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Following the Second World War, a number of trials were held to bring the perpetrators of war crimes committed during the conflict to justice. The most high-profile trials took place in Nuremberg, with the remaining members of Hitler’s inner circle facing the judges. The Nuremberg Trials resulted in the death sentences of some of Hitler’s remaining government officials. However, a number of other war crimes trials took place. These were focused on bringing the perpetrators of evil crimes at specific camps to justice, such as the Belsen Trials.

These trials aimed to bring the SS guards and staff involved in committing evil at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to face up to their crimes. The liberation of Belsen was caught on camera, as was the immense suffering, depravity, and evil inflicted by the guards. However, what shocked many was the fact that many of the guards and staff were young women—women who had been brainwashed to commit horrific crimes. Many were still accused of murdering many inmates. Today, we look at the justified execution of the female guards of Bergen-Belsen.

Remember to support our channel; please make sure to subscribe. Bergen-Belsen was a camp that began as a camp for Allied prisoners of war. It was established in 1940 and was found within Germany. Until 1943, it was used exclusively for prisoners of war. However, the SS then took over a part of the camp and eventually turned it into a concentration camp. It was made up of a number of different sections and had three main sections: the prisoner of war camp, the resident camp, and the prisoner camp.

Over the course of the Second World War, the complex held Jews, political prisoners, and other groups who were targeted for persecution by the Nazis. The SS divided Belsen into subsections for different groups. For example, the Hungarian camp, the special camp for Polish Jews, and the star camp for Dutch Jews. Between 1943 and 1944, thousands of prisoners were transported to Belsen. While here, the inmates were forced to work inside of the Shoe Commando, in which they recovered pieces of leather from shoes for recycling.

Bergen-Belsen also transitioned to become a recovery camp. Sick prisoners would arrive from different places and were then taken in. The idea was that they were supposed to recover at Belsen. However, the majority of them were put to work and ended up dying of disease, starvation, and poor medical care. In August 1944, a new element at Belsen was established: a women’s camp. This caused a large number of women to be brought over, but most only stayed for a short amount of time before they were then moved to other places for slave labor.

It’s famously known as a place where Margot and Anne Frank were transported to and where both of them died inside the barbed wire fences of Belsen. However, much of the issues inside of the camp were caused by the huge overcrowding element that occurred as the Germans lost territory during World War II. By late 1944, Joseph Kramer, the “Beast of Belsen,” was in charge, and his leadership saw Belsen swell to huge sizes. Around 85,000 people were transported to Bergen-Belsen, and within a year, the number of prisoners had risen tenfold, causing catastrophic effects.

The overcrowding led to a number of issues, particularly with a lack of food and malnutrition. There was nowhere near enough food to go around, which caused thousands to starve. Disease ran rampant throughout Belsen, with huge outbreaks of tuberculosis, typhoid, and dysentery causing more deaths. Belsen itself was only meant to house 10,000 prisoners, but the huge number of transported prisoners caused severe problems. Because of this, scores of people were killed. It has been estimated that during the time it operated, over 120,000 prisoners passed through Belsen.

The treatment of those inside varied depending on the individual sections of the camp that they found themselves inside of. Exchange prisoners, for example, were often treated better than others. There were no gas chambers at Belsen, but the vast majority of prisoners died from the conditions inside caused by the huge overcrowding. When the British and Canadians liberated Belsen, the huge scale of the problem was brought to the world’s knowledge.

On the 11th of April, 1945, Himmler had agreed to hand over the camp without a fight. The SS guards ordered prisoners to bury some of the dead to attempt to hide some of the crimes. A few days later, the British set up a neutral zone surrounding Belsen. What surprised the British was that so many of the guards and staff, including Joseph Kramer, were still inside Belsen, and Kramer claimed that they were there to uphold order inside.

