Irma Grese: An act of great kindness at Bergen-Belsen

[Janssen]

Thought this might be of interest.

During her time as an Oberaufseherin in Auschwitz, Irma Grese took an active interest in the women's camp orchestra. Irma knew many of the orchestra girls’ names and, whenever they walked past her, she would wave at them as if they were acquaintances.

In January 1945 the Auschwitz evacuations began. Yvette Lennon (birth name, Bonita Assael) and her sister Lily Assael, both members of the orchestra, were evacuated to Bergen-Belsen (Irma Grese was transferred to Belsen in March, 1945).

While they were at Belsen, Yvette's sister became extremely ill. Despite tremendous fear, Yvette went to the officers’ building to ask Fräulein Grese if she might be able to get some sort of job in order to earn more food for her sister. Despite knowing Yvette by name at Auschwitz, Irma failed to recognise her.

Some time later, Yvette saw Fräulein Grese walking through the camp. Now feeling desperate, Yvette summoned up the courage to approach her again. This time Irma recognised her and asked her what she wanted. Yvette explained her sister’s situation and Irma asked to be taken to see her.

Upon Fräulein Grese’s entrance to the block, everyone stood frightened and at attention. After seeing Yvette’s sister, Irma ordered the block leader to give the girl two rations of soup a day. She then took Yvette to the office and gave her a whole loaf of bread, and then secured her a job in the kitchen.

After three days, Yvette saw Fräulein Grese again and explained to her that the work in the kitchen was too difficult for her; her emaciated and weakened body could not lift the heavy pots in the kitchen. Irma laughed and gave her a cleaning job instead for which Yvette received extra soup which she often traded for more nutrient dense foods.

Had it not been for the benevolent actions of Irma Grese, Yvette’s sister (and possibly Yvette herself) would have died.

Source: Yvette Lennon interview with the USC Shoah Foundation. Visual History Archive, 1995, Interview 979.

The interview is not available online but is available on a DVD from the Shoah Foundation.

http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/vha979

[Hawkwind]

It was a cynical attempt to ingratiate herself to the prisoners. Irma Grese knew the end was nigh and thought maybe should could save her skin by pretendig to be a decent person. This was a ploy used by many die hard Nazis to make fascism acceptable.

[Magdalena1977]

Well, Irma saved my aunt life in Auschwitz. But you should read /hear another stories like:
-Fania Fenelon in her book, "Playing for Time" , where Miss Grese is referred to as an "angel." Miss Fenelon honestly describes her as being solicitous of her health and urging her to overcome the typhus she was stricken with at Belsen.
- interview with Carol( part 5). She tell us, Irma cried
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504861
- interview with our polish Nina ( part I). She talks about irma - very interesting!!!! you must listen
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504595
- interview with Magda Blau - Loads of stuff on Grese
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504861
and one more
https://thecjn.ca/arts/books-and-author ... auschwitz/
Enjoy it

[Magdalena1977]

Another one
https://islandnow.net/holocaust-survivo ... nce-forum/

[sekudlyda]

If this is a misguided attempt to rehabilitate the image of Irma Grese, I'm afraid your deluding yourself. Just because Grese was young and pretty at the time of her December 1945 execution, doesn't mean she was not a sadistic murderer in the SS. She was.

[Magdalena1977]

I do not rehabilitate Grese and I do not try deluding myself.I don not care, she was pretty or young. We do not have any names of people, she murdered, but we do have names of the people, she tried to help.That's all :
Thank you - Janssen for starting the topic...

[sekudlyda]

I'm sorry, Magdalena; perhaps I'm confused. I read your post on the Phil Nix SS & police website on February 14th; the one in which you surmised that Irma Grese was not executed until 1947 due to a nonexistant pregnancy. Meaning no offense to you personally, but such a supposition is bogus and easily refuted. Now, you and Janssen are posting about the possibility that Grese was nice to someone during her reign of terror at Auschwitz and Belsen. She was sentenced to death by the British in their first Belsen trial for personally committing murder and mistreatment of inmates she oversaw as an SS wardress. So what is it you and Janssen are suggesting? That she could be nice on occasion? Here's one for you... Hitler loved dogs (as do I). So what? I'm not trying to be obtuse but I don't get the point of these pro-Irma posts.

