Irma Grese Photos

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Francoise
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#91

Post by Francoise » 30 May 2007, 00:24

I have always been intrigued by Irma, and about 18 years ago, contacted the Holocaust Centre here in Melbourne. They put me in contact with a former Auschwitz inmate, a Jewish lady named Franziska, formerly from Czechoslovakia. She was multilingual and hence became an interpreter in Auschwitz. What she said abut Irma Grese had me speechless. It was nothing like what I'd expected to hear. Franziska caught typhus and collapsed at morning parade -it was Irma who arranged for her to go to hospital, and she visited Franziska with gifts of oranges, and later gave her a good winter coat.

Franziska was adamant that Irma's most striking personality characteristic was her naivety and innocence. She laughed when I mentioned the horror stories and said that in her 3 years at Auschwitz, she never saw Irma ill treat anyone, and it was only after the war that she heard the amazing accusations against her.Franziska was also adamant that survival in Auschwitz wasn't too difficult, providing that you didn't catch typhus, which was the big killer.

Like everyone else, she described Irma's appearance as "angelic". Personally, I just can't see what everyone raves about. There's one pic of Irma that's OK, but the others are just so-so. Was she beautiful, but not very photogenic? Try as I may, I just can't see what others do. Franziska described her as "more beautiful than Grace Kelly". H'mmmm, I'm yet to be convinced. When compared to other auxiliary women, she looked fine, because she was a lot younger- but otherwise, not terribly remarkable.

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#92

Post by michael mills » 30 May 2007, 03:29

A very interesting post.

The view of the Franziska lady of Grese as naive and innocent accord with an account by a female survivor that I read some time ago, in which Grese was portrayed as a rather attractive character sho tried to gain the friendship of the women under her control.

Unbiassed accounts of Grese depict her not as the cruel, sadistic and perverted monster of male sexual fantasy, but as a rather weak and immature person struggling to control large numbers of female prisoners and enforce the harsh camp discipline, which she did by using her dog to bark at and intimidate the prisoners and hitting with her plaited cellophane whip those who committed offences against camp rules, such as cutting up issued blankets in order to make head-coverings. In that respect she was a cog in an extremely inhumane system, but she is not depicted as personally cruel or having any hatred of the women under her control; rather she acted toward them as if they were her schoolmates, telling them about her fantasies of becoming a film-star.

Grese's innocence and naivety is shown by the fact that she seems to have truly believed that she could gain the friendship of the prisoners, even though in their eyes she must have appeared as the representative of the inhumane system that was so cruelly oppressing the, simply by the very position she held. After her arrest, she seems to have been genuinely surprised by the tales told about her by a small number of former prisoners, and could not understand why they hated her.

It appears that Grese was a victim of male sexual fantasies about women with boots and whips, and also of the psychological needs of some female prisoners who transferred their own secret and unadmitted sadistic lesbian impulses to her. One needs only to read the lurid account by someone like Gisella Perl to realise that Grese had become the peg on which all sorts of sexual fantasies were hung.


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Penn44
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#93

Post by Penn44 » 30 May 2007, 10:44

Francoise wrote:I have always been intrigued by Irma, and about 18 years ago, contacted the Holocaust Centre here in Melbourne. They put me in contact with a former Auschwitz inmate, a Jewish lady named Franziska, formerly from Czechoslovakia. She was multilingual and hence became an interpreter in Auschwitz. What she said abut Irma Grese had me speechless. It was nothing like what I'd expected to hear. Franziska caught typhus and collapsed at morning parade -it was Irma who arranged for her to go to hospital, and she visited Franziska with gifts of oranges, and later gave her a good winter coat.

I am somewhat surprised that a Holocaust center would put you in contact with a survivor as they are normally very sensitive to the privacy of these people. I also find it interesting that you made such an effort to gain additional information on someone who is a very minor player in the Nazi drama.

But to the point: Sporadic acts of kindness, even if true, does not excuse other illegal acts.

