Irma Grese Photos

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#31

Post by David Thompson » 04 Oct 2006, 03:45

Michael -- You wrote:
I think that Forum members have a right to read Grese's own words, and make up their minds.
Needless to say, the poetry translation was not the objectionable part of the deleted posts. Informative posts which comply with the forum and section rules are always welcome here.

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#32

Post by Marius » 04 Oct 2006, 03:52

David Thompson wrote:Marius -- You wrote:
Irma Grese was a "scapegoat".
A lot of words and very few real proofs against her.
Irma's deposition during the trial is very clear. More clear is impossible.
She assumed all your responsibilities.
See the complete testimony:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... ight=grese
It will not come as a surprise to our readers, and should not come as a surprise to you, that most criminals do not admit their guilt. That is why we have trials, so that the evidence for and against a defendant can be weighed by the judge or judges. In Irma Grese's case, the judges heard her testimony, examined the evidence against her, and didn't believe her story.

You also wrote:
We are tired of so many lies.
We're all tired of lies, but most of us are just as tired of the claim of "lies" being raised and never proved. Specific, sourced examples, along with proof that each of the examples is also a lie, would help take your post out of the realm of personal opinion and into the world of provable fact.
How to reconcile these facts:

To check in http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/belsen2.htm

Ilona Stein said that at Auschwitz, Kramer, Grese and Mengele took part in selections.

In an affidavit Ilona Stein said : " At a selection a Hungarian woman tried to escape and join her daughter. Grese noticed this and ordered one of the S.S. guards to shoot the woman. I did not hear the order but I saw Grese speak to the guard and he shot at once."

Abraham Glinowieski said that Grese was the camp leader at Camp C and when a transport from Hungary arrived she sent hundreds of sick and healthy people to the gas chambers.

Here are the facts:

Selection for the gas chambers?
Only the doctors could make "selections".
To order guards to shoot in prisoners?
SS-Helferin ("SS Helper"), go them Aufseherin, Blockfüherin, Rapportführerin, Erstaufseherin, Lagerführerin or Oberaufseherin, they didn't have authority to give orders to guards. They didn't have military hierarchy. They were not members of SS, they were just auxiliary and therefore they didn't have power administrative or military.
These depositions, in thesis, are not true.
Other depositions as the one of Dora Szafran affirms that Irma shoot in prisoners, but they never mentioned the victims' names.

And the court accepted these testimonies...

Marius


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#33

Post by michael mills » 04 Oct 2006, 04:04

Document 8
Letter of Irma Grese of 29 November 1945 to Helene Grese.

Leni! My dear little sister!

You have made me very happy with the good news from home. I am quite another person. Now we must cross our fingers that I can stay alive. I am not letting my courage sink, and I hope that a little change will come into view.

Leni! Is it true that my Anneli has left something good for me? This was my only wish, to get something like that so as not to be hanged like a witch! [Note: Anneli was a girl who as a court observer became particularly interested in Irma Grese and took up written correspondence with her via Helene Grese. She apparently wanted to procure poison for her to enable her suicide.] Now I am quite at ease, for now I know that I can avoid the terrible manner of death by making an easy end to myself. Leni, please send best wishes to my Anneli and many, many thanks for her sports event, which has come to me as if on demand! If I should no longer be in a position to thank Annelies, you will have to look after it, for she is my saviour - ! (You know what I mean, don't you). Just imagine, Leni! Anneli likes me so much, she is putting her own life on the line just to free me from the fear of death. She is quite simply rescuing me from the terrible fate that is facing me. I can't find words of thanks, for it is the greatest happiness granted to me in the last days of my life! That happiness is: a sports event from my dear Anneli!

Don't have any bad thoughts, for I am still a little hopeful !! - If it really must be, and I am to do, don't you be sad, for I am dying for my country! You have to be as pround of that as I am! I can still hope and not let myself be robbed of hope! ----- If I have other thoughts I will write to Anneli too, since she deserves it!

Kisses from
Irmkins.

Regards to Anneli.

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#34

Post by Marius » 04 Oct 2006, 04:05

yabint wrote: Besides you forget that she was a volunteer at the camps. Noone forced her to work there!
That is not true. See the deposition.(The griffin is mine)

R: I was born on 7th October, 1923. In 1938 I left the elementary school and worked for six
months on agricultural jobs at a farm, after which I worked in a shop in Luchen for six months.
When I was 15 I went to a hospital in Hohenluchen, where I stayed for two years. I tried to become
a nurse but the Labour Exchange would not allow that and sent me to work in a dairy in Fürstenburg.
In July, 1942, I again tried to become a nurse, but the Labour Exchange sent me to Ravensbrück
Concentration Camp, although I protested against it
.
I stayed there until March, 1943,
when I went to Birkenau Camp in Auschwitz. I remained in Auschwitz until January, 1945.

