Irma Grese is a woman who was really loud in 1943. The Beautiful Beast, as she was called, was the supervisor at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. She was famous for her sadistic tendencies which led to the death of many thousands of people. It was because of Irma Grese that the inmates of the concentration camp often died in torment. Why is the overseer considered the most brutal woman of the Third Reich? Check out the story of the Beautiful Beast, or the cruel Irma Grese.
Irma was born on October 7, 1923, in the German city of Wrechen (Mecklenburg). She had four siblings and grew up in a poor family in the countryside. Friends described her as being very fearful and not very intelligent, which meant that the girl was constantly harassed at school. Not only did her peers at school laugh at her, but also the situation at Irma's house left a lot to be desired. When the girl turned 12, her mother committed suicide - she suspected that her husband was cheating on her and was unable to cope with this fact. For a long time, Irma could not come to terms with the death of her beloved mother, who was her greatest support. However, she suffered not only because of the departure of the closest person - she was tormented by her peers all the time. Irma left school at the age of 14. She decided to start a completely new card, away from people laughing at her and away from places that reminded her of her mother.
Grese was 16 when she went to Fürstenberg, a district of the city of Eisenhüttenstadt in eastern Germany on the Oder. The teenager found a job there is a dairy and later in a grocery store. Eventually, she landed in Hohenlychen, where she started working as a nurse for SS soldiers. Irma liked the job. She felt appreciated when the soldiers thanked her for helping to dress their wounds. The young girl wanted the best possible training in a new field. She took the nurse exam several times. Despite many attempts, she failed to pass it. Disappointed and furious with the failure, Irma gave up her dream of being a nurse. Anger grew within her at the fact that she had failed her exams. Irma, however, did not intend to return to her hometown. There she would be even more depressed and angry. So the girl decided to do something else. She started looking for a job that would allow her to fulfill herself as a human being. This is how she ended up in ... Auschwitz.
Irma Grese found out about the need for new members of the SS ranks. The young girl decided that she had nothing to lose, especially since she liked the Nazi ideology. Irma has been fascinated by her since she was 14 years old. At 19, she decided to enroll in special training to become a concentration camp supervisor. The girl saw an opportunity for herself in this profession. She completed her training and apprenticeship at the Nazi camp in Ravensbrück. Then she was delegated to Auschwitz-Birkenau - a complex of German Nazi concentration and extermination camps, operating in the years 1940–1945 in Oświęcim.
In 1943, Irma started working in Auschwitz. It was there that she was baptized as the "Beautiful Beast". The overseer was a specific character. When she walked around a concentration camp, she always left the scent of sharp perfumes behind her. Each morning, she carefully prepared for the commencement of the celebration, making all sorts of improvements and changes to her ironed, custom-made uniform. Irma looked extraordinary against the background of the desperate events in Auschwitz, but her beauty did not go hand in hand with kindness. Grese was a real tyrant to the prisoners - that's why she was given this and no other pseudonym. The young woman quickly won the respect and recognition of senior members of the SS ranks. So at the end of 1943, she became the senior supervisor of the concentration camp in Auschwitz.
Irma, with her big blue eyes, fashionable hairstyle, and shapely figure, was liked by both men and women. Under all this beautiful setting, however, she hid her dark face. Grese was famous for her sadistic tendencies and her enormous, unrestrained sex drive. The woman often got into affairs with men (including Josef Mengele), but also women (for example with the supervisor Maria Mandel). Irma was also cruel to the prisoners. She had no mercy for them - kicking, hitting, and intimidating anyone she didn't like. She usually tortured people with her favorite tool, which she always had at hand, namely a whip. It was made of steel and cellophane lined with pearls. Grese often walked around the camp in the company of a dog (German Shepherd) with which she pissed the prisoners. The woman often accompanied Dr. Mengele in selections. Why was Irma acting this way? Well, being brutal with the prisoners was a condition that Irma had to fulfill in order to be promoted to a higher position.
Irma Grese was fascinated by the sight of the furred prisoners. Most often, she abused them by hitting them with a whip, of course, accompanied by a faithful dog. The supervisor forced the women to practice cruelly, for example, she made them hold very heavy stones over their heads. Irma waited until the stone fell on the prisoner exhausted by exercise. A woman often hit women in the breast with her whip - bacteria quickly entered the wounded areas and an infection developed, which led to the death of the victim. The sadistic overseer most often chose weak and sick people as her victims. Everyone trembled with fear as Grese passed by. Irma had no sympathy for anyone - she enjoyed watching people die.
The suffering of the prisoners gave Irma real pleasure. The death of the victims boosted the woman's already strong sex drive, which almost immediately found an outlet for it. Grese knew that it was impossible to have sex with the prisoners. It was a top-down prohibition that she had to abide by. The supervisor, however, seemed completely unconcerned. She made women have sex. She also often made younger prisoners watch what she was doing with her victims. Irma chose all the people she sexually abused from those sentenced to death. Thanks to this, she hoped that no one would find out about her actions. In the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, prisoners found her the most terrifying supervisor. Historians estimate that Grese murdered up to 30 people every day.
Irma Grese escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau from the Red Army in January 1945. Together with other Nazis, she was arrested in Ravensbrück, from where they were all taken to Lunenburg, where they were held accountable for all their crimes. Irma pleaded guilty to the commission of all alleged acts. The journalists who attended the trial had a hard time believing that such a beautiful woman had committed such cruel murders. On November 17, 1945, Grese heard the sentence - she was sentenced to death.
The sentence on 22-year-old Irma was carried out on December 13, 1945. The woman was executed by the English executioner Albert Pierrepoint - the Chief Executioner of the United Kingdom. While standing on the trapdoor and waiting to be hanged, Irma managed to whisper to the executioner: "Hurry up!" The body of the former supervisor of the concentration camp was buried in the prison cemetery, but a few years later it was transferred to the town of Hameln. Ultimately, the grave was removed because it was too often visited by neo-Nazis. How many people did the Beautiful Beast kill? It is known that she supervised 31 barracks in which about 30,000 women were kept. It is impossible to say how many victims were Irma Grese murdered in total. However, she was responsible for the deaths of most of the prisoners she supervised.
Bibliography:
- Brown Daniel Patrick: A beautiful beast. The crimes of the SS-Aufseherin by Irma Grese, Replika Publishing House, Poznań 2017
- Lucas Hugo Pavetto: Irma Grese. Hiena z Auschwitz, Saga Egmont Publishing House, Warsaw 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment