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Emma Zimmer

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Emma Zimmer
Zimmer in British military custody
Born(1888-08-14)14 August 1888
Haßmersheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire
Died20 September 1948(1948-09-20) (aged 60)
Hamelin Prison, Allied-occupied Germany
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
OccupationOverseer
Political partyNazism
Criminal statusExecuted
Conviction(s)War crimes
TrialHamburg Ravensbrück trials
Criminal penaltyDeath

Emma Anna Maria Zimmer (née Mezel;[1] 14 August 1888 – 20 September 1948) was a female overseer at the Lichtenburg concentration camp, the Ravensbrück concentration camp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination/concentration camp for several years during the Second World War.

Life

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Mezel was born in Haßmersheim in Baden-Württemberg and was the eldest child of Oscar Mezel (a pharmacist) and his wife Maria née Lang.[2] In 1938, she became a guard at the Lichtenburg early concentration camp, where she became assistant camp leader under Johanna Langefeld. She worked alongside Maria Mandl, who became a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.[3]

In 1939, Zimmer was assigned to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she served as assistant chief leader, then in October 1942, she became assistant camp leader at Auschwitz II (Birkenau) as an SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin.[4][5]

On 1 June 1943, one month before her 55th birthday, she was granted permission to stay on staff as a female overseer at Ravensbrück, despite her age.[6] She was one of the first chief woman officers at Ravensbrück from 1939 to 1941, and took an active part in the selection of internees to be gassed during 1941 at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre near Berlin.

Zimmer served as a guard at Ravensbrück, and was known in the camp for being brutal and sadistic in her guard duties, often dealing corporal punishment. She reportedly "liked to slap", "lashed out with her jackboots" and "walked up down the ranks carrying a large document file, with which she would beat inmates about the head for the slightest movement or sound".[6] Zimmer referred to prisoners as “bitches” and “dirty cows” who needed to be put into their place[7] and "abused and bullied them in an extreme way."[5]

At Auschwitz, she was particularly feared: "Our supervisor was an old and mean SS-woman called Emma Zimmer. She was vicious and dangerous and frightening us constantly with threats, proclaiming in a sadistic voice, "I will report you and then you will go away, you know where? Just one way-up the chimney." We hated her and were scared of her."[8]

She was awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without swords for her long service in the SS.[4]

Death

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Zimmer stood trial at the seventh Ravensbrück Trial and was sentenced to death for her war crimes.[9] She was hanged by the British executioner Albert Pierrepoint on the gallows at Hamelin Prison on 20 September 1948, when she was 60 years old.

See also

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Further reading

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  • "Nazi She-Devils". Mirror. 21 November 2005. Retrieved 26 September 2012.

References

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  1. ^ Brown, Daniel Patrick (2002). The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System. Schiffer Pub. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-7643-1444-5.
  2. ^ Neues Archiv für die Geschichte der Stadt Heidelberg und der rheinischen Pfalz, Heidelberg 1913, Band X., p. 193
  3. ^ Eischeid, Susan J. (2023-12-26). Mistress of Life and Death: The Dark Journey of Maria Mandl, Head Overseer of the Women's Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0-8065-4287-4.
  4. ^ a b Klee, Ernst (2013). Auschwitz. Täter, Gehilfen und Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde. Ein Personenlexikon (Auschwitz. Perpetrators, agents and victims and what became of them. A personal glossary) (in German). Frankfurt am Main. p. 450.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ a b Herbermann, Nanda (2000). The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women. Wayne State University Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-8143-2920-7.
  6. ^ a b Helm, Sarah (2015-01-15). If This Is A Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-0-7481-1243-2.
  7. ^ Murphy, Claire. (2022). A Lost Generation of Women: The Female Perpetrators that Propelled the Nazi Regime. Historical Perspectives: Santa Clara University Undergraduate Journal of History, Series II, 27(1). p. 132.
  8. ^ Lore, Shelley. (1992) Auschwitz-The Nazi Civilization: Twenty-three Women Prisoners' Accounts : Auschwitz Camp Administration and SS Enterprises and Workshops. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. p. 97. ISBN 9780819184719.
  9. ^ The National Archives (TNA), Kew, England. Ravensbrück case No 6. Defendant: Emma Zimmer. Place of Trial: Hamburg. July 1948. Reference WO 235/528.
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