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The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System
You've seen them as background "extras" in motion pictures with Holocaust themes. One was a guard who escorted Meryl Streep across the grim landscape of Auschwitz in Sophie's Choice (1982). In the dark comedy Seven Beauties (1976), a hapless Italian POW finds himself having to patronize an exceedingly large version of one. In The Boys from Brazil (1978), Nazi hunter Sir Lawrence Olivier interviews the aging prison inmate who is attempting to broker a deal through him. In Playing for Time, Triumph of the Spirit, and Schindler's List, similar representations appear. These are the female SS guards, and even ardent students of the Holocaust know little about these feminine shadows of camp terror. In truth, the so-called "SS Women" served in guard capacities in the camps, but their official status in the SS was strictly that of auxiliaries. The female guards were never truly considered members of the "sacred corps" of Hitler's elite guard: they were never actual SS members. All this notwithstanding, the overwhelming majority of these women inflicted tremendous pain and suffering on the thousands of unfortunate, helpless victims, who came under their power. The rank-and-file female guards were frequently singled out in postwar trials as being worse than the male tormentors. Indeed, as the world witnessed photographic evidence of well-fed, usually hefty female guards throwing emaciated corpses in the the mass graves of Bergen-Belsen, the scope and extent of these culprits' participation in the Nazi orgy of death became clearer. Sadly, with the passage of time, the world has largely forgotten these female oppressors. The Camp Women is the first complete resource volume dedicated to the SS-Aufseherinnen - the female guards of the camps. Although no directory, database, or index on the subject has ever existed, Daniel Patrick Brown has taken the bank records of the concentration camp designated for women, Ravensbrück, to begin to catalog all of these overseers who can be documented. Furtherm with added data from the German Federal Archives in Berlin, the Polish State Museum in Oswiecim (Auschwitz), and the Central Office (for prosecution of Nazi war crimes) in Ludwigsburg, essential material on these women has finally been synthetized into this valuable tool for subsequent research on the female guards. In addition, the role of the girl's youth organization in developing future overseers, and the eventual recruitment, training, and employment of these women is likewise examined. Because of their participation in the slaughter in the camps, a number of female overseers were tried, convicted, and executed following the war. This aspect of their organization's brief history is also analyzed. Finally, a section of photographs and maps will provide the reader with some heretofore unseen data. Professor Brown's timely work fills a void in the terrible annals of the Nazism: at last, the women guards and their crimes are subject to public scrutiny.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
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About the author
Daniel Patrick Brown
11 books2 followersDaniel Patrick Brown is a professor emeritus from Moorpark College (CA). He has authored numerous historical works, including "The Beautiful Beast: The Life & Crimes of SS-Aufseherin Irma Grese" (2004) and "The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System" (2002). His latest work, published in 2019, is "Enduring Entanglements: The Insidious Impact the Third Reich Has Had on America." Professor Brown has also served as an interviewer for the “Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Project” and he is a former member of the Education Committee for the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.
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September 5, 2023
This essentially is a reference book and a stunning book in its simplicity. It contains a Foreword, an Introduction, and three chapters. The first chapter is titled “From Process to Proze: Recruitment, Training, Duty and Judgment. The second chapter is titled “The Overseers (Aufseherinnen): The Camp Women- Personal Files."
Chapter 2 makes up the bulk of the book (207 pages) and is a list of Camp Women- each entry with a space for:
Name, Birthdate, Position, File Number, Employment Date, Camp Service and Notes.
Most of these entries contain only a name and the camp they served at.
Chapter 3, titled “The Camp Women: Assignments, Ranks, and Assorted Pertinent Data” contains a few pages of minutia- the examination Questions for SS- Assistants- a ranking of the cities with the highest number of women born in them (Berlin tops the list with 93) while pointing out that three of the most notorious overseers came from the rural area surrounding Ravensbruck. Ages- 17-45, the oldest was 57, and the youngest was 15. (Her sister was also an overseer). The average birth year was 1917, and the average employment age was 26.
Thirteen of these women were sentenced to death and executed. The remaining sentences of those charged with a crime, (a woefully small number) are recorded.
There are about 30 photographs at the end of the book.
In the Foreword, written by John K Roth, the author quotes a book written by Christopher Browning (Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland) about the German battalion responsible for the deaths of some 83,000 Jews in Poland. He ends the book with a question:
“If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?”
This book asks that question- how ordinary were these women?
