camp. What they found came to personify the horror of the Nazi concentration camps. There were 10,000 unburied corpses and 40,000 sick and dying prisoners, of whom 28,000 subsequently died after liberation despite medical efforts.
Irma Gracie was arrested on the 15th of April of 1,945 in Bergen Bellson along with Ysef Kramer and other guards who remained. In the following days, the British forces forced Graaser Kramer, Elizabeth Vulcanat, Wana Borman, and other female guards to help bury the thousands of corpses. Photographs show the female guards standing by mass graves, forced to witness the consequences of years of deliberate neglect.
Grace was subsequently transferred to Chel prison near Lunberg to await trial. Elizabeth Vulcanrath was also arrested in Berg and Bellson in April of 1,945. Huana Borman, known as the woman with the dogs for releasing her wolf hounds on female prisoners, was similarly captured. She was 52 years old at the time of her arrest.
On the 3rd of May 1945, 5 days after the German capitulation, British forces captured Doraththa Bins in Hamburg. They found her trying to hide among the civilian population. Despite being only 25 years old, her reputation already preceded her based on initial survivor testimonies. She was transferred to the Recklinghousen camp, previously a sub camp of Bukenvald, where she was detained along with other members of Ravensbrook’s staff.
On the 10th of August 1945, American authorities captured Maria Mandal. Interrogations revealed that she was highly intelligent and completely dedicated to her work in the camps. She showed no remorse for her actions. The American interrogators found her articulate and without any sense of guilt.
Johanna Langangerfeld was arrested by the United States Army on the 20th of December 1945. Hera Oberheiser was also captured by American forces. The Allies had established systems to systematically track concentration camp staff. They distributed [music] lists of wanted individuals based on survivor testimonies and captured documents.
They established interrogation centers where they classified those captured according to their roles and the severity of the alleged crimes. However, thousands of female guards managed to evade capture. They simply disappeared into the German civilian population, changed their names, moved to new cities, found anonymous employment.
Most Germans had little interest in identifying former female guards among them. On 17th of September 1945, just 5 months after the liberation of Bergen Belin, one of the first major war crimes trials began. The Bellson trial was conducted by a British military court at number 30 Linden Strasa in Lunberg, Germany. It was presided over by Major General Hugh Bernie Ficklin, assisted by five additional officers.
The proceedings lasted until 17th of November, 1945. 45 defendants sat in the dock, each wearing a number on their chest. They included Commander Yseph Kramer, nicknamed the Beast of Bellson, SS Dr. Fritz Klene and three Alfa Inan, Irma Graaser, Elizabeth Vulcanat, and Huana Borman all pleaded not guilty. The indictment was divided into two charges.
Charge one covered crimes committed at Bergen Bellson. Charge two covered crimes committed at Avitz Burkanau. 12 defendants, including Graaser and Falconat, faced both charges as they had served at both camps. Wana Borman faced only the Avitz charge as Avitz was located in Polish territory that was now a Soviet zone.
The British could not conduct a trial there directly. But Avitz was so notorious that they decided to include charges related to that camp. Since many of the Bellson SS personnel had previously served at Awitz, they could prosecute crimes from both locations under a single trial. The prosecution was handled by a team of four military lawyers.
Each prisoner was represented by a defense attorney. Ima Grace was defended by Major LSW Cranfield. Elizabeth Vulcanraat and Hana Borman also had assigned defenders. The trial attracted considerable international media attention. More than 100 journalists from Germany and abroad reported extensively on the proceedings. They informed the public not only about the mass deaths at Bergen Bellson but also about the gassings at Ashvitz Burkanau.
For 54 days the court heard devastating testimonies. Survivors from Ravensbrook, Ashvitz and Bergen Bellson testified about specific brutalities. They identified Gresie as extremely cruel. They testified that she selected prisoners for the gas chambers, that she whipped women until they collapsed, that she set dogs on exhausted prisoners.