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#35

Post by Marius » 04 Oct 2006, 04:21

Michael Mills,

Thank you very much for the translations.

Marius

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#36

Post by David Thompson » 04 Oct 2006, 10:02

Readers interested in seeing summaries of the testimony of the 15 witnesses against Irma Grese can see them at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=109160 The London Times news reports of the trial can be seen at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=19219

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#37

Post by simondodkins » 04 Oct 2006, 12:00

In July, 1942, I again tried to become a nurse, but the Labour Exchange sent me to Ravensbrück
Concentration Camp, although I protested against it. I stayed there until March, 1943,
when I went to Birkenau Camp in Auschwitz. I remained in Auschwitz until January, 1945.
That is interesting that she never intentionally volunteered for service in the camps but was told to go there by the Labour Exchange.

Can anyone comment on the proceedures of the Labour Exchanges and how they operated? I am curious if she really have a choice in where she was sent?

Also, why did the camps have to offer better rations and higher pay? Was the work considered so degrading and so unpleasant that they not get sufficient people to staff the system of their own free will? (hence higher incentives were needed to get people).

Some people have suggested that the Germans considered the Holocaust "glorious" work and that Germans were falling over themselves to apply for positions on the camp staff so they could exercise their sadistic desires to kill, starve and torture Jews for the fun of it.

Surely if that were the case, they would not have to offer higher wages and better conditions? If they had long lines of Germans longing to join the camp staff, then it would surely be that wages would be LOWER than other "careers" on offer for Ms. Grese at the time?

Seems to me to be simple economics of the employment market.

Perhaps this is an interesting insight into how working in the camps was viewed?

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#38

Post by Andreas » 04 Oct 2006, 12:10

simondodkins wrote:Some people have suggested that the Germans considered the Holocaust "glorious" work and that Germans were falling over themselves to apply for positions on the camp staff so they could exercise their sadistic desires to kill, starve and torture Jews for the fun of it.
I have never come across such a view. Could you be a bit more specific as to who 'some people' are?

Thanks.

All the best

Andreas

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#39

Post by simondodkins » 04 Oct 2006, 12:15

I seem to recall a senior SS officer describing it as such but I can't remember his name. The comment was not designed to be an exact quote but merely an expression of how I understand (some) Germans viewed their work.

The issue I was highlighting is the apparant supply and demand forces at work in respect to employment of people in the camps.

The less people want to do it, the higher the incentives needed to get people to consider it. Just something that struck me as interesting.

Cheers,

Simon.

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#40

Post by Marius » 04 Oct 2006, 19:43

simondodkins wrote:
In July, 1942, I again tried to become a nurse, but the Labour Exchange sent me to Ravensbrück
Concentration Camp, although I protested against it. I stayed there until March, 1943,
when I went to Birkenau Camp in Auschwitz. I remained in Auschwitz until January, 1945.
That is interesting that she never intentionally volunteered for service in the camps but was told to go there by the Labour Exchange.

Can anyone comment on the proceedures of the Labour Exchanges and how they operated? I am curious if she really have a choice in where she was sent?

Also, why did the camps have to offer better rations and higher pay? Was the work considered so degrading and so unpleasant that they not get sufficient people to staff the system of their own free will? (hence higher incentives were needed to get people).

Some people have suggested that the Germans considered the Holocaust "glorious" work and that Germans were falling over themselves to apply for positions on the camp staff so they could exercise their sadistic desires to kill, starve and torture Jews for the fun of it.

Surely if that were the case, they would not have to offer higher wages and better conditions? If they had long lines of Germans longing to join the camp staff, then it would surely be that wages would be LOWER than other "careers" on offer for Ms. Grese at the time?

Seems to me to be simple economics of the employment market.

Perhaps this is an interesting insight into how working in the camps was viewed?
Simondodkins,

High payment?

Deposition of Irma,
to check in http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... ight=grese

"Q: What did you get at Ravensbrück?

A: 54 marks per month.

Q: Why did you get so much less than the others?

A: Because I was only 18."

Is to receive smaller wage better payment?
I don't think this it was a good wage.

Better conditions?

