Emma Zimmer

Emma Anna Maria Zimmer (née Mezel; 14 August 1888 – 20 September 1948) was an 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 pharmacist Oscar Mezel and his wife Maria, née Lang. 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.

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.

On 1 June 1943, a month before her 55th birthday, she was granted permission to stay on staff as an overseer at Ravensbrück, despite her age. Zimmer referred to prisoners as “bitches” and “dirty cows” who needed to be put into their place and "abused and bullied them in an extreme way."

She was awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class without swords for her long service in the SS.

Death

Zimmer stood trial at the seventh Ravensbrück Trial and was sentenced to death for her war crimes. 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.