Several survivors claimed that Graaser killed approximately 30 prisoners daily during her time at Avitz. One survivor testified about a day in June of 1,944 when 315 selected women were pushed into the bathrooms. They had already been beaten with kicks and lashes in the hallway. Then Gracer ordered the SS guards to seal the door with nails while the women were killed by unspecified means inside.
Elizabeth Vulcanrath was identified as the most hated chief warden in the camps where she served. Survivors testified that she participated in selections for gas chambers, supervised mass beatings, signed execution orders. Witnesses described her role at Avitz where she reached the [music] rank of Oberav Zahirin in November of 1,944, giving her control over all female sections.
At Bergen Belin, she continued as Oberav Zerin until the liberation, overseeing the camp while conditions deteriorated catastrophically. [music] Hana Borman was known for releasing her wolf hounds on prisoners. Survivors testified [music] that she took sadistic pleasure in watching her dogs attack defenseless women, tearing them apart. The defense tried to argue that the defendants were simply following orders, that they had no real power of decision, that the conditions were beyond their control.
Defense lawyers pointed out that refusing orders would have resulted in severe punishment. They argued that Gresie was young and impressionable, molded by the Nazi system. However, prosecutors presented evidence that the guards exercised considerable discretion. Some guards were remembered by survivors as relatively humane, sharing extra food or showing small mercies.
This demonstrated [music] that the defendants had actively chosen cruelty. On the 17th of November 1945, the court delivered verdicts. 30 defendants were found guilty of at least one charge. 14 were acquitted. The next day, the 18th of November, sentences were read. 11 defendants, including [music] eight men and three women, were sentenced to death by hanging.
The three women were Irma Gracer, Elizabeth Vulcanat, and Huana Borman. 19 defendants received prison sentences ranging from life imprisonment to one year. Public reaction was mixed. British audiences were mostly satisfied. A British newspaper, Manchester Guardian, headlined, “Kramer and Grezer among Bellson. Guilty, how they heard their verdicts.
” Germans generally found the outcome more moderate than expected. The 14 acquitt had been a surprise to a population that assumed all defendants would be automatically convicted. Nine of the 11 convicted appealed to the convening officer, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, who rejected their appeals for clemency. Elizabeth Vulcanrath and Hana Borman decided not to appeal.
On the 7th of December, the appeals were rejected and Montgomery signed the execution orders. The convicted were transferred to Hamlind prison on the 8th of December to await execution. They were housed in a row of tiny cells along a corridor with the execution chamber at the end. The 11 from Bellson joined two other men, Gayorg Otto Sandro and Ludvig Schwinberger, sentenced for murdering pilot officer Gerald Hood, a British prisoner of war in Almallo, Holland on the 21st of March 1945.
The executions were scheduled for Thursday, the 13th of December, 1945. Albert Pierrepoint, the chief executioner of Great Britain, was specially brought from England to carry out the executions. Royal engineers of the British army built a gallows in the prison, the women would be hanged individually, the men in pairs to speed up the process.
On the 12th of December, all the convicted were weighed and measured so that Pierre Point could calculate the correct drop for each one based on their body weight. This ensured that the drop would break the neck immediately, causing instant death rather than prolonged strangulation. Pierre Point was meticulous in his calculations.
He had perfected the long drop method through years of experience. The afternoon of the 12th of December, Irma Grazes smiled at Pierre Point when he asked her age. Elizabeth Vulcanrath appeared firm but seemed nervous. Wana Borman limped down the corridor looking old and worn out. The three women spent their last night together.
According to reports, they laughed and sang Nazi songs. Gracie sang SS hymns in her cell. She showed no remorse. On December 13th, 1945, the executions began promptly. The first to be taken to the execution chamber was Elizabeth Vulcanrat. Pierre Point recorded that the order was given. Bring Elizabeth Vulcanat. She walked firmly to the gallows.
Pierre Point placed the hood over her head, adjusted the rope around her neck with the knot correctly positioned under her left jaw, and opened the trap. She died instantly [music] at 9:34 in the morning. She was 26 years old. Irma Greasie was executed 30 minutes [music] later. Pierre Point wrote in his autobiography about what happened.
