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ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST SS GUARDS TO AUSCHWITZ AND THE CREATION OF THE FEMALE SECTION OF THE CAMP

WOMEN WORKING FOR THE SS

ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST SS GUARDS TO AUSCHWITZ AND THE CREATION OF THE FEMALE SECTION OF THE CAMP

In the initial period of operation, Auschwitz concentration camp, which was established in spring 1940, was an exclusively male camp. The end of March 1942 marked the first transport of women already accompanied by female SS guards to Auschwitz. The main reason for establishing a female section of Auschwitz was the fact that the only female concentration camp for women in Ravensbrück was already overcrowded. The SS authorities intended to simultaneously relieve Ravensbrück from incoming transports and empty the prisons overcrowded with women. The first female transport directed to Auschwitz concentration camp on March 26, 1942 consisted of 999 female prisoners, mostly of German descent, who received camp numbers from 1 to 999. Most of the prisoners coming from Ravensbrück were criminals and anti- socials, destined by the SS authorities to end up as block leaders and Capos in the newly established female section of Auschwitz. On the very same day, a couple of hours later the next transport reached Auschwitz with 999 Jewish women from Poprad in Slovakia, assigned camp numbers from 1000 to 1998. The prisoners were accommodated in a special section of the camp with blocks number 1-10 separated from the rest of the premises with a wall.

Rows of blocks from the perspective of a fence.

Blocks with numbers from 1 to 10 of the female section of the main camp in Auschwitz.

Source: A-BSMA

The very first transport of female prisoners from Ravensbrück was accompanied by a group of nine female SS guards: Johanna Langefeld, Therese Brandl, Elly Hartmann, Elisabeth Mühlan with her sister Gertruda Weniger, Käthe Gutschmidt, Margot Lisabeth Drechsel, Elfriede Runge and probably Helene Dörnbrack. Johanna Langefeld was appointed the head of the female SS guards (Oberaufseherin) in the newly created female section of Auschwitz concentration camp.

Process photo. Woman in a blouse with collar and pinned back hair. She has a plaque with surname around her neck.

Source: A-BSMA

Therese Brandl was born on February 1, 1909 in a Bavarian town called Staudach. From September 1940 to March 1942, she was employed in Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Later she was delegated to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she stayed until the end of 1944 working as SS Report Leader (Rapportführerin) and supervised the prisoners working in the Rajsko subcamp. In April 1941, she became a member of NSDAP and received the party membership card with the number 8920950. In December 1944, she was delegated at her own request to work in the subcamp Mühldorf. After the war, she was sentenced to death by hanging in the trial against 40 former members of the staff of Auschwitz concentration camp. The sentence was carried out in January 1948 in Montelupich prison in Cracow.

Source: BA

NSDAP party membership card of Therese Brandl.

Young woman wearing a blouse with collar, serious expression, looks to the side, posed photo.

Source: German Red Cross search service; central point for information and documentation in Munich (henceforth: DRK-Suchdienst)

Gertrud Weniger (neé Mühlan) was born on December 29, 1920 in Schönau. In the spring of 1941, she started the training in Ravensbrück and applied for NSDAP membership. On July 1, 1941 she became a NSDAP member with the party membership card number 8923152. In the spring of 1942, she was delegated to work in Auschwitz concentration camp, where she stayed until May 1944, later she was sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp. From November 1944, she was appointed the head supervisor of female SS guards in the Oederan subcamp, which belonged to Flossenbürg concentration camp. After the war, she was arrested by Soviet authorities and as a former female SS guard, she was sent to NKWD special camp number 4 in Bautzen. Her further fate remains unknown.

Nine female SS guards from the first group coming from Ravesbrück concentration camp for women were in charge of organising and running the female section of Auschwitz concentration camp. Until July 10, 1942 the female section was subordinate to the command of Ravensbrück concentration camp for women and later to the Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss. The first supervisor of the female section was SS Obersturmführer Paul Heinrich Theodor Müller, and the head of female SS guards was Johanna Langenfeld.

Female SS guards delegated to Auschwitz were not satisfied with the conditions there as they were significantly worse than those in FKL Ravensbrück. According to the accounts of the former guards, Ravensbrück camp was cleaner in comparison to Auschwitz. Housing and sanitary conditions both for prisoners and SS staff were definitely better in Ravensbrück.

No female SS guard came to Auschwitz on a voluntary basis to build up the camp under harsh conditions. From the very beginning, most of them were eager to flee back to the easy and comfortable lives they had in Ravensbrück.

Source: Höss Rudolf, Wspomnienia Rudolfa Hössa komendanta obozu oświęcimskiego, Warsaw 1956, p. 98.

We looked in astonishment at strange and dirty women walking by in front of our eyes wearing civilian clothes with red stripes on their backs. As we came from Ravensbrück, we were all wearing the same grey-blue striped prisoner’s garments, the same shoes on both feet: and not two clogs, each belonging to a different pair. We came from a camp, where we faced famine, heavy labour, and executions, but it was at least clean there. (…) What we saw in Auschwitz, did not resemble at all the Prussian tidiness we knew from Ravensbrück. Dirty rags, human excrements, and shards were lying around everywhere between the barracks in Auschwitz.

Source: Germaine Heybowicz-Nowicka, A-BSMA, Memories, vol. 108, p. 158-160.

The female section of the main camp operated until August 1942, as the prisoners were transferred to section BIa of Birkenau, where a camp for women was created.

Brick single-storey barracks in Birkenau.

Brick barracks of the section BIa in Birkenau.

Source: A-BSMA