Maria Mandl (or Mandel)
Proudly nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by prisoners and SS staff, she was the top-ranking female guard, SS-Helferin, at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) extermination camp. She was personally and directly involved in the deaths of over half a million female prisoners and children. She formed the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz to ceremoniously accompany roll calls and executions. Later, she was assigned to the Mühldorf sub-concentration camp at Dachau. In August 1945, she was arrested by the United States Army. At the post WWII Kraków Auschwitz Trial, she was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. In January 1948, at the age of 36, she was hanged at Montelupich Prison, Kraków, located in the Polish People’s Republic.