During the Holocaust, the horrors committed by male SS officers in Nazi concentration camps are well-documented. Less known, but equally chilling, are the roles of the female guards—women who were neither coerced nor ignorant, but active and often vicious participants in one of history’s greatest atrocities. These women, numbering around 3,700, served primarily in camps like Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, and Majdanek. Their crimes reveal that cruelty was not confined by gender.
Many of these female guards came from ordinary backgrounds—former factory workers, secretaries, or housewives—yet they quickly adapted to their roles as overseers of death and degradation. Ravensbrück, the largest women’s concentration camp, became a breeding ground for sadism under their watch. Here, female guards routinely beat, tortured, and humiliated prisoners. One of the most infamous, Irma Grese, known as the “Hyena of Auschwitz,” was barely in her twenties when she gained notoriety for her brutality. She used a whip, trained attack dogs, and carried out selections for the gas chambers with cold detachment.
At Auschwitz, Grese worked alongside male SS officers but stood out for her cruelty. Survivors recalled how she relished her authority, often beating women to death for minor infractions or for her own amusement. Her youthful beauty masked a monstrous core, a contrast that shocked the world during her trial. She was eventually convicted of war crimes at the Belsen Trial and executed in 1945.
Another example was Maria Mandel, head of the women’s camp at Auschwitz, who played a central role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. She took pride in her job, often personally overseeing selections and even establishing a women’s orchestra to play as inmates were led to their deaths—adding a twisted theatricality to the genocide.
At Majdanek, Hermine Braunsteiner, later dubbed “The Stomping Mare,” kicked and trampled women and children to death. She was notorious for her vicious temper and physical violence, especially toward Jewish inmates. Her crimes went unnoticed for years until she was tracked down in the U.S. and extradited to West Germany for trial.
What’s most disturbing is not only the extent of the violence but the pleasure these women appeared to take in wielding power. Some survivors noted that female guards could be more unpredictable and sadistic than their male counterparts. Whether driven by ideology, personal pathology, or a desire for authority, they actively chose to become instruments of terror.
Their crimes challenge the traditional perception of women as inherently nurturing or passive. These guards weren’t reluctant bystanders—they were perpetrators who embraced the Nazi regime’s dehumanizing ethos. Their actions serve as a grim reminder that evil is not gendered and that ordinary people—given power, ideology, and opportunity—can commit extraordinary horrors.