Margot Dreschel

Margot Dreschel (May 17, 1908, Neugersdorf – June 1945?) was a prison guard at Nazi concentration camps.

Before her enlistment as an SS auxiliary, she worked at an office in Berlin. On January 31, 1941, Margot Dreschel arrived at Ravensbrück to begin guard training. At first she was an Aufseherin, a low-ranking female guard, at Ravensbrück (a concentration camp primarily for internment of women). She trained under Oberaufseherin (Senior Overseer) Johanna Langefeld in 1941, and quickly became a Rapportführerin (Report Overseer), a higher ranked guard.

On April 27, 1942, Dreschel was selected for transport to the newly opened Auschwitz-Birkenau I camp in Poland. Dreschel began her duties at Birkenau in August 1942 when the women's camp was established, when all the women were transferred from Auschwitz to Birkenau. She was very devoted to her work there and served under Maria Mandel. Dreschel was also head of all camp offices in Auschwitz. Dreschel's appearance was reportedly repellent, as one female Auschwitz prisoner recounted: "And Camp Leader Dreschel was there, her buck teeth sticking out, even when her mouth is closed." Inmates described her as vulgar, thin and ugly. After the war, many survivors testified of her brutal treatment. She carried out indoor selections wearing a white coat and white gloves, disguised as a doctor.

She regularly moved between the Auschwitz I camp and Birkenau, and involved herself in selections of women and children to be sent to the gas chambers. On November 1, 1944, she went to Flossenbürg concentration camp as a Rapportführerin.

In January 1945, she was moved back to the Ravensbruck subcamp at Neustadt-Glewe, and fled from there in April 1945 as Nazi Germany fell.

In May 1945, several former Auschwitz prisoners recognized her on a road from Pirna to Bautzen, and took her to the Russian Military Police. The Soviets condemned her to death and executed her in May or June 1945 by hanging in Bautzen. This fact is disputed by an Auschwitz survivor who claimed to have seen her in Munich in January 1960.^{[citation needed]}

Alternative spellings of surname

• Margot Drexler
• Margot Dreschler
• Margot Drechsel
• Margot Drexel

External links

• Bio-sketch (in German).

Literature

• Brown, D. P.: The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System; Schiffer Publishing 2002; ISBN 0-7643-1444-0.
• Matthaus, Juergen. "Approaching an Auschwitz Survivor: Holocaust History and its Transformations" Oxford University Press, 2009; ISBN 0195389158.