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Nazi concentration camp guard (1922–1946) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann (30 May 1922 – 4 July 1946) was a German overseer in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. She was tried and executed for crimes against humanity after the war.
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann | |
---|---|
Born | 30 May 1922 |
Died | 4 July 1946 24) | (aged
Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
Other names | "Beautiful Spectre" |
Occupation | Guard of the Stutthof concentration camp |
Political party | Nazi Party |
Conviction(s) | Crime against humanity |
Trial | Stutthof trials |
Criminal penalty | Death |
Barkmann was born in 1922 and is believed to have spent her childhood in Hamburg.
In 1944, she became an Aufseherin, or overseer, in the Stutthof SK-III women's subcamp in Poland, where she brutalized prisoners, some to death. She also selected women and children for the gas chambers[1] and volunteered as a gunner in the camp.[2] She was so merciless that the women prisoners nicknamed her the "Beautiful Spectre".[1]
Barkmann fled Stutthof and hid out in Gdańsk, where she was arrested at a train station[2] in May 1945 for her criminal wartime acts. In 1946, she became a defendant in the first Stutthof Trial, where she and other defendants were convicted for their crimes at the camp.[1] After she was found guilty she declared, "Life is indeed a pleasure, and pleasures are usually short."[3]
Barkmann was publicly executed by short-drop hanging along with 10 other defendants from the trial on Biskupia Górka Hill near Gdańsk on 4 July 1946.[4] Former Stutthof prisoners volunteered to conduct the executions. She was 24 years old.[5]
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