The final hours of Jenny-Wanda Barkmann were spent in a cramped prison cell in Gdansk, the city where she had once held absolute power over the lives of thousands of terrified inmates. The woman who had been described by survivors as a sadistic, unpredictable force inside Stutthof concentration camp now sat waiting for the gallows, her fate sealed by the very justice system she had helped defy. As the sun rose over the Baltic coast on July 4, 1946, a crowd of tens of thousands had already gathered, their faces a mixture of grim satisfaction and barely contained rage, ready to witness the public execution of the female guards who had terrorized the camp.

The atmosphere in the prison that morning was suffocating. Barkmann, along with Gerda Steinhoff, Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff, and Ewa Paradies, had been informed that their appeals had failed and that the death sentences handed down by the Polish court would be carried out that very day. For weeks, these women had lived under the shadow of the noose, their days marked by the constant clang of keys and the heavy footsteps of guards outside their doors.

Some reportedly prayed, others wept, but Barkmann, according to later accounts, maintained a chilling composure that unnerved even the prison staff who escorted her to the execution site.

The journey from the prison to the gallows was short, but it was a passage through a wall of human anguish. The crowd, estimated by historians to be in the tens of thousands, pressed against the barriers, their shouts and curses filling the air. Men, women, and children who had lost family members to the Nazi occupation surged forward, desperate to see the faces of the women who had become symbols of the camp’s brutality.

The gallows had been erected on a hill near the prison, a stark silhouette against the grey sky, and the condemned women were led up the wooden steps one by one, their hands bound behind their backs.

Barkmann was among the first to ascend. Witnesses later described her as walking with a defiant stride, her gaze fixed on the horizon rather than the crowd that screamed for her death. She had been the subject of intense media scrutiny during the trial, with newspapers focusing on her appearance as much as her crimes, but on this morning, there was no glamour left.

The noose was placed around her neck, and the trapdoor opened. The crowd fell silent for a moment, then erupted in a roar that mixed horror and vindication as her body dropped and swung.

Gerda Steinhoff followed shortly after. The former guard, who had been accused of brutalizing sick prisoners who were too weak to work, reportedly showed less composure than Barkmann. Survivors in the crowd watched intently, their memories of the camp flooding back with each creak of the gallows.

Steinhoff’s execution was swift, but the psychological impact on the onlookers was profound. Some wept, not for the condemned, but for the loved ones they had lost inside the camp’s barbed wire fences. Others shouted obscenities, their grief transforming into a desperate need for retribution.

Elisabeth Becker, who had tried to portray herself as less violent than her co-defendants, was led to the gallows next. Her final moments were marked by visible trembling, and reports suggest she had to be supported by the guards who walked beside her. The crowd’s reaction was merciless.

They had heard the testimony of former prisoners who described her participating in selections and physically attacking inmates, and they were not inclined to show mercy. The executioner adjusted the rope, and Becker’s life ended in a matter of seconds, her body joining the others on the platform.

Wanda Klaff, the youngest of the group, had entered the camp system while still a teenager, yet survivors testified to her shocking violence, describing how she beat prisoners with clubs and kicked women during roll calls. As she was brought forward, the crowd’s anger seemed to intensify. The sheer youth of her face contrasted starkly with the horrors she had been convicted of, and for many in the crowd, this contrast made the crime even more unforgivable.

Her execution was quick, but the image of her young body swinging from the rope would be seared into the memory of the nation for decades.

The final woman to be executed was Ewa Paradies, whose reputation for casual violence inside the barracks had made her one of the most feared guards in the camp. Survivors had described her whipping inmates and kicking women without provocation, and her name had become synonymous with the arbitrary cruelty that defined the final years of Stutthof. As she was led up the steps, the crowd’s noise reached a fever pitch.

The executioner placed the noose around her neck, and with a single motion, the trapdoor opened. The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of the wind and the distant cries of seabirds.

After the five women were hanged, the male defendants from the same trial were also executed, their bodies joining the grim tableau on the gallows. But the horror of the day was not yet over. As the authorities began to loosen control of the area, a surge of spectators rushed toward the platform.

