Erna Petri: Wife of an SS Officer Who Executed Six Jewish Children

Erna Petri was the wife of an SS officer who became a willing participant in Nazi crimes during World War II. Her story remains one of the most disturbing examples of how ordinary civilians could become involved in the Holocaust and the machinery of mass murder.Born in 1920 in the Weimar Republic, Erna Petri married Horst Petri, an ambitious member of the Waffen-SS. When he was assigned to manage SS agricultural estates in occupied Poland, she entered a world shaped by racial ideology, forced labor, and violence. The estates in Galicia formed part of Nazi plans for Germanization and were worked by exploited Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish laborers.According to witness testimony, Erna Petri actively participated in the abuse of workers, accompanied her husband during hunts for escaped Jews, and helped enforce the brutal system operating on the SS estates. Deportations organized from the estate sent approximately 150 Jews to Janowska concentration camp and the Bełżec extermination camp.In September 1943, Petri encountered six Jewish boys who had escaped from a transport bound for Sobibór. After bringing them to her home and feeding them, she led the children into a nearby forest and shot them one by one. The crime later became one of the central charges against her.Following the war, Erna and Horst Petri evaded justice for many years. In 1961, both were arrested in East Germany and tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Horst Petri was sentenced to death and executed. Erna Petri received a life sentence but was released in 1992. She died in 2000.This documentary explores Erna Petri's life, the SS settlement system in occupied Poland, the murder of the six Jewish boys, and the broader question of how ideology and circumstance could transform ordinary people into perpetrators of genocide.This episode is part of the series Fascist Wives and Companions.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv