Jenny-Wanda Barkmann

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, back row right, at a war crimes trial between April 25 and May 31, 1946, in Gdańsk
Born c. 1922
Hamburg, Germany
Died July 4, 1946(1946-07-04) (aged 24)
Biskupia Górka, Gdańsk, Poland
Cause of death Hanging
Occupation Guards of the Stutthof concentration camp
Organization Nazi
Criminal charge Sadistic abuse of prisoners.
Criminal penalty Sentenced to death
Criminal status Dead

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann (c. 1922 – July 4, 1946) was a German concentration camp guard during World War II.

She is believed to have spent her childhood in Hamburg, Germany. In 1944, she became an Aufseherin in the Stutthof SK-III women's camp, where she brutalized prisoners, some to death. She also selected women and children for the gas chambers. She was so severe the women prisoners nicknamed her the Beautiful Specter.[1]

Barkmann fled Stutthof as the Soviets approached. She was arrested in May 1945 while trying to leave a train station in Gdańsk. She became a defendant in the Stutthof Trial, where she and other defendants were convicted for their crimes at the camp. She is said to have giggled through the trial,[1] flirted with her prison guards and was apparently seen arranging her hair while hearing testimony. She was found guilty, after which she declared, "Life is indeed a pleasure, and pleasures are usually short."[2]

Barkmann was publicly executed by short-drop hanging along with 10 other defendants from the trial on Biskupia Gorka Hill near Gdańsk on July 4, 1946. She was around 24 years old, and the first to hang.[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Tony Rennell, "Bitches of Buchenwald: Which death camp guard is the evil inspiration behind Kate Winslet's role in The Reader?", Mail Online, 24 January 2009
  2. ↑ Stutthof Concentration Camp — Fold3.com – Historical Military Records. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
  3. ↑ "1946: Eleven from the Stutthof concentration camp". Retrieved 2012-07-22.


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