Wanda Klaff

Wanda Klaff (6 March 1922 – 4 July 1946) was a Nazi camp overseer. Klaff was born in Danzig to German parents as Wanda Kalacinski.[1] She was executed for war crimes.

Wanda Klaff
Female guards of Stutthof and Bromberg-Ost concentration camps at the Stutthof Trial.
Wanda Klaff is on the right, front row.
Born
Wanda Kalacinski

(1922-03-06)6 March 1922
Danzig, Free City of Danzig
Died4 July 1946(1946-07-04) (aged 24)
Gdańsk, Poland
Cause of deathHanging
OccupationGuards of the Stutthof concentration camp
OrganizationNazi
Criminal statusExecuted
Criminal chargeSadistic abuse of prisoners.
PenaltyDeath

Early life

Wanda Kalacinski was the daughter of railway worker Ludwig Kalacinski.[2] The family name became Kalden in 1941.[2] She finished school in 1938 and began working in a jam factory. This lasted until 1942 when she married Willy Klaff and became a housewife and then a streetcar operator.[2]

SS career, arrest, trial and execution
The execution of guards of the Stutthof concentration camp on July 4, 1946. (left to right) Barkmann, Paradies, Becker, Klaff, Steinhoff.

In 1944, Klaff joined the camp staff at the Stutthof's subcamp at Praust (Pruszcz), where she abused many of the prisoners. On 5 October 1944, she arrived at the Russoschin subcamp of Stutthof (present-day northern Poland).

She fled the camp in early 1945 but on 11 June 1945, she was arrested by Polish officials and soon after was laid up in prison with typhoid fever. She stood trial with the other former female guards. It is said that she stated at the trial, "I am very intelligent and very devoted to my work in the camps. I struck at least two prisoners every day." She was convicted and received a sentence of death. She was publicly hanged (by the short drop method) on 4 July 1946, on Biskupia Górka hill, near Gdańsk, aged 24.[3]

References
  1. "Female Nazi war criminals". Capitalpunishmentuk.org. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  2. Wanda Klaff (1922-1946), archived from the original on 2 September 2006, retrieved 12 April 2019
  3. Stutthof Trial. Female guards in Nazi concentration camps Archived 13 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine, jewishvirtuallibrary.org (archived); accessed 13 November 2014.

Sources
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