“…while there were clearly some SS auxiliaries who were attractive, cruel and perverse, the vast majority were colorless, unimaginative, plain, or wretched in their physical appearance. “
On women from rural areas: “Those who worked with the soil held a sacred place in the Nazi scheme of things. While the Nazi leader held the young in very high esteem, his racist program exalted farmers. ….the praise for rural youth bore dividends for the Nazi propaganda machine: the farming communities reciprocated by ultimately providing the majority of the rank- and file “Death’s Head" units- the SS concentration camp guards. Many of the young adherents to the “New Order” joined for more than mere defense of [Blood and Soil}.. some joined simply because they saw no future in the hard manual labor of the farm and sought instead the potential for adventure and glory in the Nazi movement.”
In 1939, there was a campaign to attract more female guards- and one ‘lure’ was that prospective candidates ‘would only have to watch over prisoners” with the assurance that it would be physically effortless work.”
The SS itself stated in January 1945 that it had 37,674 male SS guards coupled with 3,508 female SS guards, overseeing 714,674 enemies of the state.
“The majority of the women who enlisted were not the most sophisticated; indeed, a former overseer described new recruits as a ‘few stupid ones who lived in the back of the Black Forest [meaning inexperienced and naive]’, and the inmates, who were frequently better educated and culturally more refined, almost invariably viewed their masters as ‘stupid types whose only claim to superiority was their uniform.’ Although a survivor of Ravensbruck who had access to the camp’s personal files has noted that the supervisors came from all walks of life- including aristocratic families- the vast majority were unskilled, undereducated, and decidedly limited in job prospects. All this notwithstanding, by 1943, the vast majority of the supervisors were conscripts.”
It's a book to make you shiver- that banality of evil theme.
Chapter 2 makes up the bulk of the book (207 pages) and is a list of Camp Women- each entry with a space for:
Name, Birthdate, Position, File Number, Employment Date, Camp Service and Notes.
Most of these entries contain only a name and the camp they served at.
Chapter 3, titled “The Camp Women: Assignments, Ranks, and Assorted Pertinent Data” contains a few pages of minutia- the examination Questions for SS- Assistants- a ranking of the cities with the highest number of women born in them (Berlin tops the list with 93) while pointing out that three of the most notorious overseers came from the rural area surrounding Ravensbruck. Ages- 17-45, the oldest was 57, and the youngest was 15. (Her sister was also an overseer). The average birth year was 1917, and the average employment age was 26.
Thirteen of these women were sentenced to death and executed. The remaining sentences of those charged with a crime, (a woefully small number) are recorded.
There are about 30 photographs at the end of the book.
In the Foreword, written by John K Roth, the author quotes a book written by Christopher Browning (Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland) about the German battalion responsible for the deaths of some 83,000 Jews in Poland. He ends the book with a question:
“If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?”
This book asks that question- how ordinary were these women?
“…while there were clearly some SS auxiliaries who were attractive, cruel and perverse, the vast majority were colorless, unimaginative, plain, or wretched in their physical appearance. “
On women from rural areas: “Those who worked with the soil held a sacred place in the Nazi scheme of things. While the Nazi leader held the young in very high esteem, his racist program exalted farmers. ….the praise for rural youth bore dividends for the Nazi propaganda machine: the farming communities reciprocated by ultimately providing the majority of the rank- and file “Death’s Head" units- the SS concentration camp guards. Many of the young adherents to the “New Order” joined for more than mere defense of [Blood and Soil}.. some joined simply because they saw no future in the hard manual labor of the farm and sought instead the potential for adventure and glory in the Nazi movement.”
In 1939, there was a campaign to attract more female guards- and one ‘lure’ was that prospective candidates ‘would only have to watch over prisoners” with the assurance that it would be physically effortless work.”
The SS itself stated in January 1945 that it had 37,674 male SS guards coupled with 3,508 female SS guards, overseeing 714,674 enemies of the state.
“The majority of the women who enlisted were not the most sophisticated; indeed, a former overseer described new recruits as a ‘few stupid ones who lived in the back of the Black Forest [meaning inexperienced and naive]’, and the inmates, who were frequently better educated and culturally more refined, almost invariably viewed their masters as ‘stupid types whose only claim to superiority was their uniform.’ Although a survivor of Ravensbruck who had access to the camp’s personal files has noted that the supervisors came from all walks of life- including aristocratic families- the vast majority were unskilled, undereducated, and decidedly limited in job prospects. All this notwithstanding, by 1943, the vast majority of the supervisors were conscripts.”
It's a book to make you shiver- that banality of evil theme.
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