volunteers. Members were assigned as administrative staff and supply personnel and served in command positions and as guards at women's concentration camps. While female concentration and extermination camp guards were civilian employees of the SS, the SS-Helferinnen who completed training at the Reichsschule für SS-Helferinnen in Oberehnheim (Alsace) were members of the Waffen-SS. Like their male equivalents in the SS, females participated in atrocities against Jews, Poles, and others. In 1942, Himmler set up the Reichsschule für SS Helferinnen (Reich school for SS helpers) in Oberehnheim to train women in communications so that they could free up men for combat roles. Himmler also intended to replace all female civilian employees in his service with SS-Helferinnen members, as they were selected and trained according to Nazi ideology. The school was closed on 22 November 1944 due to the Allied advance. SS-Mannschaften The SS-Mannschaften (Auxiliary-SS) were not considered regular SS members, but were conscripted from other branches of the German military, the Nazi Party, the SA, and the Volkssturm for service in concentration camps and extermination camps. Foreign legions and volunteers Beginning in 1940, Himmler opened up Waffen-SS recruiting to ethnic Germans that were not German citizens. In March 1941, the SS Main Office established the Germanische Leitstelle (Germanic Guidance Office) to establish Waffen-SS recruiting offices in Nazi-occupied Europe. The majority of the resulting foreign Waffen-SS units wore a distinctive national collar patch and preceded their SS rank titles with the prefix Waffen instead of SS. Volunteers from Scandinavian countries filled the ranks of two divisions, the SS-Wiking and SS-Nordland. Swiss German speakers joined in substantial numbers. Belgian Flemings joined Dutchmen to form the SS-Nederland legion, and their Walloon compatriots joined the SS-Wallonien. By the end of 1943 about a quarter of the SS were ethnic Germans from across Europe, and by June 1944, half the Waffen-SS were foreign nationals. Additional Waffen-SS units were added from the Ukrainians, Albanians from Kosovo, Serbians, Croatians, Turkic, Caucasians, Cossack, and Tatars. The Ukrainians and Tatars, who had suffered persecution under Stalin, were likely motivated primarily by opposition to the Soviet government rather than ideological agreement with the SS. The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini was made an SS-Gruppenführer by Himmler in May 1943. He subsequently used antisemitism and anti-Serb racism to recruit a Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the SS-Handschar. The year-long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World