Traitor-Sisters: The SS Aufseherinnen and the Prosecution of Women who Perpetrate Violence

Days after the liberation of the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, a London newspaper described the scene of liberation of prisoners and the arrest of the Aufseherinnen, the female auxiliaries of the SS charged with guarding women prisoners in the concentration camp system, by writing, “Women prisoners looked straight into the faces of their jackbooted tormentors, their traitor-sisters.” Within the world of the camp these women did the same work and utilized the same recourse to violence as their male colleagues, yet they were viewed as “worse” than the SS men and indeed traitors to their gender.

This paper will discuss the use of violence by female guards and the perception of this violence as evidenced in the postwar trial process. By examining early postwar trials, it will show that though on trial for the same crimes, the actions of female perpetrators were judged far more harshly both by the courts and by the public. Additionally, this paper will show that the prosecution’s strategy was highly gendered and fixated on the “cruelties” of these women. And finally, it will demonstrate that media attention to the trials disproportionately focused on female defendants and their crimes, thus creating a distorted, salacious image of the Aufseherinnen.  The experience of the Aufseherinnen can tell us a great deal about gender and the perpetration of Nazi crimes related to the Holocaust, and the gendered views of violence that became evident in the justice that followed.