Given the horrible conditions in the camps and with the prisoners struggling for survival, Grese, as a senior SS female guard, would have lost effective control of the camp had she shown the compassion and leniency towards many prisoners as she is alleged to have shown by some.
michael mills wrote:A very interesting post.
The view of the Franziska lady of Grese as naive and innocent accord with an account by a female survivor that I read some time ago, in which Grese was portrayed as a rather attractive character sho tried to gain the friendship of the women under her control.

As much as I despise the SS and particularly those who nowadays admire them and make apologies for them, I do not believe the SS to be as stupid as to put a “naïve and innocent” person in charge of a large number of prisoners. Probably Grese showed the camp administration that she possessed the requisite leadership talents and toughness to perform as senior SS female guard.
michael mills wrote:Unbiassed accounts of Grese …..

I have found that whether you consider an account is biased or unbiased is dependent on whether it supports your preconceived apologetics. Your comment serves as a red flag that here comes another apologetic statement.
michael mills wrote: ... depict her not as the cruel, sadistic and perverted monster of male sexual fantasy, but as a rather weak and immature person struggling to control large numbers of female prisoners and enforce the harsh camp discipline, which she did by using her dog to bark at and intimidate the prisoners and hitting with her plaited cellophane whip those who committed offences against camp rules, such as cutting up issued blankets in order to make head-coverings. In that respect she was a cog in an extremely inhumane system, but she is not depicted as personally cruel or having any hatred of the women under her control;


Public perception aside, for a war crimes court, Grese’s personal motivations or emotions towards these prisoners were less important than the fact that she committed the crimes.
michael mills wrote:… rather she acted toward them as if they were her schoolmates, telling them about her fantasies of becoming a film-star.
When it comes to Irma Grese your apologetics knows no bounds. I have no idea what kind of school you attended, but I doubt seriously that your fellow students thrashed you with a whip, but then again ...
michael mills wrote:Grese's innocence and naivety is shown by the fact that she seems to have truly believed that she could gain the friendship of the prisoners, even though in their eyes she must have appeared as the representative of the inhumane system that was so cruelly oppressing the, simply by the very position she held. After her arrest, she seems to have been genuinely surprised by the tales told about her by a small number of former prisoners, and could not understand why they hated her.

Your use of the word, “innocence” is misplaced, and misleading. What we are dealing with here is not innocence or naivety of some Nazi “Rebecca of Stony Brook Farm”, but a very pathologically disturbed woman. What kind of ass would tell starving, wretched prisoners about her fantasies of becoming a film-star when these prisoners are suffering? Grese is so self-absorbed and ego-centric, symptomatic of a narcissistic, antisocial personality, that she could not properly empathize with the sufferings around her. That Grese could not understand why people hated her is part of that self-absorbed, ego-centric personality.

Grese's wartime experiences did not make her a narcissistic, antisocial personality. These personality traits do not develop overnight, and Grese came into the camp system with them. Her mother committed suicide, and that is perhaps one indicator of a dysfunctional family system from which Grese developed her personality traits. One thing is interesting is how these pathological traits, while frequently distruptive in normal life, helped Grese to rise rather quickly within the female SS guard ranks to obtain a senior leadership position carrying an enormous amount of responsibility.

I know of someone else who cannot empathize with the sufferings of others with whom he does not identify. I find it rather interesting that this person is, however, capable of empathizing with Irma Grese. One wonders what a person like this sees in the mirror.
michael mills wrote:It appears that Grese was a victim of male sexual fantasies about women with boots and whips, ...

That Grese struck female prisoners with a whip is no fantasy. You have admitted that she did so in your own posting. Case closed. In proving Grese guilty of this specific charge, the existence of any male sexual fantasies about her is irrelevant. What is relevant are the facts in the case. Any discussion of male fantasies by admirers of this woman is merely an attempt to distract attention away from her guilt.