Sergeant Major O’Neal ordered, “Bring Irma Greasie.” She stepped out of her cell and walked towards us, laughing. According to Pierre Point, she looked like such a pretty girl as one might wish to meet. However, when he tried to place the dark hood over her head, Greece resisted violently. Pierre Point had to slap her repeatedly until he could overpower her and put the hood on.
Her last words as she cried were, “Chel, quick in German.” Pierre Point placed the rope around her neck. However, according to some accounts, he did not place it correctly. The evidence suggests that Gre died by slow strangulation instead of the [music] instant breaking of the neck. Her death was slow, agonizing, and painful.
She was executed at 10:03 in the morning. She was 22 years old, the youngest woman executed under British jurisdiction in the 20th century. Her body was later mutilated and incinerated and her ashes thrown into a drainage river. Huana Borman was the third woman executed. She walked with difficulty when she was led to the gallows at 10:38 in the morning.
After the three women, the convicted men were executed in pairs every 30 minutes. Yseph Kramer and his deputy France Hler were hanged together. They were followed by the Dr. Fritz Klene and other SS officials. The 13 executions were completed before noon. The bodies were buried in Hamlin [music] prison in unmarked graves.
The Bellson trial had been the first of many that would prosecute concentration camp staff. It had set important precedents on how such trials would be conducted. It had demonstrated that even under military authority, the British would apply judicial standards regarding due process, allowing defenses and acquitts where the evidence was insufficient.
However, for the three executed female guards, justice had been swift and final. Their crimes had been so extensive, so well documented by multiple witnesses, so clearly demonstrated by physical evidence, [music] that their convictions were inevitable. The execution of these young women, particularly grazed at 22 years, shocked some observers, who found it difficult to reconcile their ordinary appearance with the magnitude of their crimes.
The media dubbed them the beautiful beast and the blonde angel of Bellson, names that emphasized the supposed contradiction between their femininity and their brutality. However, for the survivors who testified against them, there was no contradiction. They were perpetrators who had actively chosen cruelty day after day for months or years.
While the world focused its attention on the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg that began in November of 1,945, the British continued prosecuting concentration camp personnel in their occupation zone. Between 1,946 and 1,948, they conducted seven trials specifically against Ravensbrook personnel in Hamburg.
These trials, collectively known as the Hamburg Ravensbrook trials, prosecuted a total of 38 defendants, 21 of them women. The first Ravensbrook trial began on the 5th of December of 1,946 in Curio House, Hamburg. 16 former Ravensbrook staff members were tried before an interallied military tribunal presided over by British General Westerrup.
The trial continued until the 3rd of February of 1,947. The charges focused on war crimes and crimes against citizens of allied nations committed in Ravensbrook. The female defendants included Doraththa Bins who had reached the rank of Stelv Tretenda Oberin. Also included were Greta Boozel who had worked as Arbite’s Enzat Furerin responsible for all labor detachments and Elizabeth Marshall the Obushwester or head nurse.
Carmon Maria my a Swiss [music] prisoner who had worked as a carpo spying for the SS was also accused. For 2 months the court heard devastating testimonies. Ravensbrook survivors identified Bins as one of the most feared and brutal guards. They testified that she continuously beat, slapped, kicked, shot, whipped, and stomped on prisoners.
They described how she carried a whip in one hand along with the leash of her German Shepherd. They testified that at any moment she could kick a woman to death or select her for execution. The testimonies detailed how Bins trained other guards in methods of brutality, forming some of the crulest guards in the system.
Survivors also testified about the conditions in the punishment block where Bins supervised tortures. On the 3rd of February 1947, the court delivered its verdict. All the accused were found guilty except for one who died during the trial. 11 were sentenced to death by hanging. Among those sentenced to death were Dorothia Bins, Greta Bozel, Elizabeth Marshall, and Johan Schwarz Huber, a male SS officer.
Carmon Maria my was also sentenced to death. The sentenced individuals were transferred to Hamlan prison to await execution. Hours after her death sentence was confirmed in April 1947. Doraththa Bins attempted suicide by slashing her wrists with a sharp object she [music] had obtained.
