Abstract

During National Socialist Germany, women worked as guards in concentration camps, were nurses and doctors in ‘euthanasia’ centres, and also worked as secretaries for Nazi officials. In performing such jobs, these women helped to perpetrate the Holocaust. Since the end of the Second World War, female perpetrators of the Holocaust have been portrayed in a variety of different British newspapers. This paper explores the ways in which the press has represented these women, from 1945 until the present day. It analyses how traditional notions of femininity, such as the idea of women as naturally ‘good’, have influenced their newspaper depiction. More widely, the paper aims to address how society views ‘evil’ women and the ways in which women who violate social norms are conceptualised.