Although there is no evidence that lurid male fantasies of women and whips led to her being convicted, there is evidence, as I have stated in previous posts, that the myth and legend of Irma Grese has benefited from the lurid fantasies of male admirers who feel a pathological need to defend this woman.
michael mills wrote: … and also of the psychological needs of some female prisoners who transferred their own secret and unadmitted sadistic lesbian impulses to her. One needs only to read the lurid account by someone like Gisella Perl to realise that Grese had become the peg on which all sorts of sexual fantasies were hung.

I find it interesting in how you have made the victimizers [Irma Grese] into the victim, and the victim into the victimizer.

You read quite extensively, but in one statement you can compromise yourself so much that you undermine everything you have said to date. What evidence do you have that “… some female prisoners transferred their one secret and unadmitted sadistic lesbian impulses” to Grese?

Do you have some special Lesbian Detector Device that you point at a woman to determine if she is a secret Lesbian, and what is on her mind? How do you determine this?

In these eyes of a court of law, Grese’s sexual motivations, if any, behind her perpetration of her crimes is irrelevant. What is relevant is the facts. By your own admission Grese struck prisoners. On account of this fact Grese was found guilty and hanged. End of story. Next case please.

In ending, let me say this, all these flakey efforts to rehabilitate Irma Grese will come to naught. For one, the vast majority of people already have an idea of what the Nazi regime was like, and what went on in the concentration camps. And two, Irma Grese had her neck stretched. She’s gone, and unless you are some kind of Nazi loving wacko she is not missed.

“… for all the King’s horses and for all the King’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

… for all the Nazi lovers and for all the Nazi apologizers cannot rehabilitate Irma Grese.

Penn44

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Peter H
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#94

Post by Peter H » 30 May 2007, 11:24

Francoise wrote:I have always been intrigued by Irma, and about 18 years ago, contacted the Holocaust Centre here in Melbourne. They put me in contact with a former Auschwitz inmate, a Jewish lady named Franziska, formerly from Czechoslovakia. She was multilingual and hence became an interpreter in Auschwitz. What she said abut Irma Grese had me speechless. It was nothing like what I'd expected to hear. Franziska caught typhus and collapsed at morning parade -it was Irma who arranged for her to go to hospital, and she visited Franziska with gifts of oranges, and later gave her a good winter coat.

Franziska was adamant that Irma's most striking personality characteristic was her naivety and innocence. She laughed when I mentioned the horror stories and said that in her 3 years at Auschwitz, she never saw Irma ill treat anyone, and it was only after the war that she heard the amazing accusations against her.Franziska was also adamant that survival in Auschwitz wasn't too difficult, providing that you didn't catch typhus, which was the big killer.

Like everyone else, she described Irma's appearance as "angelic". Personally, I just can't see what everyone raves about. There's one pic of Irma that's OK, but the others are just so-so. Was she beautiful, but not very photogenic? Try as I may, I just can't see what others do. Franziska described her as "more beautiful than Grace Kelly". H'mmmm, I'm yet to be convinced. When compared to other auxiliary women, she looked fine, because she was a lot younger- but otherwise, not terribly remarkable.
Interesting.Grese's mother was also a Franziska.

Can you provide a full name for "Franziska, formerly from Czechoslovakia"?

Tarpon27
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#95

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 00:15

Well, in reading this thread...and I posted another Grese thread...I always thought from Mr. Mills it was this weird sycho_sexual bent of Grese's British captors and her former prisoners that caused her desmise.

Silly me...

Mark

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#96

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 01:14

And this kinda proves it:
It appears that Grese was a victim of male sexual fantasies about women with boots and whips, and also of the psychological needs of some female prisoners who transferred their own secret and unadmitted sadistic lesbian impulses to her. One needs only to read the lurid account by someone like Gisella Perl to realise that Grese had become the peg on which all sorts of sexual fantasies were hung.
Please back up your statements, Mr. Mills.

