|
Elsa Ehrich
Else Lieschen Frida "Elsa" Ehrich (8 March 1914 – 26 October 1948) was a convicted war criminal who served as an ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) guard in Nazi concentration camps, including at Kraków-Płaszów and the Majdanek concentration camp during World War II. She was tried in Lublin, Poland at the Majdanek Trials and sentenced to death for war crimes. Ehrich was hanged on 26 October 1948. She was an ''Oberaufseherin'' at Majdanek, and took active part in all the major selections to the gas chambers and executions. She maltreated prisoners, including children. Her assistant was Hermine Braunsteiner, who was later denaturalized and deported from the United States back to Germany. Background Ehrich was born in Bredereiche. She worked in a slaughterhouse. On 15 August 1940, she volunteered for service in the concentration camp Ravensbrück as an SS guard. From 1941, Ehrich worked as a SS-Rapportführerin (Rapport Leader). In October 1942, she was transferred to Majdanek near Lu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Majdanek Trials
The Majdanek trials were a series of consecutive war-crime trials held in Poland and in Germany during and after World War II, constituting the overall longest Nazi war crimes trial in history spanning over 30 years. The first judicial trial of Majdanek extermination camp officials took place from November 27, 1944, to December 2, 1944, in Lublin, Poland. The last one, held at the District Court of Düsseldorf began on November 26, 1975, and concluded on June 30, 1981. It was West Germany's longest and most expensive trial, lasting 474 sessions. A number of former high ranking SS men, camp officials, camp guards, and SS staff were arraigned before the courts on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed at Majdanek in the period between October 1, 1941, and July 22, 1944. Notably, only 170 Nazis who served at Majdanek had been prosecuted at all, of the 1,037 camp personnel known by name. Half of the defendants charged by the West German justice system were set f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberaufseherin
Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Of the 50,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 5,000 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a shortage of male guards. In the context of these camps, the German position title of ''Aufseherin'' translates to (female) "overseer" or "attendant". Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–1945), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943–44), Mauthausen (March – May 1945), Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts. Recruitment Female guards were generally from the lower to middle class and had no relevant work experience; their occupational background varied: one source mentions former matrons, hairdressers, tramcar-conductres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocaust Perpetrators In Poland
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933. After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March, which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began isolating Jews ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1948 Deaths
Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British Railways. * January 4 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom, becoming an independent republic, named the ''Union of Burma'', with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President, and U Nu its first Prime Minister. * January 5 ** Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (''Tournament of Roses Parade'' and the '' Rose Bowl Game''). ** The first Kinsey Report, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'', is published in the United States. * January 7 – Mantell UFO incident: Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of an unidentified flying object. * January 12 – Mahatma Gandhi begins his fast-unto-death in Delhi, to stop communal violence during the Partition of India. * January 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1914 Births
This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It also saw the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line. Events January * January 1 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the United States starts services between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, becoming the first airline to provide scheduled regular commercial passenger services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with Tony Jannus (the first federally-licensed pilot) conveying passengers in a Benoist XIV flying boat. Abram C. Pheil, mayor of St. Petersburg, is the first airline passenger, and over 3,000 people witness the first departure. * January 11 – The Sakurajima volcano in Japan begins to erupt, becoming effusive after a very large earthquake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Mandl
Maria Mandl (also spelled Mandel; 10 January 1912 – 24 January 1948) was an Austrian '' SS- Helferin'' (" SS helper") known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is believed to have been directly complicit in the deaths of over 500,000 prisoners. She was executed for war crimes. Life Mandl was born in Münzkirchen, Upper Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, the daughter of a shoemaker. Camp work After the ''Anschluss'' by Nazi Germany, Mandl moved to Munich, and on 15 October 1938 joined the camp staff at Lichtenburg, an early Nazi concentration camp in the Province of Saxony, as an '' Aufseherin'', and worked with fifty other SS women. On 15 May 1939, along with other guards and prisoners, Mandl was sent to the newly opened Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin. She soon impressed her superiors and, after she had joined the Nazi Party on 1 April 1941, was elevated to the rank of a ''SS-Oberau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dachau, Bavaria
Dachau () is a Town#Germany, town in the Upper Bavaria district of Bavaria, a state in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a ''Große Kreisstadt''—of the Regierungsbezirk, administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich, with roughly 45,000 inhabitants. The historic centre of town with its 18th-century castle is situated on an elevation and visible over a great distance. Dachau was founded in the 9th century. It was home to many artists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; well-known author and editor Ludwig Thoma lived here for two years. The town is known for its proximity to the Dachau concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, in which tens of thousands of prisoners died. Etymology The origin of the name is not known, it possibly originated with the Celts who lived there before the Germans came. An alternative idea is that it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neuengamme Concentration Camp
Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aktion Erntefest
Operation Harvest Festival (german: Aktion Erntefest) was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS, the Order Police battalions, and the Ukrainian ''Sonderdienst'' on 3–4 November 1943. After a series of Jewish uprisings in ghettos and extermination camps, Heinrich Himmler ordered the murder of the remaining Jewish forced laborers in the Lublin District of German-occupied Poland. Jewish laborers in the camps had to dig zigzag trenches, supposedly for air defense, in late October. Thousands of SS and police personnel arrived in Lublin on 2 November. That day, SS and Police Leader Jakob Sporrenberg, who was in charge of the operation, held a conference to plan it. The killings began on the morning of 3 November at Majdanek, where Jewish prisoners were separated from non-Jewish prisoners, and encompassed the Lipowa 7 and Lublin airfield camps, which imprisoned Jews in the city. A total of 18,400 people were shot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933. After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March, which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began isolating Je ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy which ended after the Partitions of Poland in the 18th century. During World War II there was a nearly complete genocidal destruction of the Polish Jewish community by Nazi Germany and its collaborators of various nationalities, during the German occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945, called the Holocaust. Since the fall of communism in Poland, there has been a renewed interest in Jewish culture, featuring an annual Jewish Culture Festival, new study programs at Polish secondary schools and universities, and the opening of Warsaw's Museum of the History of Polish Jews. From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 until the early years of the Polish–Lithuanian Comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
