Hildegard Neumann - Camp Work

Camp Work

Neumann came to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in October 1944, where she became an Oberaufseherin (Chief Wardress) soon after. Because of her good conduct, the Nazis sent her to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and ghetto in Czechoslovakia in November 1944 as Head Female Overseer. Neumann was known as a cruel female guard.

She oversaw between ten and thirty female police and over 20,000 female Jewish prisoners. Neumann also aided in the deportation of more than 40,000 women and children from the camp to the Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen camps, where most were killed. The tasks of the female overseers in Theresienstadt was to guard women prisoners at work on "labour kommandos," during transports to other camps, and in the ghetto itself. Most were cruel and abusive, especially Caecilia Rojko, who was nicknamed the "Prisoners' Fright," and Hildegard Mende, who gained the nickname "Beast".