The gallows at Biskupia Gorka hill were crude, a simple wooden structure against the grey Baltic sky, but the spectacle they hosted on July 4, 1946, was one of the most visceral acts of post-war justice Europe had ever witnessed. A crowd estimated at nearly 200,000 people pressed against the barriers, their faces a mixture of grim satisfaction and morbid curiosity, to watch the execution of eleven war criminals from the Stutthof concentration camp. Among them were five women, guards whose names had become synonymous with a level of sadism that even their male counterparts found chilling.

They were not professional executioners, and the method was brutally efficient; the condemned were placed on the beds of trucks with nooses around their necks, and the vehicles simply drove away, leaving them to strangle in the open air. For one of the women, Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, the mechanism of death initially failed, the truck’s engine sputtering and dying, leaving her standing on the platform, alive, as a murmur rippled through the crowd. It was a former prisoner who finally shoved her off the edge, ending her life in a moment of spontaneous, furious retribution.

The execution was the culmination of a trial that had laid bare a disturbing truth about the Nazi regime: the machinery of genocide was not exclusively operated by men. The Stutthof trials, held in Gdańsk, Poland, exposed the role of female Aufseherinnen, or overseers, who had been recruited, trained, and deployed to enforce the brutal discipline of the camp system with a zeal that often surpassed their male colleagues. These were not reluctant participants or passive bystanders; they were active, willing agents of terror who engaged in the selection of prisoners for the gas chambers, participated in beatings, and derived a perverse pleasure from the power they wielded over the imprisoned.

The trial and subsequent executions served as a stark reminder that the capacity for evil is not a gendered trait, and that the banality of evil could manifest in the form of a woman who giggled at her own death sentence.

The recruitment of these women was a deliberate, systematic process by the SS. As the war expanded and the concentration camp network grew, the Nazis faced a manpower shortage. They turned to the female population, using propaganda and newspaper advertisements to appeal to their sense of patriotic duty, calling for women to “show their love for the Reich” by joining the SS-Gefolge, the SS support and service organization.

Thousands answered the call, lured by the promise of a steady salary, a room of their own, and a degree of authority that was unattainable in the patriarchal society of wartime Germany. For many, the position was a step up in social standing, a chance to escape the drudgery of factory work or domestic service, and to wield power over a population deemed subhuman by the state.

Elizabeth Becker was one such recruit. She began her career as a simple cook, but her willingness to adapt and her apparent enthusiasm for the camp environment saw her transferred from camp to camp, eventually landing at Stutthof where she was promoted to the rank of official guard. This promotion came with a new, horrifying privilege: the authority to choose which women and children were sent to the gas chambers.

The transition from kitchen worker to mass murderer was not a gradual slide into depravity; it was a conscious choice to embrace the power of life and death that the SS offered her. She was not an exception but rather a representative of a cohort of women who saw the camps not as a place of suffering, but as a career opportunity.

Life inside Stutthof for these guards was one of relative comfort, a stark contrast to the hell endured by the prisoners. While the inmates suffered from starvation, disease, and brutal violence, the female guards enjoyed private rooms, regular meals, and leisure time. The prisoners performed all the menial labor, from cooking and cleaning to maintenance, allowing the guards to live a life of ease that was scarce even for the general German population during the war.

This comfort, however, was not enough. The guards craved power, and they found it in the daily reassertion of their authority through violence. This physical domination was not just a means of control; it was a way to prove their capability and carve out a status for themselves within the camp’s hierarchy.

Gerda Steinhoff, a guard who had signed a declaration on her honor not to decide on the life or death of an enemy of the state except on the orders of a superior, was one of the most notorious examples of this thirst for power. In her block, she held over 400 women and children at her mercy. She actively participated in selections for the gas chambers and was known as a ruthless overseer.

Her sadistic abuse was so pronounced that she was awarded the Iron Cross for her “war efforts,” a military decoration that highlighted the extent to which her cruelty was recognized and rewarded by the state. The daily violence was not a reluctant duty; it was a performance, a demonstration of her fitness for the role that she embraced with terrifying enthusiasm.

Wanda Klaff was another guard who openly boasted about her brutality. She bragged about beating the imprisoned women and children under her care, treating the violence as a source of personal pride. These women were not mindlessly following orders; they were making daily, conscious choices to inflict pain.

The violence served a dual purpose: it kept the prisoners in a state of terror, and it elevated the guards’ status among their peers. A guard who was perceived as “weak” or lenient could face criticism or demotion, so the brutality became a competitive sport, a way to demonstrate loyalty to the Reich and to secure one’s own position within the system.

The sheer scale of the horror at Stutthof is difficult to comprehend. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as many as 100,000 people were deported to the camp, and around 60,000 of them died. The main entrance gate became known as the “Death Gate” because entering it was effectively a death sentence.