To work in the middle of contagious diseases, how the typhoid fever, were better conditions?
Was to live in unhealthy conditions of the concentration camps better conditions?
Irma Grese, or any other person, when did they go to the fields, did they know that it will beat, to torture and to murder jews in the concentration camps?

I will say more:

1) What happened in the concentration camps, in spite of they be instituted legally by the state, it was a secret.
2) nobody knew what happened in the concentration camps.
3) the exterminations, in Auschwitz, only began to happen in 1944.

Marius

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#41

Post by Marius » 04 Oct 2006, 20:31

David Thompson wrote:Readers interested in seeing summaries of the testimony of the 15 witnesses against Irma Grese can see them at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=109160 The London Times news reports of the trial can be seen at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=19219
David Thompson,

Thank you for the information regarding The London Times.
I had not seen this post.

Marius

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#42

Post by Penn44 » 05 Oct 2006, 03:28

simondodkins wrote:I seem to recall a senior SS officer describing it as such but I can't remember his name. The comment was not designed to be an exact quote but merely an expression of how I understand (some) Germans viewed their work.

Simon.
I agree with Andreas. I have never encountered any SS officer describe concentration work as "glorious." Eicke comes closest when he describes concentration camp duty as important work for the Reich against "the enemies behind the wire," but the descriptions like "glorious" was never used.

Perhaps Dodkins should become more familiar with at least some of the literature on the subject before he makes such statements.

Penn44

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#43

Post by michael mills » 05 Oct 2006, 03:59

The link posted by David Thompson to the evidence against Grese by 15 witnesses at the Belsen Trial is particularly useful.

The evidence of acts which, if true, would warrant sentence of death under British law at the time, was:

1. Dora Szafran claimed that in Camp " A " in Block 9, Grese had shot two girls who had tried to escape through a window after being selected for the gas chamber, and were lying on the ground outside.

2. Ilona Stein claimed that Grese took part in selections at Auschwitz with Kramer and Mengele. She claimed that Grese pointed out to a guard some prisoners trying to hide, and they were shot. She claimed that Grese ordered one of the S.S. guards to shoot a Hungarian woman who tried to escape.

3. Abraham Glinowieski claimed that when a transport from Hungary arrived Grese sent hundreds of sick and healthy people to the gas chambers.

4. Gertrude Diament claimed that Grese was responsible for selecting victims for the gas chambers at Auschwitz. She also claimed that women kicked by Grese with her heavy boots were likely to die from the injuries sustained, although she had no direct evidence of such deaths.

5. Klara Lobowitz claimed that she had often seen Grese with Dr. Mengele selecting people for the gas chamber and for forced labour in Germany.

6. Erika Thuna claimed that Grese both took part in selections for the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

7. Edith Trieger claimed that in August, 1944, she saw Grese shoot a Hungarian Jewess, aged 30, through the left breast, and that later she went up to the victim and found that she was dead.

8. Helene Kopper claimed that while Grese was in charge of the Strafkommando (Punishment Kommando) working in a sand pit from 1942-1944 (in Court Kopper changed this period to seven months), it was her practice to pick out certain of the Jewish woman prisoners and order them to get something from the other side of the wire, with the result that they were shot by the guard. She claimed that Grese was responsible for at least 30 deaths a day resulting from her orders to cross the wire, but many more on occasions.

These claims fall into four categories:

1. That Grese personally and deliberately killed three prisoners by shooting:

- two girls selected for the gas-chamber who tried to escape through a window;
- a Hungarian Jewess aged 30, in August 1944.

2. That she caused other members of the camp staff to kill prisoners:

- she pointed out to a guard some prisoners trying to escape, and they were shot;
- she ordered a guard to shoot a Hungarian woman who tried to escape;
- she sent prisoners across the wire so that would be shot by the guards as ostensibly attempting to escape.

3. That she caused the deaths of large numbers of prisoners in the gas-chamber by selecting them for that fate.

4. That she may have indirectly caused the deaths of prisoners who may have died from injuries received when she kicked them.

What is the reality behind the above four categories of alleged capital crimes?

The fourth category can be immediately disregarded. There was only one witness to that allegation, Gertrude Diament, and that witness stated that she had no proof that prisoners kicked by Grese had in fact died, only that she thought they might die from the injuries received.

Furthermore, the allegation that Grese kicked prisoners so badly that they might well have died is contrary to the testimony of Miss Lichtheim, a prisoner at Belsen who was not a witness at the Belsen Trial but was later interviewed by David Broder. Miss Lichtheim, who obviously did not like Grese and regarded her as cruel, stressed that the reason why Grese meted out corporal punishment to individual prisoners was for infractions of camp rules, such as the prohibition of cutting up issued blankets to make articles of clothing, and had the purpose of deterring the prisoner being punished from committing any further infractions. Miss Lichtheim also testified that Grese was restrained in the use of her dog against the prisoners, not allowing it to bite them. The blows dealt by Grese therefore had a limited admonitory purpose, and it is unlikely that they would have been severe enough to cause death, given the relative restraint in her meting out of punishment that Miss Lichtheim attested to.

The third category of allegations almost certainly represents a distortion or exaggeration of the truth. Grese herself never denied being present at selections, both for labour and for "Sonderbehandlung", which she confirmed knowing meant death, and indeed it was part of the normal duties of the wardresses to be present at selections of the female prisoners under their control.

However, the role of the wardresses, who were merely auxiliaries employed to carry out the daily management of female prisoners, was limited to accompanying the prisoners to the selections and to guarding them during the process, to prevent any escaping. They had no role in making the decision who would live or die; that was reserved for the camp doctors, ie Mengele in the case of female prisoners, since he was the chief doctor of the Women's Camp. Neither did the wardresses make the decision whether a selection was to be carried out; that was an order issued by the highest level of the camp command, to which no wardress belonged, since they were mere auxiliaries.

Accordingly, it is unlikely that Grese caused the death of any person in the gas chamber by making a decision that a person should be selected for that fate. The role of the wardresses in the concentration camp system did not give her the authority to make any such decision.

The second category of allegations may contain some element of truth. Grese herself testified that her duty at selections was to keep an eye on the prisoners undergoing selection, and to prevent them escaping. Accordingly, it is entirely possible that when she saw prisoners hiding or running away, she pointed them out to (male) guards, and it is possible that in some cases the guard concerned shot at those prisoners, and perhaps wounded or killed them.

However, it is unlikely that she gave orders to a guard to shoot at a prisoner, since the wardresses, as auxiliaries, had no authority to give orders to SS-men of any rank. Furthermore, the one witness who claimed that Grese had given such an order, Ilona Stein, mitigated her claim by stating that she had not heard the alleged order, but had merely seen Grese talk to the guard, who then shot the Hungarian woman trying to escape, and had assumed that Grese had given an order.

A more likely scenario is that in cases where Grese saw prisoners trying to escape and reported that to gurds, the decision to open fire was made by the guard on his own initiative. Accordingly, Grese cannot really be held culpable for any resulting death or injury to the prisoners concerned.

The most serious allegation in this category is the one made by Helene Kopper, that Grese induced prisoners under her control on work parties to cross the security wire, in the full knowledge that those prisoners would then be shot by the guards, and she caused the deaths of 30 prisoners per day by that method.

A brief explanation of that action is called for at this point. According to much survivor testimony, it was a common practice for staff in charge of work parties working under guard or near the boundary fence, particularly by Kapos, to take a prisoner's cap, throw it across the security wire or beyond the line of guards, and send the prisoner to retrieve it; once the prisoner crossed the wire or went beyond the line of guards, it was treated as an escape attempt and the prisoner was shot by the guards accompanying the work party or in the watchtowers.

Since the guards received rewards for preventing escapes, eg extra rations, they had a vested interest in ostensible escape attempts that were easy to prevent, and therefore it is likely that the practice described above was the result of an unofficial agreement or conspiracy between guards and the camp staff (who were separate entities) to stage "escape attempts".

It is entirely possible that Grese was a party to that conspiracy, but to have been so, she would have to have been in charge of work parties, and there is no reliable evidence that she ever had that role, except for a very limited period. The one witness who made the allegation, Helene Kopper, proved to be very unreliable; for example, she intitally claimed that Grese had been in charge of work parties as part of the Punishment Company for a period of two years, and then changed her claim to seven months.

Furthermore, no attempt appears to have been made by the Court to seek corroborative evidence that Grese had been in charge of work parties where she would have been in a position to engage in the criminal practice. Accordingly, this particular allegation against Grese must be regarded as unproved.

The first category of allegations, that Grese with her own hands wilfully killed prisoners by shooting, is the most serious, and the one most deserving of the highest measure of punishment if true.

However, although it is entirely possible that there were occasions when Grese killed with her own hands, there are good reasons for doubting that she in fact killed the three prisoners who two witnesses, Dora Szafran and Edith Trieger, alleged she personally shot.