Thanks, Mark

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#97

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 01:41

Michael Mills writes:
Unbiassed accounts of Grese depict her not as the cruel, sadistic and perverted monster of male sexual fantasy, but as a rather weak and immature person struggling to control large numbers of female prisoners and enforce the harsh camp discipline, which she did by using her dog to bark at and intimidate the prisoners and hitting with her plaited cellophane whip those who committed offences against camp rules, such as cutting up issued blankets in order to make head-coverings. In that respect she was a cog in an extremely inhumane system, but she is not depicted as personally cruel or having any hatred of the women under her control; rather she acted toward them as if they were her schoolmates, telling them about her fantasies of becoming a film-star. [/q
uote]

She is not...say,,,cruel...sadistic...perverted...as a "monster of male sexuality fantasy"...and by the way, whose, while she worked in the camps, male fantasy would that be?

And this...
...but as a rather weak and immature person struggling to control large numbers of female prisoners and enforce the harsh camp discipline, which she did by using her dog to bark at and intimidate the prisoners and hitting with her plaited cellophane whip those who committed offences against camp rules,
Chuckles...tell me what it was. That were numerous examples of those who deigned not to be quite as you you have quoted another thread, as her being "benign"...
In that respect she was a cog in an extremely inhumane system, but she is not depicted as personally cruel or having any hatred of the women under her control; rather she acted toward them as if they were her schoolmates, telling them about her fantasies of becoming a film-star.
This is insulting...oh wait...whipped with her "cellophane whip"...were all "girlfriends" that were also her "schoolmates" that in girl talk, she confided, she wanted to be a film star?

Oh, she is a victim of history...and your posts in 2002 and 2004, formerly blaming her trial under perverted justice, because they had suppressed sexual desires over sexual domination by some female...well...back it up.

Be glad to post your old posts Michael.

Oh keep that "cellophane whip" and her dog in mind...



My best wishes,

Mark

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#98

Post by michael mills » 31 May 2007, 02:43

I suggest Mark (Tarpon 27) read the book "I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz" by Gisela Perl.

In that book he will find a description of Grese whipping a female prisoner on the breasts and experiencing a sexual orgasm while doing so. The amount of detail given in the description, and the lascivious language used by Perl strongly suggest that this passage depicts Perl's own fantasy, in which she gives expression to her own repressed sadistic lesbian desires and sublimates them by transferring them to Grese.

The above description contrasts markedly with more sober and credible accounts given by former prisoners like Miss Lichtheim, who obviously dislike Grese for the latter's enforcement of harsh discipline by such means as hitting them on the head with a softish cellophane whip or using her dog to intimidate them, but nevertheless depict her as doing no more than necessary to keep control over the prisoners, and not taking pleasure in the punishments she meted out.

I doubt that Grese was sentenced to death for striking prisoners. Although the British courts gave no specific reasons for its sentences, it probably accepted the accusations made by a handful of prisoners that Grese had personally killed a number of persons. The image of Grese as the sexually perverted, sadistic "Bitch of Belsen", painted by the British press immediately after her arrest, may well have predisposed observers to believe any accusation made against her.

The question is not whether Grese was a particularly likable person, or particularly good-looking or charming, but whether she was really the monster of popular legend. From a legal point of view, the question is whether or not she was really guilty of wilful murder. The only evidence for that charge was statements made by a handful of former prisoners, which may or may not be true.

No doubt Grese accepted the official line that the inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau were dangerous criminals, sworn enemies of the German State who needed to be kept under lock and key for the safety of the German people. In that respect, her attitude was scarcely different from that of the majority of the present inhabitants of the United States toward the prison population of that country.

She may well have accepted that the selections and exterminations of prisoners, in which she played a subsidiary role, were legal and justified, sanctioned by the German State to which she owed allegiance. There is nothing in her background or low level of education to suggest that she would have had the sort of insight required to question the rightness of the actions of the State.

There is a large body of evidence from former prisoners to suggest that Grese, while exercising her function of controller of a large number of prisoners with the requisite firmness, neverthelss did not feel any sort of personal antipathy toward them, but to the contrary tried to be on friendly terms with them. In that respect her attitude was similar to that of most prison guards, who try to maintain normal human relations with the prisoners in their charge, to the extent possible in such an abnormal situation. Given the extreme inhumanity of the machine in which Grese was a cog, her expectation was quite naive.

