Irma Grese
| Irma Grese | |
|---|---|
Photograph of Grese in August 1945, while she was awaiting trial
|
|
| Nickname(s) |
The Beautiful Beast Die Hyäne von Auschwitz ("The Hyena of Auschwitz") |
| Born | 7 October 1923 Wrechen, Free State of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany |
| Died | 13 December 1945 (aged 22) Hamelin, Germany |
| Allegiance |
 Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Schutzstaffel
|
| Years of service | 1942–1945 |
| Rank | SS-Helferin |
| Unit | |
Irma Ida Ilse Grese (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a female SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and served as warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen.
Grese was convicted for crimes against humanity committed at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and sentenced to death at the Belsen trial. Executed at 22 years of age, Grese was the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the 20th century. She was nicknamed by the camps' inmates "the Hyena of Auschwitz" (German: die Hyäne von Auschwitz).
Irma Grese was born to Berta Grese and Alfred Grese, a dairy worker. Irma was the third of five children (three girls and two boys). In 1936, her mother committed suicide by drinking hydrochloric acid after discovering that Alfred had had an affair with a local pub owner's daughter. Alfred Grese is speculated to have joined the Nazi Party in 1937, and remarried in 1939.
Irma Grese left school in 1938 at age 14, probably due to a combination of a poor scholastic aptitude, bullying by classmates, and a fanatical preoccupation with the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel), a Nazi female youth organization, of which her father disapproved. Among other casual jobs, she worked as an assistant nurse in the sanatorium of the SS for two years and unsuccessfully tried to find an apprenticeship as a nurse.
Irma Grese worked as a dairy helper and was single when she volunteered for service in a concentration camp. From mid-1942 she was an Aufseherin (female guard) at Ravensbrück and in March 1943 transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the second half of 1944 she was promoted to Rapportführerin, the second-highest rank open to female KZ-wardens. In this function she participated in prisoner selections for the gas chambers.
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