Female guards in Nazi concentration camps The " Aufseherinnen " were female guards in Nazi concentration camps during The Holocaust . Of the 55 , 000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps , about 3 , 700 were women . In 1942 , the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück . The year after , the Nazis began conscripting women because of a guard shortage . The German title for this position , " Aufseherin " ( plural " Aufseherinnen " ) means female " overseer " or " attendant " . Recruitment . Female guards were generally low class to middle class and had no work experience ; their professional background varied : one source mentions former matrons , hairdressers , streetcar ticket - takers , opera singers , or retired teachers . Volunteers were recruited by ads in German newspapers asking for women to show their love for the Reich and join the SS - Gefolge ( " SS - Retinue , " an SS support and service organisation for women ) . Additionally , some were conscripted based on data in their SS files . The League of German Girls acted as a vehicle of indoctrination for many of the women . At one of the post - war hearings , " Oberaufseherin " Helga Hegel , head female overseer claimed , that her female guards were not full - fledged SS women . Consequently , at some tribunals it was disputed whether " SS - Helferinnen " employed at the camps were official members of the SS , thus leading to conflicting court decisions . Many of them belonged to the Waffen - SS and to the SS - Helferinnen Corps . Some female guards who served in the camps belonged to the " Allgemeine - SS " or the " SS - Gefolge " . Other women , such as Therese Brandl and Irmtraut Sell , belonged to the Totenkopf ( " Death ' s Head " ) units . At first , new recruits were trained at Concentration Camp Lichtenburg Germany in 1938 and after 1939 , at the Ravensbrück camp near Berlin . When World War II broke out , the Nazis built other camps in Poland , France , the Netherlands , Belgium , and other countries they occupied . The female guards ' training was similar to that of their male counterparts ; the women attended classes which ranged from four weeks to half a year , headed by the head wardresses - however , near the end of the war little , if any , training was given to fresh recruits . Court records cite former SS member Hertha Ehlert , who served at Ravensbruck , Majdanek , Lublin , Auschwitz , and Bergen Belsen , as describing her training as " physically and emotionally demanding " when questioned at the Belsen Trial . According to her , the trainees were told about the corruption of the Weimar Republic , how to punish prisoners , and how to look out for sabotage and work slowdowns . The same sources claim Dorothea Binz , head training overseer at Ravensbruck after 1942 , trained her female students in the finer points of " malicious pleasure " ( Schadenfreude or sadism ) . Supervision levels and ranks . Female guards were collectively known as " SS - Helferin " ( German : " Female SS Helper " ) . They were never given any positional titles or equivalent ranks of the SS . The supervisory levels within the " SS - Helferin " were as follows : Luise Brunner and Anna Klein were both " Chef Oberaufseherin " . Female " SS - Helferin " were not recognized as regular members of the SS . For organizational purposes they were classed as auxiliaries who had no command powers over regular SS troops . Ravensbrück was the only Nazi camp reserved specifically for female inmates . It was run by SS officers using the " SS - Helferin " as guards and overseers . Daily life . Relations between SS men and female guards are said to have existed in many of the camps , and Heinrich Himmler had told the SS men to regard the female guards as equals and comrades . At the relatively small Helmbrechts subcamp near Hof , Germany , the camp commandant , Doerr , openly pursued a sexual relationship with the head female overseer Helga Hegel . Corruption was another aspect of the female guard culture . Ilse Koch , known as " the witch of Buchenwald " , was the chief female guard at the Buchenwald camp , and at the same time married to the camp commandant , Karl Koch . Both were rumoured to have embezzled millions of Reichmarks , for which Karl Koch was convicted and executed by the Nazis a few weeks before Buchenwald was liberated by the U . S . Army ; however , Ilse was cleared of guilt . On a side note , some sources speculate that she had the witnesses in Buchenwald murdered . Despite their reputation for brutality , there were certainly some who were relatively kind . Klara Kunig became a camp guard in the middle of 1944 and served at Ravensbruck and its subcamp at Dresden - Universelle . The head wardress at the camp pointed out that she was too polite and too kind towards the inmates , resulting in her subsequent dismissal from camp duty in January 1945 . Her fate has been unknown since February 13 , 1945 , the date of the allied firebombing of Dresden . Camps , names , and ranks . Near the end of the war , women were forced from factories in the German Labor Exchange and sent to training centers . Women were also trained on a smaller scale at the camps of Neuengamme ; Auschwitz I , II , III and IV ; Plaszow ; Flossenbürg ; Gross Rosen ; Vught and Stutthof , as well as a few at Dachau , Mauthausen , Buchenwald , and their subcamps . Most of these women came from the regions around the camps . In 1944 , the first female overseers were stationed at Neuengamme , Dachau , Mauthausen , a very few at Natzweiler Struthof , and even fewer at Mittelbau - Dora ( one is known ) . Between seven and twenty Aufseherinnen served in Vught , twenty - four SS women trained at Buchenwald ( three at a time ) , thirty - four in Bergen Belsen , nineteen at Dachau , twenty in Mauthausen , three in Dora Mittelbau , seven at Natzweiler - Struthof , twenty at Majdanek , 200 at Auschwitz and its subcamps , 140 at Sachsenhausen , 158 at Neuengamme , forty - seven at Stutthof compared to 958 who served in Ravensbrück ( 2 , 000 were trained there ) , 561 in Flossenbürg , and 541 at Gross Rosen . Many female supervisors were trained and / or worked at subcamps in Germany , Poland , and a few in eastern France , a few in Austria , and a few in some camps in Czechoslovakia . Oberaufseherin ( Chief Wardress ) , then Lagerleiterin ( Camp Leader ) . Chief wardresses there were Anne Zimmer ( May 1939 - May 1941 ) , Maria Mandel ( March 1942 - October 1942 ) , Johanna Langefeld ( May 1941 - March 1942 / October 1942 – 1943 ) , Greta Boesel ( 1944 - April 1945 ) , Erna Rose ( 1944 - April 1945 ) , while Dorothea Binz served as their assistant from August 1943 until the camps liberation in April 1945 . Binz and Boesel were convicted of war crimes and hanged on May 2 , 1947 . Ulla Jürß { 1942 - 1944 } and Ruth Neudeck { 1944 } were " Blockführerin " ( Barrack Overseer , Female ) . Neudeck was later promoted to Oberaufseherin and moved to the Uckermark extermination complex down the road from Ravensbrück . * Rochlitz was headed by Marianne Essmann , Sachsenhausen by Ilse Koch and later by Hilde Schlusser and Anna Klein . Prisoner Olga Lengyel , who in her memoir , Five Chimneys , wrote that selections in the women ’ s camp were made by SS Aufseherin Elisabeth Hasse and Irma Grese . In addition to those already mentioned as having been executed for war crimes , the following female guards were tried postwar , convicted of war crimes and executed : Sydonia Bayer of Litzmannstadt ( Łódź ) , date unknown ( in Poland ) ; Juana Bormann of Bergen - Belsen , hanged December 13 , 1945 ; Ruth Hildner of Helmbrechts , hanged May 2 , 1947 ; Christel Jankowsky of Ravensbrück , date unknown ( in East Germany ) ; and Gertrud Schreiter and Emma Zimmer of Ravensbrück , both hanged on September 20 , 1948 . An unknown number were summarily executed by the Soviets at the end of the war . From the post - war period until today . As the Allies liberated the camps , SS women were generally still in active service . Many were captured in or near the camps of Ravensbrück , Bergen Belsen , Gross Rosen , Flossenbürg , Salzwedel , Neustadt - Glewe , Neuengamme , and Stutthof . After the war , many SS women were held at the internment camp at Recklinghausen , Germany or in the former concentration camp at Dachau . There , between 500 and 1 , 000 women were held while the US Army investigated their crimes and camp service . The majority were released because male SS were the top priority . Many of the women held there were high - ranking leaders of the League of German Girls , while other women had served in concentration camps . Many SS men and SS women were executed by the Soviets when they liberated the camps , while others were sent to the gulags . Only a few SS women were tried for their crimes compared to male SS . Most female wardresses were tried at the Auschwitz Trial , in four of the seven Ravensbrück Trial s , at the first Stutthof Trial , and in the second and Third Majdanek Trials and from the small Hamburg - Sasel camp . At that trial all forty - eight