Herta Bothe

Hertha Bothe ( born January 3, 1921 in Teterow, † March 16, 2000? ) Was a German camp guard in several concentration camps.

Biography

Bothe was a homemaker and from August 1940 to September 1942 auxiliary nurse in a hospital. Mid- October 1942 Bothe was conscripted to serve as a guard in concentration camps and graduated in Ravensbrück concentration camp claims to be a nearly two-week qualifying course. Subsequently, she was from November 1942 at the Stutthof concentration camp worked as a supervisor and was transferred from there in July 1944 in one of the Stutthof labor camp outside to Bromberg. During the evacuation of this camp Bothe accompanied an evacuation march with Hungarian Jewish women, with whom she came after about four weeks of Oranienburg and arrived between 20 and 26 February 1945 in the concentration camp Bergen- Belsen. After several short-term activities as a guard, she led the forest command.

After the war

On 15 April 1945, the concentration camp Bergen- Belsen was liberated by British troops, who found more than 10,000 dead and 60,000 survivors there. The SS camp personnel were obliged to carry away all the bodies and bury them in mass graves.

Then Bothe was arrested and interrogated by British military personnel. In Bergen- Belsen Trial ( 17 September-17 November 1945) she was accused of what they had in Bergen -Belsen crime, where the charge was based on witness statements. Bothe admitted to have beaten inmates in the face, but only by hand. Bothe, the "not guilty" pleaded, was convicted on 17 November 1945 and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. While in custody, she became friends with Savitri Devi and was released early from prison Werl on 21 December 1951. After his release married Bothe and took the name Lange.

In one of her rare interviews, which aired in 2004, Herta Bothe expressed as follows:

" What do you mean, made ​​mistakes '? No ... I 'm not sure how to answer that. Have I made ​​a mistake? No. The mistake was that it was a concentration camp, but I had to go there, otherwise I would have got there even there. That was my mistake. In one respect. "