Prison officers intervened before she could bleed to death. She was kept under constant surveillance during the remaining weeks until her execution. Carmon Mariami succeeded in committing suicide on the 9th of April 1947 before she could be executed. The executions of the remaining Ravensbrook convicts were carried out on the 2nd and 3rd of May 1947.
Albert Pierre Point again served as the executioner. On the 2nd of May 1947, Pierre Point hanged the remaining three women individually. Doraththa Bins was executed at 9:01 in the morning. According to Pierre Point, when she already had the hood over her head and the noose tightened around her neck, Bins uttered her last words in English.
I hope you do not think we are all evil people. Then the trap opened and she died instantly. She was 27 years old. Elizabeth Marshall, almost 61 years old, was hanged at 9:31 in the morning. Greta Bozel, 39 years old, was executed at 9:55 in the morning. The following day, the 3rd of May, 1947, Pierre Point executed the condemned men, including [music] Johan Schwartz Huber.
The second trial of Ravensbrook lasted from the 5th to the 27th of November of 1,947. It judged only one accused, Friedrich Oritz, 49 years old, leader of a textile factory in the camp, who had worked there from June of 1,940 to April of 1,945. He had previously escaped prison along with Fritz Surin and Hans Flam, but was recaptured.
During the trial, he was convicted for beating women with bat-ons, belts, and fists, starving them for not meeting quotas, keeping them in extraordinarily long roll calls outdoors, and sending them to the gas chambers. He also kicked to death at least one Czech inmate. He encouraged his guards to do the same. Oppitz received a death sentence, executed on the 26th of January of 1,948.
The third trial known as the UK trial took place from the 14th to the 26th of April of 1,948. Five female officers of the UK satellite camp were accused of mistreatment and participation in the murder of women of allied nationalities. Two accused Brah and Tobber were acquitted because they had worked at Akamach only while it was still a camp for juveniles and there were no allied women there at that time.
The camp [music] was exclusively for German girls whose fate or treatment was outside the court’s mandate. The fourth trial was held from May to the 8th of June of 1,948. The accused were all members of the medical staff of the camp at Ravensbrook, including an inmate who had worked as a nurse.
The charges again focused on mistreatment, torture, and sending women of allied nationalities to gas [music] chambers. The fifth trial lasted from the 16th to the 29th of June of 1,948. Three SS members were accused of killing Allied inmates. The verdicts were announced on the 15th of July of 1,948. The sixth trial lasted from the 1st to the 26th of July of 1948.
Two defendants were tried for mistreating Allied female prisoners. Finally, the seventh trial tried six also inan from the 2nd to the 21st of July of 1948. In total of the 38 defendants in the seven Hamburg trials, 20 received death sentences. One died during the trial Carman Maria committed suicide before the execution and 17 were actually executed.
Others received prison sentences. One defendant was pardoned. The British Ravensbrook trials represented one of the most systematic efforts to prosecute female concentration camp staff. However, still only a small fraction face justice. Of the approximately 3,500 women who served as alsinan in the Nazi concentration system, only 77 were brought to trial in total and very few were actually convicted.
The Soviet military courts in the Soviet zone also tried Ravensbrook guards in several different trials during 1948. The majority received prison sentences. However, many were pardoned or released early in the mid 1950s. Other countries also prosecuted female guards. A Polish court found former Ravensbrook guard Maria Mandal guilty in 1947 and sentenced her to death.
Although Mandal had primarily worked in Achvitz after her time in Ravensbrook, the East German courts continued to prosecute Ravensbrook staff during the 1950s and 1960s. The last Ravensbrook trial took place in 1965 to 1966. Female guards were sentenced to prison in these later trials, but the sentences were rarely fully served.
While the Ravensbrook trials were taking place in Hamburg, other guards faced justice in different jurisdictions. Maria Mandal, after being captured by American forces on the 10th of August 1945, was handed over to the Republic of Poland in November 1946. Polish authorities transferred her to Montalupic prison in Kov, the same building that the Gestapo had used as an interrogation center during the occupation.
