Execution of Irma Grese
- The Hyena of Auschwitz - Nazi Guard at Auschwitz & Bergen-Belsen - WW2

24 April 2022

Category: Female Nazi Guards

Irma Grese was born on 7 October 1923 and he came to Ravensbrück which was located near to her family home in 1942. Irma Grese remained in Ravensbrück until March 1943 when she was sent to Auschwitz Birkenau. At Auschwitz concentration camp, she became one of the most hated Nazi guards and she owed her infamous nicknames "the Hyena of Auschwitz" and "the Beautiful Beast" to her cruelty and brutality.

In 1944 she was promoted to senior SS supervisor which was the second highest rank possible for female concentration camp wardens. Grese supervised thousands of prisoners in an overcrowded camp and was well known for carrying her woven leather whip which was covered with cellophane so that human blood could be easily washed from it.

No mercy for prisoners

Irma Grese left Auschwitz on 18th January, 1945. She went to Ravensbrück, and in March she came to Bergen Belsen concentration camp along with a large number of Ravensbrück prisoners. She kept mistreating the prisoners who were according to her own words “ so dirty and ill “ until the bitter end. After Bergen Belsen’s liberation, Irma Grese was captured by the British forces together with her fellow Nazi criminal colleagues such Elisabeh Volkenrath, head warden in Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen concentration camps and Josef Kramer, the last commandant of Bergen Belsen.

She was tried at the Belsen trial which began on 17 September 1945. The British Military tribunal sentenced Irma Grese to death by hanging. She was 22 years old when the British executioner Albert Pierrepoint carried out the sentence on 13 December,1945. Walking to the gallows her final and only word was "schnell" meaning quickly.

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