Jenny-Wanda Barkmann

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
Barkmann at the Stutthof trials in 1946
Born30 May 1922
Hamburg, Weimar Republic
Died4 July 1946(1946-07-04) (aged 24)
Biskupia Górka, Gdańsk, Republic of Poland
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Other names"Beautiful Spectre"
OccupationGuard of the Stutthof concentration camp
OrganizationNazi Party
Conviction(s)Crime against humanity
TrialStutthof trials
Criminal penaltyDeath

Biography

Barkmann 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, where she brutalized prisoners, some to death. She also selected women and children for the gas chambers. She was so merciless that the women prisoners nicknamed her the "Beautiful Specter".[1]

Barkmann fled Stutthof as the Soviet Red Army approached. She was arrested in May 1945 while trying to leave a train station in Gdańsk. She became a defendant in the first Stutthof Trial, where she and other defendants were convicted for their crimes at the camp. Barkmann is said to have giggled through the trial, flirted with her prison guards; she 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."[1][2]

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. She was 24 years old, and the first to be hanged.[3]

Public execution of Stutthof concentration camp personnel on 4 July 1946 by short-drop hanging. In the foreground, from left to right, are female camp overseers Barkmann, Ewa Paradies, Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff, and Gerda Steinhoff.

See also

References
  1. Jenny-Wanda Barkmann Biography Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  2. Stutthof Concentration Camp — Fold3.com – Historical Military Records. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
  3. "1946: Eleven from the Stutthof concentration camp". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
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