The Ashvitz trial began on the 24th of November 1947 in Kov before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland. 41 former members of the SS staff were charged, 36 men and five women. Maria Mandal, who had served as SS Lagafurerin of the women’s camp in Awitz Burkanau from October 1942 to November 1944, was one of the main defendants.
The trial extended until the 22nd of December 1947. Prosecutors presented [music] extensive testimonies from survivors. They detailed Mandal’s personal involvement in selections for gas chambers, systematic beatings, arbitrary executions, and organizing forced labor that resulted in thousands of deaths. Captured documents showed her signature on transport lists consigning named prisoners to death.
Based on the number of lists she signed, prosecutors estimated that she was complicit in the deaths of approximately 500,000 prisoners during her time in Burkanau. Survivors testified about grotesque contradictions in her personality. She loved classical music and had created the women’s orchestra of Ashvitz. She would hold children in her arms, sing to them, and then send them to the gas chambers.
A survivor testified, “The defendant Mandal approached me. snatched my child from me and threw the child onto a still empty wagon in such a way that the child hurt his face. When I tried to reach the child, Mandal began beating me so cruy that I fell. Mandal continued kicking me [music] even though I was lying on the ground and knocked out almost all my teeth with her shoe.
The court [music] sentenced 23 defendants to death, including Mandal. 17 received prison sentences. Only one was acquitted. Sergeant Major Hans Munchch, who had refused to participate in selections and had made confirmed, though futile requests for more food for the female inmates. Maria Mandal was imprisoned in Montalupich awaiting execution.
She was placed in a cell next to Terz Brle, another convicted guard, and Staniswava Rakvoa. Rakawova was a Polish survivor of Ashvitz who had been a prisoner under Mandal’s administration. After the war, the Polish communist authorities arrested her as an anti-communist activist and she was now imprisoned in the same prison. Ratchawa was proficient in German and served as an interpreter for the guards.
She stated that the last time she saw the two German war criminals after they were sentenced to death and shortly before their executions, both asked her for forgiveness. Mandal wrote an appeal for clemency to Polish President Bolis Beirut, claiming innocence. Her lawyers also tried to obtain a pardon, but it was denied.
In the days leading up to her execution, Mandal spent her time praying and teaching herself Polish. On the 24th of January 1948 [music] at 7:32 in the morning, the death row inmates from the Avitz trial were hanged in the Montalupic prison. Of the 21 executed that day, Maria Mandal was the first to walk to the gallows. Reportedly, she resisted against the guards escorting her.
According to some sources, her last words spoken in Polish were, “Polska, Poland lives.” She was 36 years old. Theres Brle was executed immediately after her. The executions continued at intervals throughout the morning. Arthur Lieieber, Hans Almire, [music] Maximleian Grabner, and Carl Merkel were executed before Mandal.
The rest followed afterward. Between December of 1,946 and August of 1,947, another crucial trial took place, the Nuremberg Medical Trial. 23 German doctors and scientists were accused of conducting vile and potentially lethal medical experiments on concentration camp inmates between 1,933 and 1,945. Hera Oberoer was the only female defendant in this trial.
Prosecutors presented exhaustive evidence of her involvement in experiments at Ravensbrook. They testified that she had participated in sulfanomide experiments where she deliberately infected the wounds of Polish prisoners with bacteria, soil, glass and wood. She had conducted bone, muscle and nerve regeneration experiments.
She had injected oil and evapan a barbiterate known as hexobarbital into children to subsequently remove limbs and vital organs. The time from injection to death was 3 to 5 minutes. With the victims remaining conscious until the last moment, Oberheiser had overseen the post-operative care of the bunnies of Ravensbrook, the 74 Polish prisoners subjected to experimental surgeries.
Her care frequently consisted in prolonging the suffering. She deliberately refused to give morphine to patients who screamed in pain. Five of the 74 women died directly due to the experiments. Six more were executed subsequently. The survivors including Maria Kusmachuk and Jadigga Zido testified against Oberheiser in Nuremberg.