When the British and Canadians arrived and entered Bergen-Belsen, what they saw was truly horrific. They found over 13,000 unburied bodies and 60,000 prisoners who were in a terrible state—many who were in fact dying of starvation and disease. The majority of the prisoners had simply been abandoned and left, having been given no food or water for days. Around 500 were dying a day from disease. The scenes were reported on the BBC. It was said, “Over an acre of ground lay dead and dying people; you could not see which was which. The living lay with their heads across the corpses and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated, aimless people with nothing to do and no hope of life.”

Babies had been born here—tiny things that could not live. A mother driven mad screamed at the British sentry to give her milk for her child and thrust a tiny mite into his arms, then ran off crying terribly. He opened the bundle and found the baby that had been dead for days. This day at Belsen was the most horrible of my life.

The British began to provide care and support for the prisoners. But after the liberation, revenge killings did take place, and even the SS guards shot and killed some prisoners who were trying to get food from the storehouses. Prisoners over the next few days were de-loused, and survivors were moved to a different camp. The British forced many of the SS staff based at the camp to bury the bodies in mass graves for those who had died. The camp was then burned to the ground by flame-frame tanks due to the epidemic of typhus. Huge efforts were made to help the survivors, but one thing remained on the minds of those with regards to Belsen: Who on earth could carry out the atrocities committed at the camp? Who on earth could inflict such suffering onto other people?

Over the time it was operating, almost 500 people worked at Belsen. However, from September 17th, 1945, to November 17th, 1945, SS guards and former workers were brought to justice in the Belsen Trials. What shocked many people around the world was the fact that many of these were young women—young women whose names have gone down in history with the immense cruelty and sadism of the Holocaust. The trial took 54 court days and was comprised of much of the British Army footage taken as Belsen was liberated. On trial were those who were found at the camp, including figures like Joseph Kramer, who were involved in the leadership of the camp. Other staff, such as doctors and cooks, also found themselves on trial.

Some of the women who were brought to trial have gone down in infamy for their notoriously sadistic treatment of prisoners throughout their time at Belsen, as well as at other concentration camps such as Ravensbrück and Auschwitz. Those women who were on trial in the Belsen Trial were Irma Gräzer, Elisabeth Volkanrath, Johanna Bormann, Hertha Beufart, Irma Hashick, Gertrude Sauer, Anna Hempel, Gertrude Feist, Frieda Volta, Hildegardevich, and others who were acquitted.

Some of these women were notoriously evil. Irma Gräzer became known as the “Beautiful Beast” or the “Hyena of Auschwitz.” She was only 22 when she faced court and was the youngest person to die under British law in the 20th century. She was a strange character, as her father even threw her out of his home due to his disgust that she had become a concentration camp guard. She became a guard at different camps and was known for taking part in selections at Auschwitz, picking those women and children to be sent to their deaths in the gas chambers—virtually playing god with other people’s lives.

She was also known for murdering prisoners with her own hands and weapons, and was even noted for setting dogs onto prisoners, encouraging them to rip the prisoners to bits. Elisabeth Volkanrath was just a young girl when she faced the judges. She too worked as an overseer inside Auschwitz and was noted for selecting prisoners to go to the gas chambers. Volkanrath was well thought of inside the Auschwitz command and oversaw all of the camp sections for female prisoners, virtually being the head of the women’s prison there. She was also known for being a prolific murderer, often beating prisoners unconscious with a truncheon. She even once pushed an elderly prisoner down some stairs to her death, and she was known for shooting prisoners at will.

Johanna Bormann was also known as a woman with the dogs. She was older than Gräzer and Volkanrath and worked in a number of different camps. She was selected to work inside Auschwitz and abused prisoners terribly. She was known for also setting her dogs onto prisoners to murder them, and she also took part in selections. These three women, in particular, were sentenced to death, alongside a number of men, following the Belsen Trials. They were found guilty of crimes against humanity, inflicting such suffering on prisoners of Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, and other camps where they worked.

