October 7, 1923 - Irma Grese
Her career as a concentration camp guard spanned Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen, where she was implicated in the systematic torture and murder of Jewish prisoners. What distinguished her case historically was not only the nature of the crimes but the trajectory: she rose through the SS guard system while still a teenager and was tried, convicted, and executed before she turned 23. The Belsen trial placed her conduct on formal legal record, and her sentence — carried out in December 1945 — made her the youngest woman executed under British law in the twentieth century.
From Wikipedia
Irma Ilse Ida Grese (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Ravensbrück, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Bergen-Belsen. She has been widely known as the "Hyena of Auschwitz" and the "Beast of Belsen" for the atrocities she committed during her service.
Following the Allied occupation of Nazi Germany in April 1945, Grese was found guilty of war crimes involving the torture and murder of Jewish prisoners at the Belsen trial and sentenced to death by hanging. She was hanged at the age of 22, making her the youngest woman to be judicially executed under British law in the twentieth century.
Further reading
- The Beautiful Beast
A meticulous biography tracing Grese's origins in rural Germany to her rise as one of the most feared and notorious female perpetrators of Nazi atrocities.
View on Amazon → - Irma Grese and the Holocaust
An expanded second-edition account examining how Irma Grese became one of history's rare female perpetrators of Holocaust-era cruelties on par with infamous Nazi leaders.
View on Amazon → - Irma Grese
A fact-focused short account of Irma Grese's life as an SS guard at Auschwitz, exploring how she became one of the most feared women of her era.
View on Amazon →
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