Maria Mandl

Stanisława Rachwałowa (a Polish survivor of Auschwitz who was an inmate under Mandl's administration and, after the war, was arrested by Poland's post-war communist authorities as an "anti-communist activist") was imprisoned in the cell next to Maria Mandl and Therese Brandl. Rachwałowa was proficient enough in German to interpret for the wardens. She stated that the last time she and the two German war criminals met – after they had been sentenced to death and shortly before their executions took place – both had asked her for forgiveness. Mandl was hanged on 24 January 1948.

The following is a firsthand account of Mandl's treatment of prisoners upon arrival to Auschwitz, provided by Jewish Prisoner Sala Feder on December 1, 1947 to the District Court in Kraków.

After the war, Mandl fled to her native Münzkirchen. After her father refused to help her hide, Mandl sought her sister for refuge. However, Mandl was arrested by the United States Army on 10 August 1945. Interrogations reportedly revealed her to be highly intelligent and dedicated to her work in the camps. For some time, Mandl was held in a cell in the former Dachau camp. She was filmed by U.S. soldiers in May 1946 sharing a cell with Elizabeth Ruppert. Upon their request, U.S. officials transferred Mandl to Polish custody in November 1946. In November 1947, Mandl was tried by the Supreme National Tribunal in the Auschwitz trial, found guilty of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death by hanging.

For her services, Mandl was awarded the War Merit Cross 2nd class. In November 1944, she was assigned to the Mühldorf subcamp of Dachau concentration camp and Elisabeth Volkenrath became head of Auschwitz, which were liberated in late January 1945. In May 1945, Mandl fled from Mühldorf into the mountains of southern Bavaria to her birthplace, Münzkirchen.

On 7 October 1942, Mandl was assigned to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, succeeding Johanna Langefeld as SS-Lagerführerin of the women camp under SS-Kommandant Rudolf Höß. As a woman she could never outrank a male, but her control over both female prisoners and her female subordinates was absolute. The only man Mandl reported to was the commandant. She controlled all the female Auschwitz camps and female subcamps including at Hindenburg, Lichtewerden and Raisko.

After the Anschluss by Nazi Germany, Mandl moved to Munich, and on 15 October 1938 joined the camp staff at Lichtenburg, an early Nazi concentration camp in the Province of Saxony, as an Aufseherin, and worked with fifty other SS women. On 15 May 1939, along with other guards and prisoners, Mandl was sent to the newly opened Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin. She soon impressed her superiors and, after she had joined the Nazi Party on 1 April 1941, was elevated to the rank of a SS-Oberaufseherin in April 1942. She oversaw daily roll calls, assignments for Aufseherinnen and punishments such as beatings and floggings.

Maria Mandl (also spelled Mandel; 10 January 1912 – 24 January 1948) was an Austrian SS-Helferin ("SS helper") known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is believed to have been directly complicit in the deaths of over 500,000 prisoners. She was executed for war crimes.