In the case of the Hungarian woman who Edith Trieger alleged was shot dead by Grese in August 1944, there is a strong complementarity with the allegation by Ilona Stein that Grese ordered a guard to shoot an escaping Hungarian woman. It is entirely possible that these two allegations refer to the same incident.

One very credible explanation for the differences in the versions of Trieger and Stein is that Trieger only saw the dead body of the Hungarian woman who had been shot, and subsequently heard a claim by other prisoners that the woman had been shot on the orders of Grese. In her own mind, she then converted that story into one where Grese herself, rather than the guard, carried out the shooting. It is noteworthy that Grese herself stated that the woman most probably had been shot by a guard, in line with Ilona Stein's version of the event.

As for the allegation by Dora Szafran that Grese shot two prisoners who were lying on the ground after jumping through a window after attempting to escape a selection, it is not prima facie impossible, and cannot be ruled out. However, that allegation must be tested against other evidence as to what Grese did when she discovered prisoners hiding or running away, including her own statements.

There are the statements by witnesses, described above, to the effect that when Grese saw prisoners hiding or running away, she pointed them out to guards who, it is claimed, then shot them. There is other testimony that when Grese discovered prisoners hiding, she beat them and dragged them to the place of selection.

So one has to ask, why on one occasion did she allegedly depart from her normal practice on discovering hiding or escaping prisoners, which was to beat them or report them to guards, and personally shoot two escapees? There is a strong possibility that the allegation by Szafran is a distortion or exaggeration; ie it may be that two prisoners tried to escape and were caught by Grese, who handed them over to guards who then shot them. Or the whole episode may have been fictitious, concocted by Szafran on the basis of incidents where she had seen Grese catching escaping prisoners and beating them or reporting them to guards. Such a conclusion is supported by the assertion made by the Defence during the trial that the windows through which the prisoners were alleged to have jumped could not in fact be opened.

In summary, the conclusion must be that there is no hard evidence beyond reasonable doubt that Grese personally and wilfully committed any act of murder that would have justified the death sentence under the British law of the time. It is apparent that the hysterical campaign against Grese whipped up by the local press immediately after her capture, including dubbing her the "blond beast" and putting her on the same level with camp Commandant Kramer, prejudiced the Court against her, to the extent that it was prepared to believe testimony that under other circumstances it may well have considered unreliable or open to doubt.

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#44

Post by simondodkins » 05 Oct 2006, 10:39

Penn44 wrote: Perhaps Dodkins should become more familiar with at least some of the literature on the subject before he makes such statements.

Penn44
Dear Penn44,

I am familiar with at least SOME of the literature on the subject, thank you very much.

If you have any further condescending comments to make I will have no hesitation in requesting further moderator action against you.

Please keep your posts constructive.

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#45

Post by Andreas » 05 Oct 2006, 12:14

Marius wrote: Simondodkins,

High payment?

Deposition of Irma,
to check in http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... ight=grese

"Q: What did you get at Ravensbrück?

A: 54 marks per month.

Q: Why did you get so much less than the others?

A: Because I was only 18."

Is to receive smaller wage better payment?
I don't think this it was a good wage.
I don't think there is anything that would allow us to draw a conclusion one way or the other. One figure I have come across is that the average annual wage for a skilled worker was RM 2,000, or roughly three times what Irma Grese made. But from this the worker would have to support a family, rent, food, and all or part of these were probably taken care of in the case of guards. So for an 18 year old with no job skills, the wage may actually have been very good. If you disagree, please feel free to show us comparison figures of what she could have made in other positions.
Marius wrote: Better conditions?

To work in the middle of contagious diseases, how the typhoid fever, were better conditions?
Was to live in unhealthy conditions of the concentration camps better conditions?
Irma Grese, or any other person, when did they go to the fields, did they know that it will beat, to torture and to murder jews in the concentration camps?
We already know that she did beat people even though she was not allowed to. A cynic may term that ability to engage in sadistic activity a non-wage benefit of her job.
Marius wrote: 1) What happened in the concentration camps, in spite of they be instituted legally by the state, it was a secret.
2) nobody knew what happened in the concentration camps.
3) the exterminations, in Auschwitz, only began to happen in 1944.

Marius
1) That is not correct for the concentration camps, but maybe more true for the extermination camps. Ordinary people did have chances to observe and interact with worker's columns from e.g. Aussenlager. The same would go for workers working alongside forced labour coming from camps.
2) See response to 1) on top of that, Guards knew, administrators knew, and former inmates (e.g. political prisoners who were released) knew.
3) So what?

All the best

Andreas

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