← Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood
Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood
154. Irma Grese - The Hyena of Auschwitz
00:53:00
The Beast of Belsen
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- [00:10]
Jessica
I'm 42 and no one tells you how your energy just disappears. Not overnight. It creeps in. Now I need a nap after grocery shopping. Turns out NAD levels start dropping faster after 30. That's why I tried ageless NMN from Simply Nootropics. One scoop gives you the same amount of NMN in 50 pounds of broccoli. I'm not going to be binging broccoli anytime soon, but I do use two scoops of NMN a day. It's science backed, third party tested and used by over 100,000 people over 40. Especially powerful for women in perimenopause or menopause, it helps with energy, mood, sleep and clarity. No pills, no junk, just clean cellular support. And right now they're throwing in their premium $44 TMG supplement, a free gift which helps your body absorb NMN better get back to feeling like you again. Backed by their 60 day money back guarantee. Go to simplyneutropics.com and use the code nonapps for $10 off plus your TMG gift and free shipping. That's simply no tropics.com code.
- [01:12]
Marc Maron
N O Naps hey folks, it's Marc Maron from wtf. Today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile offering reliable nationwide coverage backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Love your service or get your money back, no questions asked. Boost Mobile offers the coverage, network speed and service you're used to, but at more affordable prices. Why pay more if you don't have to? You can get an unlimited plan for $25 a month that will never increase in price ever. No price hikes, no multi line requirements, no stress. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or find them online@boost mobile.com After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 per month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
- [02:05]
Katy Charlwood
ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Hey guys. Welcome to Giggly Squad. A place where we make fun of everything, but most importantly ourselves. I'm Paige Desorbo. I'm Hannah Burner. Welcome to the Squad. Giggly Squad started on Summerhouse when giggling during an inappropriate time. But of course we can't be managed. So we decided to start this podcast to continue giggling. We will make fun of pop culture news. We're watching fashion trends pep talks where we give advice, mental health moments and games and guests. Listen to Giggly Squad on Acast or wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com hello, delicious friends, and welcome to who did what now, the history podcast. That's not your history class. With me, your host, Katy Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. Did you miss me? Did you miss me, darlings? Did you even notice I was not here? Yeah, I'm sorry. I took a week off and didn't tell anybody I was doing that. I just did it. I just needed some breathing room, I think, because I've been doing this whole series about concentration camps and currently specifically the Holocaust over on like social media. And there's a lot of information that people just don't know. They just don't have it. It's not freely available to them. And there are barriers to education. And then within the education system itself, there's like, it's bare bones, it's basic, you know, you don't get the whole picture. And I'm all about providing context and the whole picture, which has gotten me in trouble so many times. But that's neither here nor there. And so this series all started off because somebody complained that you can't compare Alligator Alcatraz to a concentration camp because they weren't exterminating people. And the thing is, the concentration camp system, it was a system with different, like, layers and I'll cover it at some point, but like, they've just got all these different things going on in different categories. Because you had transit camps, extermination camps, labor camps, etc, etc, right? There's loads, there's loads of stuff going on. So I was like, no, I need to correct this. And then somebody asked a question, I was like, okay, well, I'll answer this. And then it just became a series. And so that's, that's been a thing. And so I've decided that I'm just gonna do it in August. August is gonna be. I'm just gonna do this month, if you're listening at time of recording or day of release or week of release even, I don't know. And so I'm just gonna do a month. It's gonna be all Holocaust stuff. It's gonna be all concentration camp related or camp related. And then I'm gonna be done, I think, for a while. I think I'm gonna pick up on, I think, internment camps later on and things like that and the origin of camps and the difference between like camps, prisons, reservations, etc, etc, and