Irma Grese
Excerpts from the Belsen Trial and Biography
Irma Grese was born on the 7 October 1923 and in 1938 she left elementary school and worked for six months on agricultural jobs at a farm, after which she worked in a shop in Lychen for six months.
When she was fifteen she went to a hospital in Hohenlychen where she stayed for two years, she tried to become a nurse but the Labour Exchange would not allow that and sent her to work in a dairy in Furstenburg.
In July 1942 she tried again to become a nurse, but the Labour Exchange sent her to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, although she protested against it, she stayed there until March 1943, when she was transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
She remained in Auschwitz until January 1945.
After Auschwitz Irma Grese was sent to the Bergen – Belsen Concentration Camp where she was captured by the British Army when they liberated the camp on 15 April 945. She became known as the “Bitch of Belsen” as the details of her crime became known.
Helene Grese testified:
“I am the sister of Irma Grese, 20 years old and live at Wrecken in Wreckensburg. My father was an agricultural worker, and I have two sisters and two brothers, my mother died in 1936. When she was 14 years old, my sister Irma worked on a farm of a peasant in a village near where we lived.
From the time she entered the Concentration Camp Service I saw her twice. In 1943 she came home on leave, and the only thing she told us about her work was that her duties consisted of supervising prisoners so that they would not escape.
I saw her when she left Auschwitz in 1945, and she told me that she had been working for a considerable period in a sort of a post office, receiving and distributing mail, and that some times she had been detailed to guard duties.
From your knowledge of your sister, do you think her a person likely to beat the prisoners under her charge?
No.
In our schooldays when, as it sometimes happens, girls were quarrelling and fighting, my sister never had the courage to fight , but on the contrary she ran away.
When your sister went to work on the farm when she was 14, how long did she stay there?
About six months to a year.
Where did she go from there?
She went to Hohenlychen, as a sort of a nurse, and then to a small dairy in Furstenburg, where she worked, I believe twelve to eighteen months.
Did she go from there into the SS?
Yes in 1942 she went to Ravensbruck, which was very near us.
How long before 1943 was it since you had seen your sister?
In spring 1942 when she was working in the dairy.
When she came home in 1943, did your father give her a thrashing?
I did not see that, but he was quarrelling with her because she was in the SS.
Did he forbid her to come to the house again?
I do not know. She never came again.
Was not that because she told you what she did at Ravensbruck?
I do not know why.
You would be 16 at that time, you never asked what she was doing in the concentration camp, and she never told you?
She told us she was supervising the prisoners working inside the compound, and she had to see that they were doing their work well and that they did not escape.
We asked her, “What do the prisoners get for food, and why have they been sent to a concentration camp?” and she answered that she was not allowed to talk to the prisoners and did not know what sort of food they got.
Why did your father lose his temper with her?
Because he was very much against her being in the SS. We all wanted to belong to the Bund Deutscher Madchen but he never allowed us to do so. I have not seen my father since April 1945.
Irma Grese questioned by her lawyer Major Cranfield.
Did you carry a stick at Auschwitz?
Yes an ordinary walking stick
Did you carry a whip at Auschwitz?
Yes, made out of cellophane in the weaving factory in the camp. It was a very light whip, but if I hit somebody with it, it would hurt. After eight days Kommandant Kramer prohibited whips, but we nevertheless went on using them, I never carried a rubber truncheon.
Where did the order come from for what we call “selection parades”?
That came by telephone from a Rapport-Fuhrerin or from Oberaufseherin Dreschel.
When the order came were you told what the parade was for?
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/grese.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010
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