Elisabeth Lupka
Lupka after her arrest
Born(1902-10-27)27 October 1902
Klein-Damner, German Empire
Died8 January 1949(1949-01-08) (aged 46)
Montelupich Prison, Kraków, Polish People's Republic
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Criminal statusExecuted
Conviction(s)Crimes against humanity
Criminal penaltyDeath

Elisabeth Lupka (27 October 1902 – 8 January 1949) was a Nazi female guard at two prison camps during World War II.

Lupka was born in Klein-Damner, German Empire (present-day Dąbrówka Mała, Lubusz Voivodeship, Poland). She got married in 1934, had no children and soon divorced.[1] In 1937 she went to Berlin to work in an aircraft factory.[2]

In 1942 she left her menial job as a labourer and went to Ravensbrück concentration camp to undergo training as a camp guard. Lupka graduated and later became an Aufseherin over several work details. In March 1943, she was assigned to the German Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland as an Aufseherin then as a Blockführerin (Block Overseer), where she physically beat many prisoners with a whip and selected many others for the gas chambers.[2] She stayed in the camp until its last evacuations in early January 1945 and accompanied a death march to Loslau. Lupka returned to Ravensbrück later that same month.[1][3]

On 6 June 1945, Lupka was arrested by Allied troops and sent to an internment camp. Two years later, on 6 July 1948, after a long investigation, she appeared at a Kraków court for war crimes, mainly the maltreatment of prisoners and her involvement in selections of inmates to the gas chambers. Lupka was found guilty, and executed by short-drop hanging on 8 January 1949 at Montelupich Prison in Kraków. Her corpse was sent to Jagiellonian University in Krakow for use by medical students.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 "Female Nazi war criminals". www.capitalpunishmentuk.org. Retrieved 2018-01-28.
  2. 1 2 3 Gibson, Tyler (2017-04-06). Irma Grese - "The Beast of Belsen" & Other Twisted Female Guards of Concentration Camps. Lulu Press, Inc. ISBN 9781365237997.
  3. ↑ Ernst, Klee (2013). Auschwitz : Täter, Gehilfen, Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde : ein Personenlexikon. Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 9783100393333. OCLC 856902608.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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