Front row, left to right - Gerda Steinhoff, Jenny Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies and SS-Oberscharfuhrer Johann Pauls (Image - Museum Stutthof)
Today, July 4th is the 73rd anniversary of the barbaric public execution of Jenny Wanda Barkmann and 10 other war criminals at Biskupia Górka Hill, Poland.
They all served at Stutthof Concentration Camp, which was located in a wooded area just west of the town of Stutthof, 21 miles east of the city of Danzig.
Apart from the main camp there were about 40 sub-camps. The camp staff consisted of both male and female SS guards; female prisoners arrived from 1942 onwards.
The Germans used Stutthof prisoners as forced labourers. Some prisoners worked in SS-owned businesses such as the German Equipment Works (DAW), located near the camp. Others laboured in local brickyards, in private industrial enterprises, in agriculture, or in the camp's own workshops.
The main cause of death was the typhus epidemics that swept the camp during the winters of 1942 and 1944. About 60,000 people are said to have died in the Stutthof camp complex.
Stutthof was not an extermination camp. The room claimed to have been used as a homicidal gas chamber was never anything but a delousing chamber. [1]
Soviet forces liberated Stutthof on May 9, 1945.
The Germans used Stutthof prisoners as forced labourers. Some prisoners worked in SS-owned businesses such as the German Equipment Works (DAW), located near the camp. Others laboured in local brickyards, in private industrial enterprises, in agriculture, or in the camp's own workshops.
The main cause of death was the typhus epidemics that swept the camp during the winters of 1942 and 1944. About 60,000 people are said to have died in the Stutthof camp complex.
Stutthof was not an extermination camp. The room claimed to have been used as a homicidal gas chamber was never anything but a delousing chamber. [1]
Soviet forces liberated Stutthof on May 9, 1945.
The first Stutthof trial was held in Gdańsk, Poland, from April 25 - May 31, 1946 under joint Soviet/Polish jurisdiction.The defendants all pleaded "not guilty" to the general charge of war crimes. The verdicts were:
- Johann Pauls, SS-Oberscharführer: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, SS Aufseherin: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Elisabeth Becker, SS Aufseherin: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Jan Breit, SS Aufseherin: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Wanda Klaff, SS Aufseherin: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Ewa Paradies: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Gerda Steinhoff, SS Blockleiterin: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Erna Beilhardt, SS-Aufseherin: sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment
- Tadeusz Kopczynski, (Kapo): sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Waclaw Kozlowski, Kapo: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Jozef Reiter, Kapo: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Fanciszek Szopinski, Kapo: sentenced to death, executed: July 4, 1946
- Kazimierz Kowalski, Kapo: sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment
- Jan Brajt, Kapo: death by hanging
- Aleksy Duzdal, Kapo: not guilty
- Jan Preiss, Kapo: not guilty
- Marian Zielkowski, Kapo: died of a heart attack in prison, August 25, 1945
First row (from left): Elisabeth Becker, Gerda Steinhoff, Wanda Klaff.
Second row: Erna Beilhardt, Jenny-Wanda Barkmann (image: public domain)
Jenny Wanda Barkmann in court
Second row: Erna Beilhardt, Jenny-Wanda Barkmann (image: public domain)
At their trial it was reported that the SS-women laughed and joked among themselves. Jenny-Wanda Barkmann changed her hairdo every day and flirted with the guards.
When the public prosecutor asked for the death penalty, the defendants were stunned. Klaff, Steinhoff, Becker and Paradies broke down in court and pleaded for their lives. Only Jenny-Wanda Barkmann remained calm.
Barkmann receiving the death sentence at her trial.
Upon hearing her sentence, she said, “Life is indeed a pleasure, and pleasures are usually short.”
To sentence them to death was a travesty of justice. These poor unfortunate women were only in Stutthof for a few months from mid-1944. This was the first time they had ever worked in a concentration camp.
If the evidence against them had any credibility, then why was the camp commandant, Paul-Werner Hoppe, only sentenced to 9 years imprisonment by a court in West Germany in 1957? As commandant, he was directly responsible for the actions of his staff.
The executions were carried out by former camp inmates who hated their former guards with a vengeance.
The death sentences were carried out on July 4, 1946 at Biskupia Górka, a hill in Gdansk (Danzig), by short-drop hanging. The Polish clergy were opposed to executing them in public and the method of hanging.
Information about the executions was given the day before, on Wednesday 3rd July 1946. They were advertised in the newspaper “Dziennik Baltycki” under the heading “Stutthof’s war criminals will be publicly hanged in Gdañsk”
According to the Polish press about 50,000 people came to watch the executions.
The photos below were taken by official press photographers who were determined to show every gory detail of the executions. All pictures are in the public domain.
Above - Wanda Klaff with female executioner in striped KL uniform
Above - 23 year old Elisabeth Becker is lifted onto a stool by her executioner
Because of the longer drop her neck was broken when she fell
Above - Gerda Steinhof hangs next to Commandant Johann Pauls.
The line of five male kapos recedes behind them into the enormous crowd of onlookers.
Above - A Priest speaks to Ewa Paradies before her execution
The line of five male kapos recedes behind them into the enormous crowd of onlookers.
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Above left to right - Barkmann, Paradies, Becker, Klaff, Steinhoff
24 year old Jenny-Wanda Barkman has just been hanged and struggles on the end of the rope. Behind her Ewa Paradies is being noosed by her executioner.
Barkmann's body has spun round as she struggles on the end of the rope.
Note that members of the public took their children with them. The event had a carnival atmosphere with food-stalls and ice cream vans.
Barkmann's hair fell over her face when she died
Detailed Description of the Executions
Thursday July 4, 1946 was warm and sunny. Workers were given the day off and transport was provided to the site of execution. The crowd was so large that people climbed trees and stood on roofs to get the best view.
The concentration camp staff were transported from the prison in Gdańsk to the execution site at Biskupia Górka in the back of open trucks. Their hands and legs were tied with cords and they were seated on wooden stools on the back of each truck. There were eleven trucks, one for each prisoner. The gallows had been prepared in advance. When the trucks arrived at the site they were backed up to the gallows.
The executions began at 5.00 pm. The noose was placed around the condemned person's neck, and they were forced to stand on the truck's tailboard or on the stool on which they had been sitting. The truck was driven forward and the executioner pushed the condemned off the back of the truck. The executioners were former inmates of Stutthof who were wearing striped camp uniforms; one of them was a woman.
Twenty four year old Jenny Wanda Barkmann was the first to be hanged. The executions took place at 12 minute intervals so the condemned could see what was in store for them.
One of the brave SS women shouted "Heil Hitler" at her gloating executioner when he placed the noose around her neck.
One of the condemned had advanced laryngeal cancer which prevented the noose from breaking his neck. It took twenty minutes for him to die.
After they were all dead, in a frenzy of hate the crowd mutilated the corpses. They ripped the buttons off their clothes and tore off pieces of their clothing. They even tried to grab pieces of the rope that was used to hang them.
The dead were denied a proper burial. Their bodies were taken to the medical academy in Gdańsk and used by the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology for research purposes.
Flats have now been built on the meadow where the murderous events took place which makes the exact location of the execution site difficult to identify.
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A seven minute film exists of the trial which is owned by USHMM but is not in the public domain.
According to the website "Frauen am Galgen" the executions were filmed and the film is either in the Stutthof Museum's archives or in a Russian archive.
References:
Frauen am Galgen
trojmiasto.pl
Dachau KZ
Further Reading:
Institute for Historical Review - Mark Weber on Stutthof
There’s more about Stutthof’s history at the Holocaust Research Project, and at the current memorial facility’s home page.
