The HORRORS Of The Public Stutthof Executions JJ

On the 4th of July 1946, a number of condemned guards of Stutthof concentration camp were led out of their prison cells onto the back of a truck and they were taken under a huge gallows. They were some of the worst guards who inflicted terror onto so many people during World War II and they would pay the ultimate price in front of 20,000 people who were begging for their lives.

Five women and six men were strung up from the gallows that day and they were then left there for some time before their death was finally confirmed. The public executions of the Stutthof guards were brutal and ruthless and they were very similar to medieval style spectacles. But the people who watched the executions had spent many years in terror at the hands of the German occupation and also a number of them specifically had been imprisoned inside the very camp where these men and women had worked. So they had a personal need

for vengeance and to see that justice in their eyes had been carried out. But the executions of the Stutthof guards were far worse than any people imagined and they were truly horrific. So why were they so bad? Stutthof concentration camp was hidden away from the eyes of many people inside a secluded forested area and it was also close to a marsh.

It was also located near to the city of Danzig or Gdansk and many of the prisoners who found themselves locked up within the barbed wire fences directly came from the city. The camp opened up in 1939 and remained in operation until the end of the Second World War. It was where around 85,000 people would die in horrific conditions and the guards were responsible for keeping the prisoners within these conditions.

Stutthof camp was very harsh and tens of thousands of prisoners died from starvation and disease and specifically a couple of nasty typhus epidemics broke out and claimed many victims. SS guards judged prisoners on a daily basis and if they were too ill to continue the hard labor, then they would be sent to the very small gas chamber found within Stutthof.

As the war turned against the Germans though, the camp began to become evacuated and thousands of prisoners were marched out of the site to the nearby sea and they were then machine gunned down in the water. Thousands died in the final weeks of the camp, but when Stutthof was liberated on the 9th of May 1945, only 100 prisoners who managed to hide around the camp survived and very few guards remained.

There was a hunt for the men and women who then staffed the site and some were arrested in the nearby city of Gdansk. The prisoners who did survive spoke about the guards and women such as Jenny-Wanda Barkmann were seized and were then brought to the Stutthof trials. The Stutthof trials brought many of these guards to justice and some of them were sentenced to death.

This included five women: Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies, Elisabeth Becker, Gerda Steinhoff, and Wanda Klaff. Also, the former commandant of the guards, Johann Pauls, was condemned alongside a number of kapos. The executions took place on the 4th of July 1946 and they were performed in public on Biskupia Gorka Hill in Gdansk in front of a crowd of around 20,000 people.

The executions were very well publicized in the local area and whole families came to witness the deaths of 11 people like it was a medieval carnival. People even sold food and drink to make some money. One by one, the condemned guards were led out and they were all gathered near to the gallows to witness their former fellow guards be executed.

The women were the ones who were condemned first out of courtesy. The first executed was Jenny Wanda Barkmann, a 24-year-old female guard who was known as Mad Jenny. She was notorious and was known for her brutality within the camp. Jenny Barkmann was helped up onto the back of a truck and was then forced to sit on a stool.

Whilst this happened, an official loudly read out the charges that she had been condemned for and reminded the large crowd what crimes Jenny Wanda Barkmann had been committed for. The executioners were all men and women who had been locked up within Stutthof itself and the prisoners were tasked with securing the noose around the neck of the guards.

Jenny Barkmann was then helped onto a stool and the executioner, who was incidentally also wearing their striped camp pajamas or their uniforms, secured the noose around their neck. A signal was then given for the truck to slowly drive off and it did begin to move. As the truck moved slowly forward, the noose snapped taut and tightly around Jenny Wanda Barkmann’s neck and she was left dangling suspended on the gallows above the ground.

She began to kick and struggle and the 20,000 people situated nearby shouted as they witnessed what was happening. Now, the method of death and execution with the Stutthof executions was slow strangulation. There was no instant neck snapping on the gallows and Jenny Barkmann was left struggling for some minutes until her body went finally stiff and she stopped swinging.

It was many minutes later that her death was confirmed once all 10 other Stutthof guards were all executed. One by one, they were hanged in exactly the same manner. But, the executions were horrific and were terrible for many more reasons. Firstly, the gallows were purposely massive. They were huge, probably up to 4 to 5 m high, and they were built in such a way that everyone around could see the executions for miles.

The impact of this was huge, and it was a very public execution that sent a very prominent message to everyone that the men and women who had once been guards at the camp nearby were being punished for their crimes. It was deliberately carried out in this manner for maximum effect. The gallows also allowed for more than one person to be executed, and there were in fact four sets of gallows which allowed two guards to be strung up together, and in the center was a larger gallows that allowed three people to be

hanged at the same time. The women were executed first also, as it was said to have been somewhat courteous. Jenny Wanda Barkmann went first, but the other women were then forced to watch their fellow former female guards be executed. This was torture, and a number of the guards became hysterical as they realized what was going to happen to them next.

The executions, as mentioned, were not efficient either, and they were carried out in a manner that ensured the guards suffered. Slow strangulation was not instant, unlike long drop hangings, and it was a process that took many minutes until a guard finally went limp. This is what happened, and the crowd saw the minutes it took for the executions to be performed.

The bodies were also left up on the gallows long after death had taken place, and then they were cut down. It isn’t 100% certain what happened to the remains and the corpses or bodies after the executions, but it’s assumed that they were then donated to a local hospital or university so they could be experimented upon by medical students.

This was often done to condemned war criminals at the end of World War II inside of Poland. Another rather disturbing thing which was noted during the executions was that there were a number of youngsters and children in the crowd who witnessed the whole proceedings. Some families attended together and these children would never forget what they saw that day on Biskupia Górka Hill.

So, Stutthof concentration camp was a place of immense horror. And at the end of the war the liberators were told stories of brutality of the men and women guards who worked there. But to many people who witnessed the executions that day within Gdańsk they gained a sense of justice and vengeance for the suffering that the former guards of Stutthof had inflicted upon them and so many more.

But the executions were a terrifyingly public watch and they certainly were horrific. Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving me your time to watch one of these videos.