Female Fascist Guards and Camp Auxiliaries
From Housemaid to Guard in Nazi Germany's Deadliest Camps: Luise Danz
12m
Luise Danz was one of the most notorious female guards in the Nazi concentration camp system. Born in Germany in 1917, she joined the SS camp service in 1943 after training at Ravensbrück and went on to serve at Majdanek, Płaszów, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and the Malchow subcamp. Survivor testimonies describe a woman who routinely beat prisoners with whips and clubs, humiliated women, participated in selections that sent inmates to the gas chambers, and committed horrific acts of violence against both adults and children.
This documentary follows Danz's transformation from an ordinary civilian into a brutal perpetrator of the Holocaust, examining her service in Nazi concentration camps, her connections to senior camp personnel, her role in the persecution of Jewish prisoners, and the testimony of survivors who witnessed her crimes. It also explores Oskar Schindler's factory, the experiences of Magda Hellinger, the liberation of the camps, the post-war Auschwitz Trial, Danz's early release from prison, and the failed German prosecution decades later.
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