43 Facts About Irma Grese

Irma Ilse Ida Grese was a Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen.

Irma Grese has been widely known as the "Hyena of Auschwitz" and the "Beast of Belsen" for the atrocities she committed in Birkenau.

Irma Grese was executed at the age of twenty-two, making her the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the twentieth century.

Irma Ilse Ida Grese was born on 7 October 1923, in Wrechen, a rural village in Mecklenburgische Seenplatte, to parents Alfred Anton Albert Grese and Berta Wilhelmine Winter.

Irma Grese was the third of five children, the others being Helene, Lieschen, Alfred, and Otto.

Irma Grese, who was twelve years old at the time, found her mother dead.

Irma Grese later told survivor Magda Hellinger that she was "quite proud of this because the organization was open only to 'genuine' Aryans," but her membership caused a rift between herself and her father.

Irma Grese left school in 1938 at the age of fourteen and worked at a dairy factory in Furstenberg for six months before moving on to work as a retail clerk in a small shop in Lychen for another six.

Irma Grese was hired the following year as an apprentice aide to an assistant nurse at the Hohenlychen Sanatorium, where SS personnel received treatment.

Irma Grese was mentored by director Karl Gebhardt, whom Grese later described as a "saint" of the Nazi Party.

Irma Grese was eventually let go from her position in 1941 because she did not meet expectations, though Grese claimed years later that the prevented her from becoming a nurse.

Gebhardt pitied Irma Grese and gave her the contact information for a colleague who worked at the Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Irma Grese met with Gebhardt's colleague and was instructed to come back when she turned eighteen, which was six months away.

Irma Grese did not return within the expected time frame because she was hired to work at another dairy farm from March 1941 to June 1942.

Irma Grese went to see her father Alfred in 1943, who had remarried in 1939 to a widow with four children of her own, while wearing her SS uniform.

Alfred was initially impressed with Irma Grese, who had not told him about the violence she had inflicted on the prisoners at the camp.

Alfred's opinion changed when his stepdaughter came to him in tears because Irma Grese had torn the head and limbs off her doll, and his young son playfully aimed Irma Grese's revolver at him.

Irma Grese returned to Ravensbruck immediately following the incident, which would be her final return home, and spent the rest of her time at the concentration camp overseeing work details until March 1943, when she was transferred to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Irma Grese was assigned various duties within the camp over the next few months.

Irma Grese, who was twenty-one years old at the time, was promoted to performing satisfactorily.

In May 1944, Irma Grese was given the authority to oversee "Camp C", which consisted of thirty-one huts and held approximately 30,000 Jewish women from Poland and Hungary.

However, survivor Helen Spitzer Tichauer revealed in her 1945 testimony that Irma Grese was insufficiently qualified to command this section of Birkenau alone.

Irma Grese was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

Irma Grese's body was perfect in every line, her face clear and angelic and her blue eyes the gayest, the most innocent eyes one can imagine.

Irma Grese committed the majority of her violent acts while in command of "Camp C", where she wielded a rubber truncheon, pistol, and whip.

Survivor Abraham Glinowieski stated in his testimony that Irma Grese sent both sick and healthy Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers during selection.

Survivor Edith Trieger claimed Irma Grese punched and kicked prisoners who attempted to flee the selection parades.

Irma Grese frequently ordered prisoners to "make sport", which referred to strenuous punitive exercises.

Irma Grese allegedly had affairs with married physician Josef Mengele and Josef Kramer, but her relationship with the former ended when he discovered her illicit liaisons with women.

Survivor Lengyel stated in her memoir that Irma Grese had "favorite" prisoners who she would treat as slaves for a period of time until she became bored, at which point she would send the women to the gas chambers.

Survivor Gisella Perl, who worked as a doctor at Birkenau, wrote in her own memoir that Irma Grese experienced orgasmic pleasure while watching her operate on young women's breasts that had been cut open by Irma Grese's whip and infected with lice or dirt, using only a knife and no anesthesia.

Irma Grese remained at Birkenau's "Camp C" until her brief transfer back to Ravensbruck on 18 January 1945, when all personnel were ordered to move westward due to the advance of Soviet forces.

Irma Grese was not supposed to be assigned to Bergen-Belsen because Kramer planned to transfer her to another camp once she arrived.

Irma Grese was vehemently opposed to the transfer because she wanted to stay with her new lover Franz Wolfgang Hatzinger, a married man fourteen years older whom Grese affectionately referred to as "Hatchi".

Irma Grese repeated the torturous and sadistic acts she committed at Birkenau in Bergen-Belsen.

Irma Grese was said to have appeared arrogant when the British arrived at the camp and became hostile when she attempted to attack a British officer who entered one of the huts, causing her to be immediately restrained.

Irma Grese was arrested and imprisoned at the Wehrmacht Tank Training School, three kilometers from the camp, where she was interrogated for two days.

Irma Grese faced two separate charges for war crimes committed at Bergen-Belsen and Birkenau between 1 October 1942 and 30 April 1945.

Irma Grese defended herself against these charges, saying, "Himmler is responsible for everything that has happened, but I suppose I am as much to blame as the others above me".

Helene testified that she did not believe Irma Grese could have acted violently against any prisoners, stating that "in our school days when, as it sometimes happens, girls were quarrelling or fighting, my sister never had the courage to fight, but on the contrary, she ran away".

Irma Grese was found guilty of both war crime charges on the fifty-fourth day of the Belsen trial.

Irma Grese was said to have been hanged first, as Pierrepoint wanted to "[spare] her any kind of trauma" because she was the youngest prisoner on the list to be executed, at twenty-two years old, but this was not the case.

The original, dated and timed witnessed statements of the returned death warrants record that Irma Grese was the second to be executed at 10:03, whereas Volkenrath was the first at 09:34, and Bormann at 10:38.