Emma Zimmer
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| “ | I will report you and then you will go away. You know where? Just one way. Up the chimney. | „ |
| ~ Zimmer threatening camp inmates. |
Emma Anna Maria Zimmer (14 August 1888 - 20 September 1948) was a female overseer at the Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück and Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camps from 1938 - 1945.
Biography edit
Zimmer was born in Baden-Württemberg in 1888. After the rise of the Nazi Party, she was given a job as a guard at the Lichtenburg camp in 1938 and quickly rose to become assistant camp leader under Johanna Langefeld. When Lichtenburg was closed down in 1939, all prisoners and staff were moved to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Zimmer became assistant chief leader at Ravensbrück, and was soon further promoted to assistant chief warden.
Zimmer soon gained a hateful reputation among the inmates for her sadistic beatings of prisoners. One of the first female officers at Ravensbrück, she played an active role in selecting prisoners to be killed in the gas chambers, both at Ravensbrück and at the Bernberg Euthanasia Center. She also served at Auschwitz from 1942 as assistant chief warden, selecting prisoners to be sent to the gas chambers as soon as they got off the trains, and would regularly threaten to send prisoners "up the chimney". One day before her 55th birthday in 1943, she was granted special permission to stay on despite her age due to her fearsome reputation amongst inmates.
Zimmer was arrested after the war and tried by a British military court during the Ravensbrück Trials. Zimmer was one of two defendants at the Seventh Ravensbrück Trial, alongside Ida Schreiter, to be sentenced to death. Zimmer was executed by hanging at Hamelin Prison on 20 September 1948.