Jenny-Wanda Barkmann

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann
Barkmann at the Stutthof trials in 1946
Born30 May 1922
Died4 July 1946(1946-07-04) (aged 24)
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Other names"Beautiful Spectre"
OccupationGuard of the Stutthof concentration camp
Political partyNazi Party
Conviction(s)Crime against humanity
TrialStutthof trials
Criminal penaltyDeath

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.

Biography[edit]

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.[1] She was so merciless that the women prisoners nicknamed her the "Beautiful Spectre".[1]

Barkmann fled Stutthof and hid out in Gdańsk, where she was arrested 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.[1]

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.

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. Former Stutthof prisoners volunteered to conduct the executions. She was 24 years old.[2]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Jenny-Wanda Barkmann Biography". Liberation Route Europe. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  2. ^ "1946: Eleven from the Stutthof concentration camp". Executed today. Retrieved 22 July 2012.

External links[edit]