[Magdalena1977]

I'm sorry, Magdalena; perhaps I'm confused. I read your post on the Phil Nix SS & police website on February 14th; the one in which you surmised that Irma Grese was not executed until 1947 due to a nonexistant pregnancy. Meaning no offense to you personally, but such a supposition is bogus and easily refuted. Now, you and Janssen are posting about the possibility that Grese was nice to someone during her reign of terror at Auschwitz and Belsen. She was sentenced to death by the British in their first Belsen trial for personally committing murder and mistreatment of inmates she oversaw as an SS wardress. So what is it you and Janssen are suggesting? That she could be nice on occasion? Here's one for you... Hitler loved dogs (as do I). So what? I'm not trying to be obtuse but I don't get the point of these pro-Irma posts.

If you read more carefully, you would read that my cousine told me about her pregnancy and her execution in 1947. For me, it doesnt make a sence, but wanted to know what you people think.This is a historical forum and these types of questions are most appropriate.Of course I know, she was sentemced to death in dec 1945.
When it comes to me, I just want to show, that there was also goodness in her and my aunt or Yvette arent the only one she helped.
As I wrote earlier, we do not have the names of the people Irmgard murdered.And one more thing....We have freedom of speech, dont we?
End of the topic, at last for me

[sekudlyda]

Yes, Magdalena, we have free speech. I'm old and getting kind of cracky perhaps. Maybe your cousin got Irma confused with another female war criminal?

[Magdalena1977]

Oh:) Please dont say things like that Im so happy, I met you and could have a conversation with you . Have no idea if you are a boy or a girl, but wish you all the best. It was a pleasure to meet you. Take care of you darlin'.
Think my cousin, confused Irma with someone else..

[sekudlyda]

Thank you for your kind words, Magdalena. I meant to write "cranky" in my last post, not "cracky." Yes, indeed, I'm getting old! I enjoyed meeting you, too, online. I wish I had been able to visit Poland when I was last in Europe (a long time ago). You take care, too, Magdalena.

[Magdalena1977]

LOVE YOU, BEST WISHES

[Grese_Book_Author]

I am writing a comprehensive book on Irma Grese. Thus far I have spent over a year delving into research.

There are many reasons Grese showed kindness. She could be quite the chameleon.
I believe there were times when she used that kindness as a power play. I also believe when it came to family, Irma did actually have a soft spot. Not much of one, but it was there. And then some it was, knowing that the end was near, she did try to save her own skin.

Remember there are no such thing as monsters. There are people who do horrific things. There is a continuum of murder. We all have the capability to kill. Think of it as a spectrum. On one end are the people who will absolutely refuse to kill (a small percentage). On the far end are people who killing is as normal as squashing a bug (i.e. serial killers, but this is rare, about 5-10% of the spectrum). In the middle are most of us. We kill to survive, for sports, in defense, for work...

I am NOT defending Grese or any of them. I can say they were not brainwashed. They did not kill/torture because they were forced, or "following orders," or scared. The brutal officers like Grese and Mandl made up 10% of the guards. They were brutal people before they went in. But, they were also people. Complex ones.

If we don't understand "how" these people happened, we can't understand how the Holocaust happened.

[michael mills]

Grese Book Author:

I recommend to you the book by David Pablo Boder "I Did Not Interview The Dead", published in 1949". This is a book of interviews conducted by Boder with a number of survivors of the German concentration camps.

One of the interviews was with a Miss Lichtheim who had been a prisoner at Auschwitz, and had been under the authority of Grese, whom she describes. It is obvious that she did not like Grese, eg she describes Grese keeping the prisoners waiting outside in the cold for hours until she comes to carry out the roll call. Accordingly, she cannot be accused of minimising Grese's crimes. However, the description she gives does not show Grese as being sadistic or unnecessarily cruel.

Lichtheim mentions two things about Grese. One is that Grese had a dog which she used to intimidate the prisoners by barking at them, but she did not allow her dog to bite the prisoners.

