Conscripted into concentration camp service by her Nazi masters in July 1944, when she was 25, Ruth Elfriede Hildner quickly achieved a reputation for brutality, sadism and murder. Her first appointment was as matron at Ravensbruck concentration camp. In September she was transferred to Dachau as a guard, and from there she worked at a number of smaller camps.
Her last posting was to the small camp of Flossenburg, near Hof, in Germany. In April 1945, as the US Army drew near, the guards evacuated the women, forcing them on a death march to another concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. On the way Hildner beat the women with rods and whips, causing a number of deaths.
In early May Hildner and the other guards fled the Czech camp. Hildner melted into the hordes of refugees but was recognised and arrested in April, 1947. On Friday, May 2nd, 1947, she was tried and found guilty of war crimes, and hanged on the same day at Prague Central Prison. She was 28.