SS-wardresses

[Max Williams]

Mike,
I don't think it's a police minature, but I could be wrong, not being an expert on insignia. The wings are too long and I have seen a few other examples of this brooch totally unconnected with the police.
Max

[giles120]

Information on the Belsen trial.

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/belsenfwd.htm

Interesting issues arising(focusing on Irma Grese):-

1. Irma Grese faced three counts of causing death by shooting. None were coroborated.

2. One witness(Auschwitz) testified that Irma Grese had a dog at the Birkenau Women's Camp, and she allowed this dog to attack and savage prisoners. The Court had heard the accused deny that she ever had a dog, and that has been corroborated by others of the accused and by other witnesses(survivors) from Auschwitz.

3. Another witness(Auschwitz) stated;
"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."
Irma Grese held a senior position in the Birkenau Womens Camp, but the
Aufseherinnen did not have jurisdiction over members of the SS. They were in every way subordinate to their SS colleagues. Grese may have identified the woman to the guard, and he may have shot the prisoner, but she was not in a position to issue an order.

4. Another witness(Auschwitz) stated that she saw Irma Grese shoot two girls dead by firing out of an open window. It was found that windows in the block in question could not be opened.

5. Another witness(Auschwitz) testified that she saw Irma Grese shoot a female prisoner(in August 1944) who was outside of her barracks during a camp wide lockdown. The witness testified that she had been secretly observing all of this action from inside her barracks.
At the trial it was identified that the witness's barracks were more than 150 feet away, and the camp was in lock-down, which meant that all windows were closed and shuttered.

6. Irma Grese held a firearms licence(thanks Mike), and was permitted to carry a sidearm(pistol). Grese only started to carry a pistol in November 1944, two months before the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Amy. See date in number 5 above.

7. An eyewitness and survivor of Birkenau Women's Camp swore under oath that Grese supervised the Strafkommando(Punishment Batallion) for seven months. Grese said at the trial(also under oath) that she supervised the Strafkommando for two days. Grese was given this task as punishment for a minor violation of camp rules. The eyewitness and survivor in question was loathed by camp prisoners and guards alike because of her "proclivity to latch onto whatever cause that could give her the best opportunity for advancement and/or safety." At Auschwitz, she was part prisoner, part Kapo and part informer. After the evacuation of Auschwitz, the eyewitness and survivor was moved to Belsen where she worked for the Camp Gestapo.

8. Before her promotion to Senior Supervisor at Birkenau Women's Camp, Grese worked in the Auschwitz mail-room, answered telephones, and worked in the Kommandants gardening squad. She was assigned to the mail room in December 1943 and the gardening squad in Autumn of 1943.

9. Grese was promoted as she performed her assignments to the required standard. With the arrival of the Hungarian Jews in May 1944, Grese was informed that she would have charge of 30,000 female prisoners in C Lager of Birkenau. A survivor testified that he saw Grese send "thousands and thousands of people, ill and in quite good health, to the gas chambers."
Research at the time would likely have revealed, and now it can be said with surety that no Aufseherin was ever authorized in the entire history of the camp to supervise so-called selections, which was the exclusive domain of the camp physicians. This does not mean that Aufseherin were not present at selections, it means that they did not conduct them.

10. Irma Grese did carry a whip, and did use it against prisoners. This whip was made of cellophane. At the trial, Grese denied carrying a rubber truncheon both at Birkenau and Belsen. Rubber truncheons were not issued to any Camp personnel or to any arm of the German Police service. It is a British instrument of coercion.

It would be wrong and a grave disservice to both survivors and those not so fortunate to argue that the evidence put forward at War Crimes trials is completely unreliable. What the above points show is that there were a number of inconsistencies in sworn evidence provided at the Belsen trail, and these inconsistencies were not explored to their fullest. Irma Grese was the 'Beautiful Beast' and therefore she must have been guilty of all charges filed against her. It is only when you read the affadavits and testimonies you question whether this really was the case.

Thanks.

[Ludger]

Thank you Max and Giles120, excellent!!

Ludger

[Ludger]

Hi everybody,

in his answer from 09.02.2004 Georg recommended two links to me (thanks for that, Georg!!!). On one of that sites I found a link which can I strongly recommend to all those who are interested in SS-wardresses: http://www.bis.uni-oldenburg.de/bisverl ... nhalt.html
The link leads to a site with the thesis for the diploma called "Frauen als Täterinnen im Nationalsozialismus" (Female wrongdoers in national socialism) by Claudia Taake at the University of Oldenburg. Beside the bios of Irma Grese, Vera Salvequart, Herta Oberhäuser und Anneliese Kohlmann it contains a very good analysis of the sociological backgrounds.

