Female Concentration Camp Guards as Perpetrators: Three Case Studies

Abstract

For a long time in studies of women under National Socialism guards in concentration camps received little attention. At best they were mentioned in separate studies of various concentration camps and satellite camps.1 Recent years have seen a change in this respect, both in research and in the culture of memorials. Today there is an increasing volume of publication on the active involvement of women in National Socialism.2 In this context individual biographies of guards are repeatedly an object of scrutiny,3 although prominence continues to be given to descriptions of particularly spectacular examples, which on the whole prevents an objective examination of the deeds of the guards. The reconstruction of biographies of female guards is nevertheless indispensable, although the focus ought to be placed more on those women who constituted most of the guards and thus had a crucial influence on the prisoners’ lives or their survival.