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#99

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 03:40

I suggest to you, Mr. Mills...before you make such acccusations...and you back up your accusations on the British captors for Ms. Gerles...that you at least...provide some documentary evedence that...
The amount of detail given in the description, and the lascivious language used by Perl strongly suggest that this passage depicts Perl's own fantasy, in which she gives expression to her own repressed sadistic lesbian desires and sublimates them by transferring them to Grese.
On another thread...Mr. Mills may also respond to his posts 3 years ago whereby it wasn't just Perl's, but the British captors of Gerles who responded in such like kind,


Frankly...your explanation has changed. And again as excalibur, asked you...where is ANY of the "proof". historical records that it was sexual?

BTW...what is a "cellophane whip"?


Perhaps you can explain...

My best,

Mark

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#100

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 03:54

There is a large body of evidence from former prisoners to suggest that Grese, while exercising her function of controller of a large number of prisoners with the requisite firmness, neverthelss did not feel any sort of personal antipathy toward them, but to the contrary tried to be on friendly terms with them. In that respect her attitude was similar to that of most prison guards, who try to maintain normal human relations with the prisoners in their charge, to the extent possible in such an abnormal situation. Given the extreme inhumanity of the machine in which Grese was a cog, her expectation was quite naive.
Well...chuckles...


My, on how old threads of yours, your message changes...

You may want to consider, and I know, we have to reevaluate history...but maybe she was your "cog" in the machine.


No wait...that can never have happened...how ridiculous...

You are right...she was just trying to asert "discipline"...and your replies in 2002-2004, were just right that it was sexual. In 2006...it is all NEW to you.

Postulates and theorems are great...the rest...I read through. BTW, you still want a definition of a "grunt"? Prior to your definition gained from US Navy officers, as you said...

Mark

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#101

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 04:05

suggest Mark (Tarpon 27) read the book "I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz" by Gisela Perl.

In that book he will find a description of Grese whipping a female prisoner on the breasts and experiencing a sexual orgasm while doing so. The amount of detail given in the description, and the lascivious language used by Perl strongly suggest that this passage depicts Perl's own fantasy, in which she gives expression to her own repressed sadistic lesbian desires and sublimates them by transferring them to Grese.
Why? If as you say, it is merely the fantasies of Perl, why should I read it?

Quit evading the topic...look at her words in her trial...wait...she had a dog, she had a pistol...she never saw anything "wrong" at Auschwitz...wait...she is NOT the sexual weirdo that flipped out her British captors (as you said on another thread)...so what were HER words in her own trial?

She was innocent...she was just guilty of being, according to you, a bit brutal with her cellophane whip, from her trial, and under her own admission...she knew that gassing was going on, but she never saw it...had NO idea about any crematoriums.

In 2002 to 2004 you maintained the farce that accusations were made against her because of weird sexual desires...in 2007...you run from that defense...why?


Mark

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#102

Post by David Thompson » 31 May 2007, 04:10

Tarpon27 -- Our rules forbid personal insults, and personal remarks are strongly discouraged. Please avoid them.

H&WC Section Rules
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962

Tarpon27
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#103

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 04:34

David...I wish to not violate any rules here...if you are still online...please message me here

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memex
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#104

Post by memex » 31 May 2007, 07:43

Francoise wrote:Franziska was also adamant that survival in Auschwitz wasn't too difficult, providing that you didn't catch typhus, which was the big killer.
She obviously forgot about gas chambers, guards, dogs, hard work, shootings, pseudo-medical experiments, etc.
"Survival" was not so easy for millions of victims...

Tarpon27
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#105

Post by Tarpon27 » 31 May 2007, 13:26

Tarpon27 -- Our rules forbid personal insults, and personal remarks are strongly discouraged. Please avoid them.

H&WC Section Rules
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962

Which rule did I violate...and where?

Was that challenging Mr. Mills?

Shrugs...ban me...you may as well,,,this is ludicrous.

Take care all,

Mark

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