Frieda Jahnke

Categories: Personnel of Nazi concentration camps | 1906 births

Frieda Jahnke, born in Neubrandenburg, Germany on July 9, 1906, was a guard at several concentration camps during World War II. She never married, and in 1944, she applied with the Neubrandenburg camp offices to become a prison guard. The SS sent her as an Aufseherin to the Buchenwald subcamp at Torgau, Germany. There Frieda trained and became a ruthless overseer. Soon after she went to the Markkleeberg subcamp near Torgau, and after that, to the Buchenwald concentration camp. As the Allies came close to Buchenwald, the SS sent Frieda to Ravensbruck while overseeing a group of prisoners. Frieda fled Ravensbruck in late April 1945 before the onset of the Russian Army. Her fate remains unknown.