On the 4th of July 1946, in front of a crowd of 20,000 people, possibly more, five female concentration camp guards who worked inside the infamous site of Stutthof were dragged out by prison guards to their executions. They were known for being barbaric in the way they treated prisoners, and the crowd that day knew exactly what monsters these women were.
Among them was a 25-year-old woman who became infamous for beating female prisoners horrifically with her trenchant and weapon, and her actions led to the deaths of many prisoners. As she was helped onto the truck awaiting the noose to be placed around her neck, she screamed and cried as she knew exactly what was coming for her.
Eva Paradies succumbed that day to her fate in front of the crowd, and she was left swinging wildly in front of the crowd who jeered when the noose tightened. But specifically, what had she done that led to her execution, and was it justified? Eva Paradies was born in December 1920, and she had a normal early life.
There was very little to suggest that one day she would become a horrific and brutal woman. She was most probably a member of the League of German Maidens, the compulsory youth group for young girls and teenagers set up after the Nazis came into power. Like many young women, they were led into the group for a mix of brainwashing and also the fact the Nazis made it compulsory for them to join.
Many were encouraged by their parents to delve into what the Nazis were offering, too. However, as World War II continued on, there was a rather distinct and visible gap in manpower, and the Germans needed to send further men to the front lines to fight. The male concentration camp guards, even if they had been injured previously, were pressed into the war effort to defend Hitler’s Reich from the Soviet Red Army.
And then the SS retinue searched for women to then go and work inside the camps as replacements. Young women were offered the chance of a promotion, regular and decent pay for a wartime salary, and they left jobs such as hairdressers, shop workers, and nurses to become what was known as Aufseherinnen, female overseers or guards. Many then began to train inside of Ravensbruck and other camps around Germany, and then quickly they were sent to go and work within the camps.
During the training period, they were taught how to brutally beat and batter inmates to keep them in submission. Eva Paradies in August 1944 was sent to go and work inside of Stutthof’s SK3 camp, and she trained there. But within a matter of weeks, she was sent to the Bromberg Ost subcamp to work as a wardress.
In this role, she was responsible for a barracks, and she oversaw many female prisoners who were within the camp. Prisoners were usually told to load cargo onto trains at a nearby railyard, and they were also tasked with repairing tracks and digging trenches, which was all very hard work. Eva Paradies worked alongside other brutal guards, Hertha Bothe, who was tried at the Belsen trials, and also Gerda Steinhoff, who would also be executed alongside her.
Specifically at the camp, Paradies was known for being a monster. One witness later testified against her and claimed that, I quote, “She ordered a group of female prisoners to undress in the freezing cold of winter, and then doused them with ice cold water.” When the women moved, Paradies beat them. This sort of behavior was very typical of her, and she was very dangerous, and her behavior was very dangerous, and particularly throwing cold water on people in winter could have led prisoners to succumb to hypothermia in
the middle of the cold night. She was also known for inflicting the deaths of some prisoners herself, beating many of them to death. Inside of Stutthof, there was a small gas chamber, and Paradies may have even selected female prisoners to be sent to the main camp to be then killed. She was moved back to Stutthof’s main camp, too.
But in April 1945, she accompanied one of the final transports of women prisoners who were being sent from Stutthof to the Lauenburg subcamp. After this, she ran away and tried to escape, but she was then captured shortly after the war had come to an end. Paradies was brought to the Stutthof trials alongside a number of other female guards.
And she was with other such as Jenny Wanda Barkmann sentenced to death. The courtroom specifically had witnesses that testified against her. And Paradies did not seem to take the court proceedings very seriously until she was actually condemned to death. Then the tears came. On the 4th of July 1946, there was a huge crowd of around 20,000 people gathered on the hill inside of Gdansk known as Biskupia Gorka.
Traders sold food and drinks ready for the crowd to watch the grizzly proceedings of the executions of the condemned Stutthof guards. Ewa Paradies was not the first female guard executed that day on the massive gallows that had been created. Following the death of Jenny Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies was then led towards a truck which was parked under the gallows next to Barkmann.
On the other side of the two-pronged gallows from where Jenny Wanda Barkmann had been hanged, Paradies was sat on the back of the truck and an official loudly read out the crime she had committed. The crowd were relatively quiet and could hear Paradies cries as she knew her life was going to be brought to an end soon.
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The executioner, who was actually a former prisoner of Stutthof, whilst Paradies was stood on top of the stool, then secured the noose around her neck. After a few final checks were performed, the truck was driven slowly forward and the noose snapped taut around her neck. Ewa Paradies was then left slowly strangling to death and the rope was swinging wildly.
Afterwards, it’s presumed that her body was donated to medical science being given to local institutions after she’d been declared dead. So, there were a number of reasons why Eva Paradies was executed. She was condemned for the fact she caused the deaths of prisoners inside of Stutthof concentration camp and its subcamps.
Her actions deliberately led to the deaths of a number of inmates. Also, there was a huge amount of anger inside of Poland at the time. During World War II, the country had suffered a great deal and the German occupation and scores of the population were killed in horrific mass executions, gassings, and other indiscriminate killings.
By condemning to death and publicly executing a number of female guards of Stutthof, it showed the Polish crowd that some small form of justice was being had for them and they could see this with their own eyes from the large gallows. Eva Paradies was just 25 years old when she was executed and for a young woman, this was of course a horrific fate.
But, she herself during World War II became a monster and at the time, the people in Poland saw her punishment as completely fair and proportionate for the crimes that she had committed during World War II. Thanks for watching. If you found this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for watching one of these videos.