Zido even showed the court the permanent scars on her leg. On the 20th of August of 1,947, Oberhoiser heard her sentence, 20 years in prison with special responsibility and involvement in the medical crimes in Ravensbrook. However, Oberhoiser served only 5 years of her sentence. She was released in [music] April of 1952.
She returned to Germany and began practicing as a family doctor in Stocky. For years, she ran a successful medical practice. Her license to practice medicine was not revoked until 1958 after massive publicity from abroad and from critical German magazines like Despie in 1960 shamed officials into action. Once information about her wartime activities began to circulate within the international medical community.
Pressure mounted. For a considerable time, she was supported by a West German medical establishment that was hiding many skeletons in its professional closet. Eventually, massive publicity forced her to retire. From 1960 onwards, nothing more was heard of Herta Oberhoer until her death on the 24th of January 1978 in Lince Amrin.
She was 66 years old. Johanna Langangerfeld who had been arrested on the 20th of December 1945 by the United States Army was extradited to Poland in September of 1946. The Polish authorities were preparing a trial in Kov against Avitz and Ravensbrook staff. Langangerfeld was imprisoned in Montalupich prison awaiting trial.
However, her story would take an extraordinary turn. On the 23rd of December 1946, Johanna Langangerfeld escaped from Montalupic prison. The escape was not the result of her own ingenuity. It was organized and executed by a group of Polish Ravensbrook survivors. These women, former prisoners who had been under Langangerfeld’s authority, provided her with civilian clothes and forged release documents.
They took her out of the prison and subsequently hid her from the Polish authorities. The leader of the group that helped Langangerfeld was a Jewish woman whose relatives had been murdered by Nazis in extermination camps. This extraordinary act of forgiveness reflected the complicated personal relationships that could develop even in contexts of extreme brutality.
The women who helped her explained that Langangerfeld, although she was a convinced national socialist and anti-semite, had never been sadistic like other guards. She did not take personal pleasure in suffering. Occasionally, she had used her position to save individual lives or mitigate punishments.
Margaret Bubber Noman, a German communist prisoner who became Langangerfeld’s assistant at Ravensbrook, recalled that Langangerfeld was eventually dismissed for excessive sympathy towards Polish prisoners. Trial testimonies confirmed that she was not sadistic, although she was a deeply convinced National Socialist and anti-semite.
She had ordered harsh punishments, carried out selections in Ravensbrook during the murder campaign known as 14F-13, and supervised deportations from Avitz. However, her reputation among some prisoners was positive enough for them to risk their own lives helping her. For 10 years, Langangerfeld hid in Poland. She worked in a convent and later in a private house.
The story was kept secret because its disclosure meant certain punishment for both the former German guard and the Polish helpers. Around 1,957, the same women who had helped her escape took her illegally back to Germany. She moved in with her sister in Munich, living under a false identity. The authorities of West Germany did not aggressively pursue the Langangerfeld case initially.
The trials in Frankfurt between 1963 and 1965 demonstrated an uneven commitment to extraditing or retrying female camp personnel. [music] An attempt in 1972 to press charges against Langangerfeld failed. The obstacles cited included evidential challenges stemming from her Polish escape, dispersion of witnesses, and lack of political will.
Langangerfeld died on January 26th, 1974 in Agsburg at the age of 73 without being tried. Her case marked one of the most notorious evasions facilitated by victim testimonies and the postwar legal inertia. Thousands of Alvesa Inn were never brought to trial. Of the approximately 3,500 women who served as guards, only 77 were prosecuted.
Of those, very few were actually convicted. Most disappeared into the German civilian population, changed names, moved to new cities, found anonymous employment, and lived ordinary lives. Their neighbors, employers, and families were frequently unaware of their past. Hertha Ba was one of the few former Alfia Inan to speak publicly decades [music] later.
She had worked in Ravensbrook, Stuto, Avitz, and Bergen Belzen. She was released early in the mid-50s from her 10-year sentence. In a 1999 interview, when asked if she regretted it, she replied, “Did I make a mistake?” “No.” The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had [music] to go, otherwise they would have put me in it myself.
