In 1945, one of the most bloody wars in the history of mankind ended. But after the good seemed to triumph over evil, the terrible truth gradually began to open. It is still not easy to realize. Who is Hildegard Neumann? A woman who, at the age of 25, joined the Ravensbrück. There were a lot of people like her in Nazi camps.
Overseer
The owner of a rather sweet and attractive appearance terrified the prisoners of the concentration camp with her cruelty - she did not spare even the children.
Little is known about the fate of Hildegard Neumann. Many of the information from her biography does not have official confirmation. Only the date of birth of Hildegard Neumann and her , albeit indirect, involvement in the crimes committed by the SS on the occupied territory are not questioned.
First, the woman worked at Ravensbrück, then she was sent to Theresienstadt. These concentration camps are worth telling in more detail.
Ravensbrück
During the war, it was the largest concentration camp for women. Ravensbrück was created in 1939. He was destroyed six years later. The construction of the camp began in 1938. Heinrich Himmler himself led this process. In the first year of the war, more than 800 women were sent here who were supposed to perform overwork. As a rule, they took part in the expansion of the concentration camp, which already in 1940 consisted of the main and auxiliary units.
Initially, the camp was designed for Germans, who, according to the Nazis, defamed the nation. Then representatives of other nationalities were sent here. In February 1943, more than 500 Soviet women were brought to the camp. These were nurses, doctors, signalmen who participated in battles for the Crimea. For six years, 132 thousand women and children have visited the Ravensbrück camp. Many were sent to Auschwitz. Hildegard Neumann, in the Ravensbrück concentration camp , held the position of senior overseer.
Theresienstadt
In 1941, the Germans created a camp in the ancient Czech city on the banks of the Ohře River, which was an “ age ghetto ” . Old Jews were massively deported here not only from the occupied territory, but also from Germany.
A special feature of the Terezienstadt camp was the high level of education of the prisoners. Most of the captives were writers, musicians, politicians and scholars of international renown. There were no recorded cases of resistance. Although, of course, there were shoots. Over the years of the war, SS men held about 140 thousand people in this camp. Most of them were sent to Auschwitz.
Hildegard Neumann
She was born in 1909 in Czechoslovakia. There is no information about how the childhood and youth of the future overseer passed. She was in the Nazi camp for the first time in 1944. In just a few months, she made a good career. She worked for a while as a senior overseer, then was transferred to Theresienstadt. Neumann took an even more important position in this camp. At Theresienstadt , she already led thirty female police officers.
According to the recollections of the prisoners of the camp, Hildegard Neumann was particularly cruel. She played a significant role in sending more than forty thousand women and children to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, from where (even then many understood) there was no turning back. In total, according to researchers, the Nazis sent about 100 thousand Jews from Theresienstadt. At least 50 thousand died in the camp itself.
After the war
In 1946, the Nuremberg trials took place. After him - a series of trials in which camp overseers were sentenced to death or life imprisonment. However, the heroine of today's story escaped punishment.
As already mentioned, there is no exact data on the future fate of Neumann. There are only speculations. So, there is a version that in 1956, the former warden emigrated to the United States, where she lived a long life. In America, Neumann married, gave birth to two daughters. Died at the age of 92 in May 2011.
Once a little-known writer was looking for material for his book on the United States, and came across an obituary. This is the basis for the version that the former warden of the concentration camp lived a long and, apparently, happy life in America. Perhaps the newspaper reported the death of a completely different woman. Hildegard Neumann is a common combination of first and last name. If so, then nothing is known about the fate of Neumann after the end of World War II.
Many Nazis escaped punishment. With the help of the so-called "rat paths" even Dr. Mengele moved to Argentina, conducting terrible experiments on prisoners of Auschwitz. Ordinary warders for Mossad intelligence were of little interest. They, as a rule, did not hide under the names of others. However, in the version presented above, the following fact may seem rather strange: until 1956, Hildegard Neumann, whom the prisoners of the Terezienstadt camp remembered about the cruelty after their release, lived quietly in Germany and avoided arrest.