The other is that she punished prisoners who had cut up the blankets issued to them in order to make head coverings. That punishment consisted of striking them two blows on the head with her whip, which according to other sources was made of plaited cellophane.

Neither of those two things strikes me as particularly sadistic. The punishment for cutting up the issued blankets was probably quite reasonable, given that the blankets must have been in short supply.

The British military tribunal that sentenced her to death did not not give any specific reasons for any of the death sentences it handed down. In her case it was most probably the claims made by some former prisoners that in two cases she had been personally responsible for the deaths of prisoners. One was that she personally shot a prisoner who was trying to escape through a window; the other was that she ordered a male guard to shoot a prisoner.
The second accusation was unlikely to be true, since the female camp staff had no authority over male members of the SS.

It is also possible that the British judges were influenced by the wild tales told about her by two female Jewish prisoner doctors, which accused her of all sorts of sexual perversions, such as that she had orgasms while whipping prisoners. It is likely that those tales were highly exaggerated, and may have represented projection onto Grese of lesbian tendencies that one of those doctors may have had but could not admit to herself; the great detail in which she describes the orgasms that Grese supposedly had strongly suggests that.

[michael mills]

Back in 2004 I had posted on another thread the relevant extract from the book by Boder. Here it is again, for your information:

MISS LICHTHEIM:....................................I can remember Irma Grese. Her I knew in person. You should have heard of her.

QUESTION: Which Irma Grese?

MISS LICHTHEIM: Irma Grese who was recently hanged.

QUESTION: Oh, that one.

MISS LICHTHEIM: Yes, from Belsen. I knew her personally. I didn't know that she was called Irma Grese. After liberation I saw her picture in the paper. These things have been written about, how she dressed and what kind of a face she had and so I know that it was she. I remember her very well. She did with us, specially with our block, such terrible things. Her face, you know, was so beautiful. Large blue eyes and beautiful golden hair. Beautifully dressed in such a trim SS costume and a stick in her hand and a large dog. She would come to us every day and before she would arrive we had to wait for her three, four hours. From eight in the morning to eleven in the morning, we were called to the Appell square without washing, without food, without anything. We had to stand there in the rain and snow and frost, that was all the same. Stand lined up, four or five abreast. The block trusty was inside the block, and waiting until she came. We had to stand, we couldn't sit down. We wanted to sit down even on that wet, muddy ground. But we had to stand at attention till Irma Grese came. Then she would come. She had once prohibited us to have anything on our head.

QUESTION: What do you mean by "anything on our head"?

MISS LICHTHEIM: A kerchief or some covering. Kerchiefs we really didn't have. Everything was taken away from us, but we had such little rags that were cut out from the blankets, grey blankets. It was fortunate that we could have such a little piece. And standing outside in the snow or in the rain we would throw such a thing over our heads. We needed it. She had prohibited this. Those girls who were doing it, would hide behind. They would not stand in the first rows, but in the fifth row behind. She could not count at a distance with her eyes. But she had to put on every head her whip. That is how she counted. One after the other.

QUESTION: Did she beat you with the whip?

MISS LICHTHEIM: So, one, two, three (Demonstrating the strokes) and nobody could move. And when she would notice that some girl would have that little piece of blanket on her head she would approach her immediately with a smile, and would tear down that piece of blanket with the person together. She would call her dog - not that the dog should bite - but just to terrorise. It was more terrible than being bitten. [My emphasis]

QUESTION: What would the dog do?

MISS LICHTHEIM: The dog would jump at the girl and gnash its teeth as if he was going to bite. Irma Grese did not permit him to bite. She did not want that. She just wanted to horrify us [my emphasis]. She wanted to cause anguish and terror, and that was much worse. So she would throw down this blanket together with the person and kick her and beat her with her whip. She should know not to do it again once it was prohibited [my emphasis]. And then, afterwards, when Irma Grese would talk to the blokova - when she would talk to the block trusty, she would ask how many people there were, how many have died and so on, and show such a beautiful countenance, such a kind face. Indeed, nobody could tell that just a moment ago she had made such scenes and was so bad, that she could be so merciless to other people. As if we were somebody worse than the block trusties!