Irma Grese, Ugly Beast Guard Nazi German Concentration Camps

Irma Grese, Nazi Germany concentration camp guard (Source: bergenbelsen.co.uk)

JAKARTA - Who would have thought that this beautiful young girl was dubbed a monster because of her character who likes to torture people. She is Irma Ilse Ida Grese or Irma Grese, a woman who since she was 19 years old has joined as a concentration camp supervisor for Nazi Germany. So what is the way of his life until he can get pleasure from torturing people?

Born in 1923 to Alfred and Berta Grese, Irma Grese's family life and childhood played a major role in shaping her fanaticism as the Hitler Youth, a Nazi ideological indoctrination program for Aryan youth aged 10 years and over.

As Felicia Morris explains in Beatiful Monsters (2011) Grese may have learned a lot about the Nazis through her father who was a member of the Nazi Party in 1937, but he was not a fanatic. It was the actions of her mother, Berta, that likely led Grese to immerse herself in the Hitler Youth program. Berta was burdened by the problems of her life including her husband's infidelity, so she committed suicide by drinking a bottle of chloride.

Grese and her father witnessed the tragedy. At that time, Grese was only twelve years old. This traumatic problem is what is likely to shape him into a sadistic person in the future.

Irma had more position in the eyes of the Nazis. The reason is he comes from a family of breeders. The Nazi regime upheld all young people especially those from the countryside because of their connection to the land, which the Nazis viewed as a holy entity.

At the age of fourteen, Irma left elementary school for reasons that are not clear. Somehow, in 1939, she later became a nursing assistant under the Senior Consultant of the SS Nursing Home and Hospital, Professor Karl Gebhardt in Hohenclychen.

Irma Grese (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Swerve

But Grese doesn't seem very good at treating patients. So after two years of working as a nursing assistant, she was referred to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp located in northern Germany, where she eventually found herself as SS-Aufseherin or camp supervisor.

Grese becomes the guardian of the most violent women who often commit inhuman acts. Grese's crimes began with over-training or beatings of prisoners.

Apparently at that time, Grese found some kind of pleasure in doing sadistic actions and seeing other people in pain, especially when he was the one causing it. He spent seven months in Ravensbruck as work supervisor.

In March 1943 he was transferred to the famous Auschwitz concentration camp. Initially working as a telephone operator, he was soon promoted to a higher-ranking camp guard.

It was through this work that he earned a well-known reputation, becoming the person who was both feared and hated in the Nazi camps. Olga Lengyel, a Hungarian prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenaui called her a woman with a whip.

"When he walked through the camp with a whip in his hand, he smelled cheap perfume. The plastic whip became his trademark, especially for the prisoners who witnessed (or were victims of) the stinging lashes. The camp guards beat and tortured the weak prisoners," he said. Lengyel as written by Daniel Brown in The Beautiful Beast (2004).

Witnesses said the woman was tasked with selecting prisoners to be executed in the gas chamber, shooting prisoners, and mentally torturing the starving prisoners by placing food guarded by wild dogs.

As a result of his crimes against humanity he was tried and sentenced to death. Grese became the youngest woman to be executed under the British judicial law.

After the Belsen Trial, many oblique stories about Irma Grese were circulating. It was rumored that she was a bitch who had an affair with both male and female officers at the camp. It was said that he also liked to torment the weak and prettier prisoners before sending them to the gas chambers.

However until the indictments were read out, Grese denied all charges of crimes against him. Even until the day he died December 13, 1945, he still tried to maintain his dignity. His last words before hanging were: "Hurry up!"

Irma Grese (bergenbelsen.co.uk)