Suze Arts—Dutch Female SS Guard

In the summer of 1943, Suze Arts, a young unmarried mother, got a job as an SS Aufseherin (female guard) at Camp Vught. She followed a six-week ‘training course’ at the notorious Ravensbrück women’s camp and became one of the most notorious female guards of Camp Vught.

Susanne (Suze) Arts was born as the middle child in a family with three daughters. Her father was the director and editor-in-chief of the Nieuwe Tilburgse Courant. Her mother died when Suze was two years old, and four years later, her father remarried Adriana Maria van Es. The relationship between Suze and her stepmother was terrible. From the age of seven, Suze attended boarding schools in the Netherlands, and in the 1930s, her father sent her to boarding schools in France, England and Germany. In Germany, she came into contact with National Socialism and became friends with Franz Ettlinger, a member of the Hitler Youth. After she departed from Germany, she continued to correspond with him.

From 1936, Suze Arts worked as a nurse in hospitals in Brussels and Bruges. In 1938, she returned to the Netherlands, where she trained as a pharmacy assistant in Weert. Two years later, she found a job, with room and board, as an assistant to general practitioner Bouman in Nistelrode, Brabant. The married Bouman and Arts secretly had an affair, which ended when she became pregnant. In January 1941, she gave birth to her son Hans. She went to live in a room with her son in Amsterdam—she was supported by her father. After his death in the autumn of 1942, she was left unemployed and without financial support. She led an itinerant life for several months, with varying jobs. She was still in contact with Franz Ettlinger, now married and father of four children, a member of the SS and working in camp Vught as the right-hand man of the camp head. He informed Arts that they needed guards in Vught. At the beginning of July 1943, she reported to the camp commander, and two weeks later, she started as a camp guard. Arts and Ettlinger had a love affair in Vught. Their daughter Joan was born in February 1944.

Suze Arts is best known for her involvement in the Bunker Drama: on the night of January 15 to 16, 1944, 74 women in Camp Vught were locked up in a cell of less than nine square meters as punishment for fifteen hours, during which ten women died.

When one woman from barrack 23B was locked up in the camp prison (the ‘bunker’), other women protested against it. At the encouragement of Hermann Wicklein, the commandant Adam Grünewald, as a punishment, had as many women as possible incarcerated in one cell. Eventually, 74 women were pressed together in cell 115, which had a floor area of 9m2 and hardly any ventilation. After 14 hours of confinement, the inmates were released from the cell. Ten women did not survive the night.

On Saturday, January 15, 1944, around five o’clock, Suze Arts cycled out of the camp on her way to visit her son during her weekend off. Arriving at the camp gate, Suze was stopped by Grünewald and was given a list of names and told to collect the women on the list. She wanted to leave, but Grünewald reassured her that it wouldn’t take long.

Arts accompanied some of the 74 women to the bunker. On the way, the mood among the women had still been relatively cheerful. Still, she shouted to them: “Just wait, you will stop laughing once you are in the bunker.” That is why the survivors concluded afterwards that Suze Arts knew what was going to happen and cooperated in the punishment.

One of the victims said later: “When the lights went off, a great panic rose among the women. It was a strange swelling sound, which sometimes would diminish but soon swell up again. It was caused by praying, screaming and yelling at women. Some tried to yell over it to calm the women down so they could save oxygen. Sometimes, it would help a bit, but then it would start again. It would not stop; it continued the whole night. It diminished, though, because the heat was suffocating.”

The camp management also held Arts responsible: she was discharged from Camp Vught. In the last year of the war, she worked as a housekeeper at various addresses in Amsterdam.

Immediately after the end of the war, Suze Arts was arrested, and in January 1947, her trial began before the Special Court in Amsterdam. As with ‘Oberaufseherin’ Gallinat, it was mainly about her part in the bunker drama. Tax prosecutor Sikkel demanded twenty years but stated that he could also agree with the death penalty. The doctor underwent a psychiatric examination. In addition to pedagogical neglect, the psychiatrist noted infatuation, disinhibition and, above all, ‘a staggering inner poverty of feeling’, which had caused her to become increasingly ‘derailed’ in her life. Nevertheless, he judged that she was mentally developed enough to be able to foresee the consequences of her actions. The judge decided on a sentence of fifteen years.

Suze Arts was imprisoned in the Noordsingel prison in Rotterdam, where she got a job as a supervisor over other prisoners. She was released in 1953. Because of her past, she had difficulty finding a permanent job. She eventually succeeded at the women’s magazine Margriet, where she would work under a pseudonym for decades as a proofreader and coordinator of the puzzle and letters section.

Her son grew up in a foster home; It wasn’t until 1987 that she saw him again. She never saw her daughter again, who was taken from her when she was arrested in 1945. Suze Arts died in Amsterdam on May 22, 1991, at the age of 74.

Sources

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/7c113e8a-3a3c-4f54-933d-85256395af32

https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Arts

https://www.nmkampvught.nl/bunkerdrama/

https://italy.liberationroute.com/it/stories/293/suze-arts

https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/40995/Memorial-The-Bunker-Drama-Vught.htm