The Nazi Women Of Belsen-Belsen: A Mugshot And Photo Essay

Irma Grese, left, SS supervisor at the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, and the camp’s SS commandant Josef Kramer are seen in April 1945. After British troops liberated the camp on April 15, 1945, they were tried for war crimes and hanged in the prison at Hameln. (AP Photo)

AFTER the Belsen-Belksen Nazi concentration camp was liberated, the female guards were arrested. They posed for mugshots. This is the camp where Anne Frank died, succumbing to typhus just weeks before British liberators rolled into the camp.

The women were tried.

1945: THE BELSEN TRIALS. The accused women guards in the dock at the opening of the Belsen concentration camp war crimes trials at Luneberg, Germany. (l-r) Elizabeth Volkenrath, Herta Ehlert, Irma Greese, Ilse Litre and Hilda Lobauer. Belsen was liberated on 15th April 1945.

There were men, too, of course.

The first of the war criminal trials to be held in Germany, when Josef Karmer, ÂThe Beast of BelsenÂ took his stand in the specially prepared courtroom at Luneburg, together with 29 men and 19 women who will also be charged with the ill-treatment of Allied war prisoners. Josef Kramer, former head of Belsen Horror Camp wearing a placard marked No. 1 on his left is Fritz Klein, No. 2, and right, Peter Weingartner, No. 3, seen in the courtroom at Luneburg, Germany, on Sept. 17, 1945. (AP Photo)

There were the medical men, of course, who liked to experiument on the women. People like Dr Frtiz Klein:

Dr. Fritz Klein, a Nazi officer, stands amongst victims of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 29, 1945. In the campground, under British supervision, are Nazis working to clean up the camp. (AP Photo)

But the women stood out.

Some of the German S.S. women guards at the Belsen concentration camp who were captured after British troops entered the camp on April 15, 1945. The women guards were forced to help in the burial of thousands of victims. (AP Photo)

Frieda Walter: sentenced to 3 years imprisonment.

Hilde Liesewitz: sentenced to 1 years imprisonment.

Gertrude Feist: sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

Gertrude Saurer: sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Anna Hempel: sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Herta Bothe accompanied adeath march of woman from central Poland to Bergen-Belsen. She was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Herta Bothe was released early from prison on 22 December 1951

Hildegard Lohbauer: sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Ilse Forster: senetenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Helene Kopper: sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Herta Ehlert: sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Elizabeth Volkenrath: head wardress of the camp: sentenced to death. She was hanged on 13 December 1945.

Juana Bormann: sentenced to death.

And Irma Grese:

Irma Grese, center with her head bowed, leaves the courtroom in Lueneburg, Germany on Nov. 16, 1945. Grese, who was an SS supervisor at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and 29 others were found guilty of war crimes. She was executed the following day. (AP Photo)

Never forget.

Concentration camp survivor Anna Dobnik places a wreath of flowers on a memorial monument at the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in Germany where she was once a prisioner, Monday, May 24, 2004. She said “I had the feeling that I should see these places again, and after so many years, relive these memories and bring flowers to the friends who died there.” (AP Photo/Fabian Bimmer)
Date: 25/05/2004