Reports from the time describe people cutting pieces of rope from the gallows as souvenirs, a macabre act that demonstrated the raw, unhealed wounds of the Polish population. The executions had been public by design, intended to serve as a catharsis for a nation that had suffered immeasurably, but the scene that followed showed that justice, even when delivered, could not erase the trauma.

The Stutthof trial, which had concluded on May 31, 1946, was one of the first major war crimes trials held in Poland after the war. It took place in Gdansk, a city that had been devastated by the conflict, and the courtroom was packed daily with survivors, journalists, and officials. The prosecution presented overwhelming evidence, including detailed witness testimony and recovered SS documents, to prove that the female guards had not merely followed orders but had actively participated in the brutalization and murder of prisoners.

The defense’s argument that the women were simply doing their jobs was rejected by the court, which emphasized individual responsibility for crimes committed inside the camp.

The conditions inside Stutthof had been horrific from its inception in September 1939, just days after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Initially established to hold Polish intellectuals, priests, and resistance members, the camp quickly expanded into a sprawling complex of subcamps that held prisoners from over 25 countries. By the final years of the war, the prisoner population had exploded as thousands of starving inmates were evacuated from camps further east, including Auschwitz, as the Soviet army advanced.

Typhus epidemics ravaged the overcrowded barracks, and the SS, desperate to maintain control, brought in more guards, including the young women who would later stand trial.

These women, many of whom came from poor working-class backgrounds, had been recruited through the Ravensbruck concentration camp, the main training center for female SS guards. For many, the job offered stable pay, food rations, and housing during a time of wartime shortages. But once inside the camp system, they became deeply embedded in its brutality.

Survivors recalled guards like Barkmann beating women savagely and selecting prisoners for death, while others like Steinhoff and Paradies used whips, sticks, and dogs to intimidate and assault inmates. The violence was often arbitrary, meted out for moving too slowly, speaking without permission, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the war turned decisively against Germany in early 1945, the situation inside Stutthof became even more chaotic. The SS ordered the evacuation of the camp, and around 25,000 prisoners were forced on death marches through freezing winter conditions. Wearing thin uniforms and wooden shoes, they trudged through snowstorms with almost no food or medical care.

Guards, including the female personnel, shot prisoners who collapsed or could not keep up, leaving bodies scattered across the frozen landscape. The marches were a final act of cruelty, designed to ensure that as few survivors as possible would remain to testify about the horrors of the camp.

By April 1945, the Nazi regime was collapsing, and many guards began to abandon their posts, discarding their uniforms and trying to blend in with the masses of refugees fleeing westward. But the survivors of Stutthof did not forget. After liberation, they began identifying their former tormentors, and Polish investigators, aided by recovered SS records, moved quickly to arrest the guards.

The first trial in 1946 was followed by additional proceedings over the next several years, as courts sought to hold accountable the dozens of guards, kapos, and SS members who had served at Stutthof and its subcamps.

The executions on July 4, 1946, were a landmark moment in post-war justice, but they did not end the search for accountability. Decades later, German prosecutors reopened investigations into concentration camp personnel, arguing that serving in the camp system itself made individuals legally responsible for mass murder. One of the most notable cases involved Irmgard Furchner, a former secretary at Stutthof who was tried in the 2020s at the age of 96.

Her trial, which attracted international attention, served as a reminder that the shadow of the Holocaust stretched far beyond the immediate post-war years.

Today, the site of Stutthof operates as a museum and memorial in Poland, where visitors can walk through the preserved barracks, crematorium areas, and gas chamber remains. The memory of the female guards, their crimes, and their brutal end remains a stark reminder of how ordinary individuals can become complicit in extraordinary evil. The public hangings in Gdansk were a desperate attempt by a traumatized nation to find closure, but for many survivors, the executions could never truly balance the scales of suffering.

The rope souvenirs taken from the gallows were not trophies of justice, but symbols of a grief that would never fully heal.