On
this date, October 26, 1948, a female SS Guard, Elsa Ehrich was executed by
hanging in Lublin Prison. I will post information about her from Wikipedia.
Else Lieschen Frida "Elsa" Ehrich (8 March 1914 – 26 October 1948) was
an SS guard at the 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, not sparing even children.
Her assistant was reportedly 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 on, Ehrich worked as a SS-Rapportführerin (Rapport
Leader). In October 1942 she was transferred to Majdanek near Lublin, where
after some time she was promoted to SS-Oberaufseherin.
She was under the SS command in the camp. Ehrich is blamed for the death
of thousands of prisoners (including in gas chambers), from the women's section
of the camp with children.
During
the 34 months of camp operation, more than 79,000 prisoners were murdered at
the main camp alone (59,000 of them Polish
Jews) and between 95,000 and 130,000 people in the entire Majdanek system
of subcamps.
On
3 November 1943 some 18,000 Jews were killed at Majdanek during the largest
single-day, single-camp massacre of the
Holocaust, named Harvest Festival (totaling 43,000 with 2 subcamps).
In
February 1943, Ehrich became ill due to typhoid. On 5 April 1944, she was the
Oberaufseherin in the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, and from June 1944
to April 1945 she was assigned to Neuengamme.
After the war, in May 1945, she was arrested in Hamburg and stayed in the camp
for war criminals PWE29 in Dachau, where she shared the cell with Maria Mandel.
She was transferred to the Polish authorities. In 1948, she stood before the
District Court of Lublin at the second Majdanek
Trials, accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ehrich
was found guilty of the allegations and on 10 June 1948, was condemned to death
by hanging. After the announcement of the judgment, she asked the Polish
President for clemency, on the grounds that she had a small son and wanted to
atone for her guilt. President Bierut rejected the request. Ehrich was executed
on 26 October 1948 in Lublin prison.
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