Jenny-Wanda Barkmann
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 | |
|---|---|
Barkmann at the Stutthof trials in 1946 | |
| Born | 30 May 1922 |
| Died | 4 July 1946 (aged 24) |
Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Other names | "Beautiful Spectre" |
| Occupation | Guard of the Stutthof concentration camp |
Political party | Nazi Party |
| Conviction | Crime against humanity |
| Trial | Stutthof trials |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
Biography
Barkmann was born in 1922 and is believed to have spent her childhood in Hamburg.
In 1944, Barkmann volunteered with the Schutzstaffel as an Aufseherin,[1] a concentration camp overseer, in the Stutthof SK-III women's subcamp in Poland, where she brutalized prisoners, sometimes to death. She also selected women and children for the gas chambers.[2] Women prisoners nicknamed her the Beautiful Spectre.[2]
Barkmann fled Stutthof and hid in Gdańsk, where she was arrested at a train station[1] 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.[2] After she was found guilty she declared, "Life is indeed a pleasure, and pleasures are usually short."[3]
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Barkmann was publicly executed by short-drop hanging along with ten 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 at the time of her death.[5]
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