Many succumbed to typhus and other diseases, but countless others were sent to the gas chambers by the camp guards. The selection process was arbitrary and cruel, often targeting those who were too weak or sick to work. The guards, both male and female, held the power of life and death, and they wielded it with a casualness that is almost incomprehensible.

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann arrived at Stutthof in 1944, just a year before the war’s end, but she quickly made a name for herself as one of the camp’s most brutal figures. She was one of only 3,700 women to take on such a position out of a total of 55,000 guards in the Nazi concentration camp system. Despite her short tenure, she showed no hesitation when it came to beating prisoners, sometimes to death, and regularly sent women and children to the gas chambers who she deemed too weak to work.

Her beauty, which earned her the nickname “Beautiful Spectre,” was a deceptive facade for a personality that was described as sadistic and remorseless.

Ewa Paradies was another guard whose actions were characterized by a particular barbarism. An ardent Nazi, she underwent training to become an overseer at Stutthof in 1944. Once her training was complete, she became a wardress and continued her reign of terror.

Witness accounts describe incidents where she would force groups of female prisoners to undress in freezing temperatures and douse them with ice-cold water, only to beat them mercilessly. These punishments were not just about enforcing discipline; they were about inflicting maximum suffering. The guards seemed to derive a perverse enjoyment from the pain they caused, and their actions were often driven by a desire to demonstrate their absolute power over the prisoners.

As Soviet forces closed in on Stutthof in late April 1945, the Nazis decided to abandon the camp and sent the remaining inmates on a death march. These marches were common as the Nazis sought to erase evidence of their crimes. Thousands of prisoners were forced to walk hundreds of kilometers with little clothing and no food, and many were killed along the way.

Some were directed toward the nearby Baltic coast, where hundreds were forced into the sea and shot. The female guards participated in these marches, continuing their brutal treatment of the prisoners until the very end. Despite their apparent disregard for human life, many of these guards managed to escape punishment after the war, either going into hiding or blending in with the general population.

However, a small number were captured and brought to justice. The first of the Stutthof trials saw Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies, Anna Bart, Elizabeth Becker, Gerda Steinhoff, and Wanda Klaff, along with ten men, put on trial for their crimes. During her interrogation, Barkmann claimed that she had always treated prisoners well and even said that she had saved some of them from death.

Her interrogators saw through her act, and dozens of survivors testified against her, describing the brutal atrocities she committed. Even her own lawyer admitted that she was guilty of the crimes but argued that she was mentally ill, suggesting that no sane person could have done what she did. Barkmann’s behavior in court did not help her case; she was said to have giggled throughout the trial, flirted with her prison guards, and twirled her hair while hearing testimony about her victims.

When she was convicted, she responded with contemptuous laughter. After being sentenced to death by hanging, she reportedly said, “Life is a great pleasure and pleasure as a rule does not last long.” Wanda Klaff similarly did not take the trial or her sentencing seriously.

She stated at the trial, “I am very intelligent and devoted to my work in the camps. I struck at least two prisoners every day.” The more aggressive performances in court allowed some of the other defendants to plead their cases, insisting that because they had rarely engaged in violence toward prisoners, they were somehow not guilty of the atrocities that occurred at Stutthof.

For one, it worked. Anna Bart, a guard who worked as a nurse for the staff, claimed that she did not like the work because they tormented people too much, which she could not look at. She claimed she had voluntarily resigned her position, despite still being a member of the Nazi party.

Because no witnesses testified that Bart had killed or attacked prisoners with her own hands, she was not sentenced for crimes against humanity, although she was later found guilty of other crimes. She was the only female Stutthof guard on trial to avoid execution. For the others, their complicity in the violence and death at the camps spelled their doom.

Five of the women and six of the men were found guilty and sentenced to death. On July 4, 1946, the eleven Stutthof war criminals were taken to Biskupia Gorka hill near Gdańsk to be hanged. The executioners did not bother with formality; the criminals were not granted the honor of being put to death by a professional executioner.

They were placed on the bed of a truck with a noose tied around their necks, and then the truck drove off, leaving gravity to do the work.

The scene was chaotic and brutal. When the truck carrying Barkmann failed to start, the crowd murmured in frustration as she stood before them, still alive. A former Stutthof prisoner then ran up and pushed her off the truck bed, and she died instantly.

As the bodies swayed in the breeze, scores of people in the crowd flocked to the makeshift gallows, trying to rip off a piece of fabric or a button to keep as a souvenir. Eventually, the corpses were sent to the anatomical theater in Gdańsk, along with the bodies of other criminals, to be used as a visual aid for medical students. The execution of these women was a stark, brutal end to their reign of terror, but it also served as a chilling reminder of the depths of human depravity and the ease with which ordinary people can become instruments of profound evil.