like go through the whole whole thing. Because this is information people don't know. Gulags. I'll talk about gulags. Like, I'll go, I'll go through the whole thing because I've got a really, really interesting thing I've wanted to talk about about Russia for a really long time. Like, it's been on my original list and I'm gonna do it. So this month is gonna be dark. Like, remember when I did that October season and everything was just horrible, horrible history? Yeah, yeah, this is gonna be like that. So I'm just doing a blanket trigger warning for all of these episodes, I think, because this week's episode is Irma Grese and she is awful, horrible, terrible person. Terrible things. I. I don't think I could list all of the content and trigger warnings because it's just if you're upset by anything, anything at all related to women, abuse of power, babies, children, violent abuse, physical abuse, sorry, mental abuse, basically murder. Anything along those lines. Anything at all. You're not gonna want to listen to this episode because I am talking about the hyena of Auschwitz and it's not going to be a pleasant, pleasant story. But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, katie, quit your jibber jabber and fat me and fat you. I will. But first we've got to get our source on. Our sources are Remembering Ravensbrook Holocaust to Healing by Natalie Hess. The Camp Women, the female auxiliaries who assisted the SS in running the concentration camp system by Daniel Patrick Brown. Black the Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder. Female Nazi concentration camp guards. The true horror lies in their similarities to ourselves by Anger at Hampshire. Beautiful Monsters by Felicia Morris this Kind of Love Descriptions of Lesbian Behavior in Nazi Concentration Camps by Claudia Chaubman the Belsen Trial by the United Nations War Crimes Commission. I was a doctorate. Auschwitz by Giselle Apparel. Five Chimneys by Ora Langiel. The Beautiful the Life and Crimes of SS Ulfseherin Irma Grecy by Daniel Patrick Brown. We had our hold favourites, history.com, biography.com and also medical Review Auschwitz. So this is an E library. It has English translations and also in Polish and it's regarding like medical ethics and practice, you know, within Auschwitz during the Second World War. It's very detailed and it has so much information. It's very harrowing. But if you want to do more research, I would definitely start there. I found that incredibly insightful. I also have the Holocaust Encyclopaedia, Jewishgen and of course history.com, smithsonian.com, biography.com I use it in comfortably. Good, then let's Begin Irma Grizza, the hyena of Auschwitz. I feel like I should preclude this as well with the fact that I may not pronounce things the way you want me to pronounce them. I am doing my best. I don't speak German and I have practiced, but I may make mistakes here and there. Try to be, you know, forgiving just a wee bit, because I have tried. Irma Ilse Ade Grese was born on the 7th of October 1923 in Wreken. That's like in northern Germany. So she's born to Alfred Anton Albert Grese, a senior milker at a dairy farm, and Bertha Wilminna Winter, a hausfrau. Irma had two older siblings, Helene and Leichen, and two younger brothers, Alfred and Otto. When Irma was 10 years old, well almost 10, Adolf Hitler was appointed the Chancellor of Germany. So that's the end of January 1933. It wasn't long before schools across the country were entrenched in Nazi ideology. From the get go, kids were conditioned to be good little Nazis. Boys joined the Hitler Youth and girls joined the League of German Girls. Now Hitler was like obsessed with children. He was obsessed with youth and children. Like part of it was like, they are the future of Germany. Even though Germany was only a thing from like the 1880s because it was like a bunch of different states that came together. Otto von Bismarck, really clever dude. Anyway, so he's just like obsessed with young people because they're also really easy to mould, right? They are a blank slate, a tabula rasa, if you will, for him to like make into the ideal little follower. So the totalitarian structure of the education system actually suited Irma. And she's poor out in the countryside and she's being told that she's superior to all these other people, right? Because that's part of this whole Nazi ideology is the concept of the Aryan race. And Irma here, not only is she, I'm gonna say ethnically German, but she's also like blue eyed, blonde haired, like she looks like an Aryan, right? That's how she looks. So she's struggling, she's poor, she's kind of through life. And here is someone telling her or like the whole world, her world really is telling her that she is like superior to all these other people. She's better than them. You know, that's something for her because she was