Greetings from

Ludger

[janusz]

[Vikki]

Very interesting photo of what appears to be a Polizei- as opposed to SS- Aufseherin (note miniature Polizei badge at her throat).

Mike,
I don't think it's a police minature, but I could be wrong, not being an expert on insignia. The wings are too long and I have seen a few other examples of this brooch totally unconnected with the police.
Max

Michael and Max,

It is a very interesting photo! The pin on her tie is what I've seen referred to as a "Wehrmachtgefolge" pin. But I've always understood that it was worn by non-uniformed Wehrmacht Auxiliaries (female and male). I have one of the pins, and you're right Max, the wings are longer than normal police insignia, and the police insignia are more oval vertically.

Her cap eagle's placement is also strange. A Heer Helferin's cap eagle would be placed low, on the turnback of the cap (where the cockade would go on an man's cap, since Helferinnen of all branches normally did not wear the cockade). And an SS-Helferin's cap eagle would have an SS eagle, and a little more centred, since their caps didn't have a turnback. Nor do SS-Helferinnen wear ties. In spite of the placement of the eagle, though, from some examples I've seen, her cap does appear to be a Heer Helferin's. She appears to be an Army Administration official--- Heeresverwaltung.

[michael mills]

Further to Giles 120's excellent post on Irma Grese:

There is some information on Grese that runs contrary to the conventional view in the 1949 book "I Did Not Interview The Dead" by Michael Boder.

That book is a selection of interviews with survivors of concentration camps conducted by Boder after their liberation. I am writing here based on my memory of the book.

One of the interviewees was a Jewish woman who had been a prisoner in Birkenau, and had quite a bit to say about Grese. This woman seems to have been quite drawn to Grese, and did not regard her as some sort of monster. She pictures her as a rather timid young girl who had difficulties controlling large numbers of woman prisoners, and used her dog to intimidate them. However, this witness was quite specific in saying that Grese did not set her dog on the prisoners, or get it to savage them but always used it just to bark at the prisoners and frighten them.

Since that witness would have no reason to minimise any crimes by grese, her account can be taken as true.

The stories about Grese's dog can be seen as a malevolent exaggeration and distortion of the truth by former prisoners who now in effect had the power of life and death over their former gaolers. The reality, that Grese used her dog to bark at the prisoners and intimidate them, was distorted into the falsehood that she set her dog to savage the prisoners and kill them.

It is also apparent that certain female prisoners, who may have had lesbian and/or sadistic tendencies themselves, were quite attracted to Grese because of her striking physical appearance, but were unable to admit those feelings to themselves, and sublimated them by turning her in their minds into some sort of sexual beast.

The Hungarian Jewess Gisella Perl, who wrote a book about her experiences in Auschwitz, is a prime example. In her book, she includes a long and detailed description of Grese whipping a female prisoner's breasts and having a sexual orgasm while doing so. The sensual terms in which Perl describes that alleged occurrence indicates that these were feelings that she herself had, and which she sublimated through the psychological process known as transference, transferring onto Grese feelings in herself that she could not accept as a respectable Yiddishe Mama.

The same effect is apparent in the reaction of Grese's male captors. The British soldiers who took her into custody seem to have been rather disturbed by her mannish physicality, and became very receptive to the image of her as a sexually depraved monster. That is why she was linked with Kramer as a sort of Nazi Lady Macbeth, even though she was not the senior wardress at Belsen (that position was held by Elisabeth Volkenrath), and was certainly not equal to Kramer in rank and authority. There were even rumours that she had a sexual relationship with Kramer, which seems unlikely.

[xcalibur]

The prior post might have been interesting but for the writer's continuing anti-semitic slanders.

[michael mills]

I have now found the copy I made of the relevant passage from the book "I Did Not Interview The Dead", by David Broder.

It is on pages 155-157 of the book. The person being interviewed is a Miss Lichtheim, a young Jewess.

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 blamkets. 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!

So there you have it. The prisoners were forced to wait for several hours for the process of counting the prisoners to be concluded. It took such a long time because there so many prisoners to count and so few wardresses to do the counting, and the prisoners could not be allowed to move about freely until the count was complete, because otherwise there was no way of telling whether the prisoners had been counted or not.

Furthermore, according to Miss Lichtheim the counting did not start until eight in the morning, so it is not as if the prisoners had to get out of bed early.

The acts of violence committed by Irma Grese occurred in the context of enforcing the prohibition of cutting up the blankets issued to each prisoner. It is obvious why it was prohibited to cut up the blankets to make head coverings; after a while there would be no blankets left, and the camp staff did not have an inexhaustible supply of blankets to issue.

