Emma Zimmer

Emma Anna Maria Zimmer (née Mezel;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 14 August 1888 – 20 September 1948) was a female overseer at the Lichtenburg concentration camp, the Ravensbrück concentration camp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination/concentration camp for several years during the Second World War.

Life

Mezel was born in Haßmersheim in what was then the Grand Duchy of Baden and was the eldest child of Oscar Mezel (a pharmacist) and his wife Maria née Lang.<ref>Neues Archiv für die Geschichte der Stadt Heidelberg und der rheinischen Pfalz, Heidelberg 1913, Band X., p. 193</ref> In 1938, she became a guard at the Lichtenburg early concentration camp, where she became assistant camp leader under Johanna Langefeld. She worked alongside Maria Mandl, who became a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1939, Zimmer was assigned to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she served as assistant chief leader, then in October 1942, she became assistant camp leader at Auschwitz II (Birkenau) as an SS-Stellvertretende Oberaufseherin.<ref name="Klee441" /><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

On 1 June 1943, one month before her 55th birthday, she was granted permission to stay on staff as a female overseer at Ravensbrück, despite her age.<ref name=":2" /> She was one of the first chief woman officers at Ravensbrück from 1939 to 1941, and took an active part in the selection of internees to be gassed during 1941 at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre near Berlin.

Zimmer served as a guard at Ravensbrück, and was known in the camp for being brutal and sadistic in her guard duties, often dealing corporal punishment. She reportedly "liked to slap", "lashed out with her jackboots" and "walked up down the ranks carrying a large document file, with which she would beat inmates about the head for the slightest movement or sound".<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref> Zimmer referred to prisoners as “bitches” and “dirty cows” who needed to be put into their place<ref>Murphy, Claire. (2022). A Lost Generation of Women: The Female Perpetrators that Propelled the Nazi Regime. Historical Perspectives: Santa Clara University Undergraduate Journal of History, Series II, 27(1). p. 132.</ref> and "abused and bullied them in an extreme way."<ref name=":0" />

At Auschwitz, she was particularly feared: "Our supervisor was an old and mean SS-woman called Emma Zimmer. She was vicious and dangerous and frightening us constantly with threats, proclaiming in a sadistic voice, "I will report you and then you will go away, you know where? Just one way-up the chimney." We hated her and were scared of her."<ref>Lore, Shelley. (1992) Auschwitz-The Nazi Civilization: Twenty-three Women Prisoners' Accounts : Auschwitz Camp Administration and SS Enterprises and Workshops. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. p. 97. ISBN 9780819184719.</ref>

She was awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without swords for her long service in the SS.<ref name="Klee441">Template:Cite book</ref>

Death

Zimmer stood trial at the seventh Ravensbrück Trial and was sentenced to death for her war crimes.<ref>The National Archives (TNA), Kew, England. Ravensbrück case No 6. Defendant: Emma Zimmer. Place of Trial: Hamburg. July 1948. Reference WO 235/528.</ref> She was hanged by the British executioner Albert Pierrepoint on the gallows at Hamelin Prison on 20 September 1948, when she was 60 years old.

See also

• Female guards in Nazi concentration camps

Further reading

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