Female Fascist Guards and Camp Auxiliaries
The Nazi Guard Who Turned Winter into Torture at Stutthof: Ewa Paradies
12m
Ewa Paradies became one of the most feared female guards at the Stutthof concentration camp after survivors accused her of using the freezing Polish winter as a weapon against defenseless prisoners. Witnesses testified that she forced women to strip naked and stand in the snow before pouring icy water over them, then beat those who moved from the unbearable cold. Others recalled that she brutally assaulted prisoners and, on occasion, clubbed women to death.
Discover the life and crimes of Ewa Paradies, from her upbringing in Nazi Germany and recruitment as an SS camp guard to her service at the Stutthof concentration camp and its Bromberg-Ost subcamp. Explore the creation and expansion of the Stutthof camp system, the persecution of Polish and Jewish prisoners, the introduction of gas chambers, the deadly evacuation marches of 1945, powerful survivor testimony describing Paradies' brutality, her capture after the war, the First Stutthof Trial, and her public execution alongside ten other Nazi war criminals before a crowd of approximately 200,000 people in 1946.
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