SS men and women involved were tried . Female guards tried today . Not tried but deported by the US Justice Department was 84 - year - old San Francisco resident Elfriede Lina Rinkel , who hid her secret for more than 60 years from her family , friends and Jewish German husband Fred . Rinkel fled to the US after the Second World War seeking a better life . The last trial of a female overseer was held in 1996 . Former Aufseherin Luise Danz , who served as overseer in January 1943 at Plaszow , then at Majdanek , Auschwitz - Birkenau and at the Ravensbrück subcamp at Malchow as Oberaufseherin , was tried at the first Auschwitz Trial and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947 . In 1956 , she was released for good behavior . In 1996 , she was once again tried for the murder of a young woman in Malchow at the end of the war . The doctor overseeing the trial told the court that the proceedings were too much for the elderly woman and all charges were dropped . As of 2011 , Danz is still alive at the age of 94 . In 1996 , a story broke in Germany about Margot Pietzner ( married name Kunz ) , a former Aufseherin from Ravensbruck , the Belzig subcamp and a subcamp at Wittenberg . She was originally sentenced to death by a Soviet court but it commuted to a life sentence and she was released in 1956 . In the early 1990s , at the age of seventy - four , Margot was awarded the title " Stalinist victim " and given 64 , 350 Deutsche Marks ( 32 , 902 Euros ) . Many historians argued that she had lied and did not deserve the money . She had , in fact , served time in a German prison which was overseen by the Soviets , but she was imprisoned because she had served brutally in the ranks of three concentration camps . Pietzner currently lives in a small town in northern Germany . The only female guard to tell her story to the public has been Herta Bothe , who served as a guard at Ravensbrück in 1942 , then at Stutthof , Bromberg - Ost subcamp , and finally in Bergen - Belsen . She received ten years ' imprisonment , and was released in the mid - 1950s . In an interview in 2004 , Bothe was asked if she regretted being a guard in a concentration camp . Her response was , " What do you mean ? . . . I made a mistake , no . . . The mistake was that it was a concentration camp , but I had to go to it - otherwise I would have been put into it myself , that was my mistake . " Fictional portrayals . In the novel " The Reader " , a young man has an affair with an older woman ( later revealed as a concentration camp guard ) Hanna Schmitz . She is later tried in a court of law . In the film adaptation , she is portrayed by Kate Winslet . In the film " Seven Beauties " , directed by Lina Wertmüller , the main character saves his life by having an affair with the female commander of a concentration camp , where he has been imprisoned for deserting the Italian Army . Aufseherinnen are also portrayed in roles of varying size and importance in several other films : In " Schindler ' s List " , female guards can be seen in scenes involving the Plaszow labor camp and when the Schindler women arrive and depart from Auschwitz - Birkenau . Though not named , an overseer plays a prominent role in the 1975 film " The Hiding Place " , during scenes when Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie are imprisoned at Ravensbruck . Several other female guards are seen processing new prisoners after their arrival at the camp . Maria Mandel is portrayed by actress Shirley Knight in the film version of " Playing for Time " , centered on the Women ' s Orchestra of Auschwitz - Birkenau . Other Aufseherinnen are portrayed in smaller roles , processing prisoners and attending the orchestra ' s performances . Irma Grese has been portrayed as a minor character in " Out of the Ashes " as well as " Pierrepoint " ( aka " The Last Hangman " in America ) , which details her execution following the Belsen war crimes trial . Both films feature additional female guards in much smaller roles . Grese is also briefly portrayed in a non - speaking re - enactment in " " . Polish actress Aleksandra Śląska has played an Aufseherin in two films , first " The Last Stage " as the Oberaufseherin and later as Lisa in " Pasazerka " . Both films contain several minor Aufseherinnen characters . Female guards also appear in very small roles in the films " Triumph of the Spirit " , " Battle of the V - 1 " , and the beginning scene of " X - Men " . A character named " Ilsa " is a main protagonist in an exploitation movie Ilsa , She Wolf of the SS