This explanation given by many former Afsia Inn was unlikely. Records show that women could refuse assignments without severe consequences. Some guards simply left Ravensbrook because they were unhappy. The narrative of coercion was a postwar construction designed to evade responsibility. In the denatification proceedings between 1947 and 1949, almost half were discontinued.
In 16 cases with convictions, the sentences were from 120 days to 2 and 1/2 years. The judges declared that since the defendants had been interned by the Allies for years, their terms had already been served. The lack of interest in prosecuting female guards reflected gender attitudes. Many assumed that women had been peripheral participants, forced to work against their will, following orders without agency.
This narrative ignored evidence that many female guards had been volunteers and exercised considerable discretion. Reports mentioned humane female guards like Krugerg who shared extra food, demonstrating that there was choice. The disparity between 3,500 ofin and less than 100 who faced responsibility underscores the incomplete denatification.
Only one German court conducted a case related to Bergen Belin which ended in a quiddle. There were no other trials in East or West Germany. Investigations in Lunberg were discontinued. The West German medical establishment shielded some members. Herta Oberoer practiced medicine for 6 years after her release before international pressure forced the revocation of her license.
Erica Yansen, who worked at Ravensbrook from 1,938, ran her own practice without being prosecuted. Gereda Vand likewise evaded trial. Memory is preserved mainly through survivor testimonies, trial archives, and memorial sites. The Ravensbrook Memorial, established in 1,959, documents the crimes through exhibitions.
However, for decades, the dominant narrative emphasized men as perpetrators and [music] women as victims. Nazi women were seen as aberrations. The nicknames reflected disbelief, the beautiful beast, the blonde angel of Bellson, the hyena of Ashvitz. These names emphasized the supposed contradiction between gender and actions.
Subsequent research revealed that the female guards were not aberrations but products of the same system. They grew up [music] with Nazi propaganda. Many had been members of the Bund Deutsche Medal. They received ideological training with propaganda films. They became accustomed to seeing prisoners as subhuman.
A prisoner noted that it took only 4 days to transform a new female guard. Female violence differed in form but not in lethality. The men operated gas chambers, and carried out mass executions. The female guards killed indirectly through [music] fatal beatings, deliberate starvation, forced labor until exhaustion, calculated medical neglect, and selections.
Their methods were more intimate. Direct physical contact, face-to-face humiliation, sustained cruelty over many months. This violence was no less lethal. Estimates suggest they contributed to the deaths of at least 30,000 prisoners in Ravensbrook, not counting victims in other camps. The trials exposed crimes, but revealed complexities.
Bins and Grazy never showed remorse, singing Nazi songs before their executions. Mandal sought forgiveness in her final moments. Langangerfeld generated enough loyalty for prisoners to risk their lives helping her. These variations suggest that there were degrees of complicity, levels of cruelty, and possibilities of moral choice.
However, most evaded responsibility. They lived quiet lives while their communities were unaware that they had kicked prisoners to death or selected women for gas chambers. Silence became complicity. The fate of the female guards varied greatly. For those executed between 1945 and 1948, justice was swift. For Oberheiser, released after 5 years, it was inadequate.
For Langangerfeld and thousands never tried, there was no justice. This disparity reflected chaotic realities, resource limitations, the complexity of tracking thousands of individuals, gender attitudes, and a lack of political will. The Nazi system had involved so many perpetrators at so many levels that it was impossible to judge them all.
The allies focused on the most notorious ones. The rest disappeared into anonymity. 70 years later, almost all the female guards have died. The last survivors are also dying. Direct memory disappears. Records, testimonies, memorial sites, and the obligation to remember remain. The history of the female guards is not just about individual women who committed atrocities.
It is about how entire societies become complicit in evil. It is about how dehumanizing ideologies transform ordinary people into perpetrators of horror. It is about the limits of legal justice to address crimes of such magnitude and the ongoing need for vigilance against ideologies that classify human beings as more or less human.
It is a reminder that participation in genocide is not limited by gender and that understanding this participation requires examining the structures that allowed and encouraged the violence.
