Gertrud Heise | |
---|---|
![]() An aerial reconnaissance photograph of the Bremen-Obernheide concentration camp area, where Gertrud Heise was an Oberaufseherin in winter of 1944 | |
Born | Berlin, Germany | 23 July 1921
Nationality | German |
Occupation | Guard |
Employer | SS |
Conviction(s) | War crimes |
Trial | Belsen trial |
Criminal penalty | 15 years imprisonment; commuted to 7 years imprisonment |
Gertrud Elli Heise (born 23 July 1921) was a female guard and later, SS overseer at several concentration camps during the Second World War. Heise was born in Berlin, Germany. She was tried for war crimes in 1946. [1]
In 1941, Heise joined the SS Women's Auxiliary and, on 21 November 1941, arrived at Ravensbrück for training. In October 1942, she was one of several women, including Hermine Braunsteiner, to be sent to KZ Majdanek camp near Lublin as an Aufseherin . [2] The gas chambers began operation there in September 1942, [3] with more than 79,000 people exterminated during its 34 months of operation. [4]
Heise worked at the camp until January 1944 when she accompanied a transport of women to Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp on the outskirts of Kraków. She remained there until she was assigned to guard the death march to KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau west, ahead of the Soviet offensive. From there she guarded a prisoner evacuation train in October 1944 to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, Germany. In November 1944, Heise was promoted to Oberaufseherin and sent to Obernheide, [5] the subcamp of KZ Neuengamme ( Lagerbordell operated there since spring of 1944 with full staff). [6]
At Bremen-Obernheide, she and SS-Hauptscharführer Johann Hille, [7] commanded 500 Hungarian and 300 Polish women prisoners with a very high rate of deaths, regular beatings and denial of rations. [8] [9] Heise fled Obernheide in April 1945 with the evacuation of surviving women prisoners to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. [8]
Heise was later captured by British soldiers and interrogated. She was placed on trial for war crimes. On 22 May 1946 a British court handed her a sentence of 15 years imprisonment for her already confirmed war crimes. She was released from prison in the early 1950s. [9] Heise was last reported alive in Hamburg in 1970. [9]
Irma Ilse Ida Grese was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen. She was a volunteer member of the SS.
Majdanek was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, placing it among the largest of Nazi concentration camps. Although initially intended for forced labor rather than extermination, it was used to murder people on an industrial scale during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all Polish Jews within their own occupied homeland. In operation from 1 October 1941 to 22 July 1944, it was captured nearly intact. The rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration prevented the SS from destroying most of its infrastructure, and Deputy Camp Commandant Anton Thernes failed to remove the most incriminating evidence of war crimes.
Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.
Hildegard Martha Lächert was a female guard, or Aufseherin, at several concentration camps controlled by Nazi Germany. She became publicly known for her service at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Therese Brandl was a Nazi concentration camp guard.
Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in Nazi concentration camps. Of the 50,000 guards who served in the concentration camps, training records indicate that approximately 3,500 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a shortage of male guards. In the context of these camps, the German position title of Aufseherin translates to (female) "overseer" or "attendant". Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–1945), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943–44), Mauthausen, Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts.
Maria Mandl was an Austrian SS-Helferin and a war criminal notorious for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Ravensbrück concentration camps. She was executed for committing crimes against humanity.
Margot Elisabeth Dreschel, also spelled Drechsel, Drechsler or Drexler, was an SS-Aufseherin at Nazi concentration camps during World War II. For her role in the Holocaust, she was sentenced to death and hanged.
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Johanna Bormann ; 10 September 1893 – 13 December 1945) was a German prison guard at several Nazi concentration camps from 1938. She was executed as a war criminal at Hamelin after a court trial in 1945.
Alice Orlowski was a German concentration camp guard at several of the Nazi concentration camps in German-occupied Poland (1939-1945) during World War II. After the war, a Polish court convicted of her crimes against humanity, and she served 10 years in prison in Poland. In 1973, Orlowski, now 70 and living as a pensioner in West Germany, muttered that only "half the work" had been finished, referring to the Holocaust. She was promptly arrested, convicted of making antisemitic remarks, and sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Arthur Liebehenschel was a German commandant at the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps during the Holocaust. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes by the Polish government and executed in 1948.
Luise Danz was a Nazi concentration camp guard in World War II. Danz was captured in 1945 and put on trial for crimes against humanity at the Auschwitz trial in Kraków, Poland. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947, but released due to general amnesty on 20 August 1957.
Franz Hermann Johann Maria Freiherr von Bodmann, sometimes written as Bodman was a German SS-Obersturmführer who served as a camp physician in several Nazi concentration camps.
Anton Thumann was a member of the SS of Nazi Germany who served in various Nazi concentration camps during World War II. After the war, Thumann was arrested by British occupation forces and charged with war crimes. At the Neuengamme Camp Case No. 1 in 1946 he was found guilty, sentenced to death and executed at Hamelin Prison.
Else Lieschen Frida "Elsa" Ehrich was a convicted war criminal who served as a Schutzstaffel (SS) guard in Nazi concentration camps, including at Kraków-Płaszów and the Majdanek concentration camp during World War II. She was tried in Lublin, Poland at the Majdanek Trials and sentenced to death for war crimes. Ehrich was hanged on 26 October 1948.
Anneliese Kohlmann was a German SS camp guard within the Nazi concentration camp system during World War II, notably, at the Neuengamme concentration camp established by the SS in Hamburg, Germany; and at Bergen-Belsen. She was tried for war crimes at the Belsen Trial in Lüneburg in 1946.
The Majdanek trials were a series of consecutive war-crime trials held in Poland and in Germany during and after World War II, constituting the overall longest Nazi war crimes trial in history spanning over 30 years. The first judicial trial of Majdanek extermination camp officials took place from November 27, 1944, to December 2, 1944, in Lublin, Poland. The last one, held at the District Court of Düsseldorf began on November 26, 1975, and concluded on June 30, 1981. It was West Germany's longest and most expensive trial, lasting 474 sessions.
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See: index or articles ("Personenregister"). Oldenburger OnlineZeitschriftenBibliothek.
Translation of title: Trials of Nazi criminals after 1945 by the example of John Hille and Gertrud Heise.
Translation of title: Accounts by women of concentration camps.
Translation of title: The women of former labor camp Oberheide. SS Oberaufseherin Gertrud Heise.