Little is known about Elsa Erik (or Elsa Erich). She worked as an Aufseherin at Ravensbrück concentration camp, and was later transferred to Majdanek as an Aufseherin. Because of good conduct there, she became SS-Oberaufseherin over thirty other SS women.
Elsa ran a camp where over 100,000 women and children were gassed, shot, beaten, starved or otherwise killed. There are several prisoner's testimonies relating to the sadistic attitude of Elsa, who took part in beatings and selections.
In mid-1944, at the approach of the Soviet Army, Elsa fled Maidnek and went back to Ravensbrück and lost her position of supervising wardress. In 1948, she was tried by a Polish court in Lublin and sentenced to death. The former SS woman was hanged soon after for her crimes.
