The horrors of Nazi concentration camps have been well-documented throughout history, as the vile and tragic persecution of European Jews and other marginalized groups has served as a painful lesson in the years since World War II. But while much attention has been paid to the men responsible for these horrific crimes, it was often female camp guards like Jenny-Wanda Barkmann who were the cruelest.
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Women like Barkmann, Irma Grese, and Elisabeth Volkenrath all became notorious at the camps for their brutality. Twenty-one would eventually face the gallows, including Barkmann, who was called the “Beautiful Specter.”
Known in equal parts for her beauty and cruelty, the young would-be model was a guard at the Stutthof concentration camp. Although she arrived at Stutthof in 1944 — and the war ended only a year later — Jenny Barkmann quickly earned her place among the Nazis' most wicked.
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann was born on May 30, 1922 in Hamburg, Germany. Although she had a normal childhood, she also came of age with the rise of Naziism. Just before Barkmann turned 11, Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany. When she was 16, Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were attacked during Kristallnacht, including in Hamburg. Shortly thereafter, Hitler invaded Poland—and World War II began.
As Mémoires de Guerre reports, Barkmann had initially hoped to use her beauty to become a fashion model. But as the war dragged on, she changed her mind. In 1944, the 21-year-old became an Aufseherin, or a female guard, at the Stutthof concentration camp in Gdańsk, Poland.
Over the course of the war, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reports that as many as 100,000 people were deported to Stutthof and some 60,000 people died there. Many perished diseases like typhus. But many more were sent to the gas chambers by the camp guards.