Irma Gräzer, Elisabeth Volkanrath, and Johanna Bormann were executed by hanging on December 13th, 1945. The executions were performed by Albert Pierpoint, an experienced executioner who used the long-drop method. In this method, he would meet with the condemned prior to the execution to work out their height, weight, and the drop needed to snap their necks. Pierpoint was brought to Hamelin Prison to carry out the executions, and he was seen as reliable and trusted.

When he met Irma Gräzer, Pierpoint wrote in his biography that, “At last we finished,” noting the details of the men and women he had executed. Irma Gräzer was brought out of her cell at 9:34 AM and executed first. Pierpoint described her as “a bony girl, as anyone could ever meet.” She stepped onto the execution chamber, stood firm on the marked spot, and, when the white cap was placed over her head, said the word, “Schnell!” which meant “Quick!” The drop crashed down, and after 20 minutes, her body was taken down and placed in a coffin, ready for burial.

Elisabeth Volkanrath followed soon after. Despite denying her involvement in the Holocaust, she claimed she did not know where the prisoners were going when she selected them to be sent to their deaths. She also claimed she had never heard of the gas chambers. However, Albert Pierpoint performed her execution just as efficiently as the others. She was 26 when she was executed, and when she first conducted her horrific crimes, she was even younger.

Johanna Bormann, in contrast, was much older than Gräzer and Volkanrath, but she still displayed sadistic tendencies. When Pierpoint met her, he stated that she limped down the corridor, looking old and haggard. She was 52 years old and standing at a little over five feet. She trembled as she was put on the scale in German and said, “I have my feelings,” before being led to the execution chamber. She was executed at 10:38 AM, with the drop set at 8 feet 8 inches. Her execution was carried out swiftly, and she was the final female executed following the Belsen Trials.

The executions of the female guards of Bergen-Belsen showed the world how evil these women were, particularly Irma Gräzer, Elisabeth Volkanrath, and Johanna Bormann. The Belsen Trials brought to the world’s attention how terrible humans can be to each other, with the suffering of those inside the camp being shown in front of the world’s media. The suffering of those who were responsible for the horrific conditions at Belsen was short-lived and was no match for what they inflicted on innocent people.

Belsen was the place where Anne Frank and dozens of thousands of other people died because of the regime that sought to exterminate so many people off the face of the earth. The executions of Irma Gräzer, Elisabeth Volkanrath, and Johanna Bormann were justified, but for so much suffering, there were only a few executed. Much interest fell on those who were simply sentenced to time in prison, and there was much debate as to whether more people could have been sentenced to death for the crimes of Bergen-Belsen.

Once again, thank you for reading. To support our page, please make sure to follow, and once again, thank you so much for reading.

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(1848, Macon) Light-Skinned Woman Disguised as White Master: 1,000-Mile Escape in Plain Sight

The hand holding the scissors trembled slightly as Ellen Craft stared at her reflection in the small cracked mirror.

In 72 hours, she would be sitting in a first class train car next to a man who had known her since childhood.

A man who could have her dragged back in chains with a single word.

And he wouldn’t recognize her.

He couldn’t because the woman looking back at her from that mirror no longer existed.

It was December 18th, 1848 in Mon, Georgia, and Ellen was about to attempt something that had never been done before.

A thousand-mile escape through the heart of the slaveolding south, traveling openly in broad daylight in first class.

But there was a problem that made the plan seem utterly impossible.

Ellen was a woman.

William was a man.

A light-skinned woman and a dark-skinned man traveling together would draw immediate suspicion, questions, searches.

The patrols would stop them before they reached the city limits.

So, Ellen had conceived a plan so audacious that even William had initially refused to believe it could work.

She would become a white man.

Not just any white man, a wealthy, sickly southern gentleman traveling north for medical treatment, accompanied by his faithful manservant.

The ultimate disguise, hiding in the most visible place possible, protected by the very system designed to keep her enslaved.

Ellen set down the scissors and picked up the components of her transformation.

Each item acquired carefully over the past week.

A pair of dark glasses to hide her eyes.

Continue reading….
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