Uncovered Past
September 20, 2006
Elfriede Lina Rinkel, a German national, served at the Ravensbrück camp north of Berlin from June 1944 until it was abandoned in spring 1945 as World War II ended, the US Department of Justice said.
US prosecutors charged that Rinkel, who lived in San Francisco, used a trained attack dog to carry out guard duty at Ravensbrück and concealed her concentration camp duty when she came to the US from Germany in 1959.
At Ravensbrück, female Nazi SS guards forced inmates to march to and from slave labor sites each day, guarding them while they performed grueling manual work. The Nazis opened the concentration camp for women in 1939, but about 20,000 men were also sent there.
Admitting the past
Up to 50,000 inmates died at Ravensbrück, many from hunger and disease. Others died in grisly Nazi medical experiments, the camp's gas chambers or forced evacuation marches at the end of the war.
In a settlement with US authorities, Rinkel admitted that she served as a guard at Ravensbrück, the Justice Department said.
She was born on July 14, 1922, in Leipzig, Germany, according to Nazi-era documents that listed her under her maiden name, Elfriede Huth.
US federal law requires the removal of anyone who aided in Nazi-sponsored persecution. Rinkel was given a Sept. 30 deadline to leave the US and has already returned to Germany, justice officials said.
"Unwavering committment"
"Concentration camp guards such as Elfriede Rinkel played a vital role in the Nazi regime's horrific mistreatment of innocent victims,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher in a statement to the press. "This case reflects the government's unwavering commitment to remove Nazi persecutors from this country."
Eli M. Rosenbaum, director of the Office of Special Investigations at the Justice Department, said: “Thousands of innocent women were brutalized and murdered at Ravensbrück through the active participation of Elfriede Rinkel and other guards whose principal function was to prevent prisoners from escaping the abominable conditions inside the camp. Her presence in the United States was an affront to surviving Holocaust victims who have made new homes in this country."