Where a prisoner had disobeyed the rules and made a head covering out of bits of blanket, Grese punished her with a few strokes of her whip (which was made of plaited cellophane and thus unlikely to cause a grave injury, apart from a bit of stinging feeling), and also had her dog bark at the prisoner to intimidate her.

As Miss Lichtheim testified, Grese specifically did not allow her dog to bite the prisoners. Her purpose was not to kill or maim the prisoners in her care, but to so frighten them that they would not disobey the camp regulations again.

So Irma Grese does not appear a sadistic monster at all from Miss Lichtheim's testimony. In fact, she appears more like one of those tough nuns in the convent schools of the time. Miss Lichtheim talks of the "terrible deeds" done by Grese, but they were not terrible at all compared with the reality of Auschwitz. Miss Lichtheim may have been influenced by what she had subsequently read about Grese; but perhaps it was just a case of the shock of being exposed to some rather tough but not brutal discipline after being snatched from a middle-class Jewish existence.

It is patently obvious that the lurid tales told about Grese after her arrest at the time of the hand-over of Belsen Camp to the British Army were inventions by malevolent former prisoners, arrived at by taking the events described by Miss Lichtheim and blowing them up out of all proportion. Perhaps those prisoners were responding to a certain amount of encouragement from their British interrogators.

Miss Lichtheim's account also shows the effect that Grese's physical appearance had on the people she came into contact with. Lichtheim seems to be drawn to Grese's physical beauty, which causes her to react by judging Grese's disciplinary actions more harshly. The same effect is apparent in the reaction of Grese's British captors to her.

[michael mills]

Here is Claudia Taake's summary of Grese's case in the link posted by Ludger:

Der Fall Irma Grese ist aus heutiger Sicht sehr schwierig zu beurteilen. Die
britische Militärregierung wies damals alle Vorwürfe, sie habe Lynchjustiz
an Grese begangen, vehement von sich.14 Tatsächlich hatten sich die Briten
sehr bemüht, den Angeklagten von Bergen-Belsen einen fairen Prozeß zu
machen. Andererseits standen sie unter erheblichem Druck: Die ganze Welt
wartete auf eine Verurteilung der Verbrecher aus Bergen-Belsen. Die Bilder
von Leichenbergen und ausgemergelten Überlebenden waren um die
ganze Welt gegangen. Die Person Greses spielte in der Presseberichterstattung
eine besondere Rolle. Die außergewöhnlich junge Frau, die sich
freiwillig zum Dienst als Aufseherin gemeldet hatte, im Gerichtssaal ihre
Straftaten selbstbewußt gestand, zuweilen gegenüber dem Gericht ausfallend
wurde, und dazu auch noch ein hübsches und vor allem „arisches“
Äußeres hatte, entsprach ganz offenbar dem Prototyp einer fanatischen
Nationalsozialistin.15 Sie wurde von der Presse zu einer Art „Bestie“ stilisiert.
Trotzdem läßt sich der Vorwurf, das Gericht sei durch die Presse
beeinflußt gewesen, im Nachhinein nicht aufrecht erhalten. Das wäre reine
Spekulation. Zweifellos hätten die Briten weltweite Proteste riskiert, wenn
sie Grese nicht zum Tode verurteilt hätten. Genau in diesem Punkt, wurde
das Gericht später in der Literatur allerdings auch kritisiert: Der ganze
Prozeß sei eine „Farce“ gewesen, die Urteile hätten schon vorher festgestanden.
16

[rappcom]

I may be of some help to you Ludger on various SS-wardresses, are you still interested in this information ?

[mty]

Other photos showing KZ aufseherin/wardress uniforms, headgear and insignia? These seem to be really hard to find.

[jv]

Other photos showing KZ aufseherin/wardress uniforms, headgear and insignia? These seem to be really hard to find.

You may be interested in these photos. I do not know where I got them from but they answer your question. The Schiffer book The Camp Women is really the best resource for this topic. jv

[jv]

This photo of Irma Grese on her way to her trial is interesting not only because of British soldier's gallantry but also her immaculate coiffure and dress sense. This photo appeared in a Dutch magazine at the time of the trial and the caption read something like this: "As you can see she looks very stylish and many a Dutch girl will envy her nylon stockings and fashionable shoes".
Ouch. jv

[rappcom]

The photo far above [side profile] with the questionable medals, etc. on coat: That photo is of Bergen-Belsen Kapo "Hildegard Lohbouer". She was a German political criminal held at Belsen and soon became Kapo, the uniform top was obtained by her during the last days of the war just before Belsen`s liberation. I know due to my research on her.

Rappcom