I read about the Stutthof concentration camp and I am still thinking of a woman Gerda Steinhoff. Her life is a tragic case of how a normal person may transform into a monster.
In 1939 Gerda was only 17 years old. She was a cook and on a farm in Danzig. She was not a soldier. In 1944 she had become a guard in the SS, as a changed person.
It is quite a sad way she was so soon promoted. She was cruel and good at her work, which made the Nazis make her one of the senior leaders within a few months. The truth was told by survivors during the post war trials. They told they had seen her walking through the prisoners. Instead, she would indicate individuals that appeared worn out or ill and send them directly to the gas chambers. She did not even do what she was commanded to do by people in far places, she was there doing as much of that as she could herself.
She was apprehended by the Polish authorities when the war ended. She was put on trial with other guards including Jenny Wanda Barkmann in 1946. Her guilt was very evident, and she was executed to death.
She was hanged on July 4, 1946 in Biskupia Gorka in front of 200,000 people. The executioners were former prisoners; they used to wear the clothes they had on the camp. Gerda was only 24 years old. It is a very grim lesson that even common people may do horrible things.
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