always kind of a bit wimpy. But we'll get to that. So the Bundeuische medal was training Girls to be good Arwen mothers and maybe nurses. Because, like, the Hitler Youth was basically training people for the ss. It's like to become part of Hitler's army. And the Bundeutsche model, they were like, we want to make you good Hausfraus. Okay, like, I've spoken about it before, but there's like a medal system. Like Germany creates its own medal system that if you have so many children, because it's all about boosting the German population. So you have all these children and for every child you get, you get like a medal. And once you hit, like I cut my hair now, I, I've, I've. This is bad because I've spoken about this before, but like, it's either 6 or 10. Like once you hit that number, like that child was named Adolf or something. Like, there was a very weird, like, point system. Like, for so many children, you got so many medals and like, you got bonuses for having more children because, like, you were like, you were helping Germany by having kids. So When Irma is 12 years old, she discovers the body of her mother. So Berta, she had attempted to end her own life in the winter of 1935 after discovering her husband's affair with a younger woman, like some tavern owner's daughter, which is the biggest cliche, but let's not get into it now because a woman has died. So what Berta had done was she had ingested hydrochloric acid, but she didn't actually pass away until January of 1936. And it was Irma who found the body. And Irma, she wasn't fond of her father. She found him strict and he wasn't really keen on how fanatical she was becoming a. She was leak really into this whole Nazi thing. I mean, she's like a couple years older now. She's been having this sort of forced into her brain for a couple years, you know. And Irma, she ends up leaving school at 14, where she wasn't well liked for many reasons. And her sister would say that Irma would only get into a fight if she knew she could win, which in a way you're like, wow, self preservation. That's pretty neat to know that at that age. But she would specifically start fights with weaker and younger opponents because she could win. And if anyone bigger tried to like, confront her, she would run away. And so she was sort of known as being sort of cowardly and sleek. It is the word we would use like a wee sleeker person because she would do it. But it's all about control for her. So she ends up moving to Furstenberg and works in a dairy factory for about six months. Then she goes to Leichen, works in a shop there for another like six months. And then she gets hired as like the apprentice to an assistant nurse at Hocken Lichen Sanatorium, which was like a complex of sanatoriums for the ss. Now it was originally a TB hospital, but it was turned into a centre for sport and recreational medicine and became the military hospital for the Schutzstaffel, which is the SS. And this was run by none other than Dr. Karl Gabbard, who would go on to be one of the mad scientists conducting inhumane and horrific experiments in the concentration camps. But the sanatorium, it was like a super fashionable place to stay. It had delegations from all over the world. We're talking France, Portugal, Chile, Peru, Argentina. It even had like British politicians stay at one point. It had everybody because it was just like the place to hang out. And it was just like, I'm going to rehabilitate at the Hohen Lichen Sanatorium. So Irma, she didn't exactly have the best of bedside Mannels. She was heavy handed, she was unpleasant and I'm gonna go ahead and say it, a bit of a bitch. The official line was that she did not meet expectations. So Carl here, he suggests that there was a place that she would be better suited to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women. Which was just like up a wee bit. It was nearby, it wasn't too far, you know. And Hocken Lichen would actually become part of the Ravensbruck like concentration camp system. So she's 17 at this point. And the camp needs female guards because the men were needed elsewhere. So as the war progressed, so it started, what, 1939, men were being trained to go to war. So they had certain men stay, SS officers stay in the camps because, you know, efficiency. But a lot of men were needed elsewhere for other parts of the war effort. And so even though they didn't want women to have jobs, it was like a necessary evil from the perspective of the Nazis. You know, it's like the worst thing for a woman to be was like a businesswoman to the Nazis. They were like, oh no, she's got opinions and a briefcase. Like they just could not handle this. So they're like, we will give them jobs, like because we have to, because we don't. We don't have enough men to go around. Able bodied men, you know. So she applies because, you know, they need people but they're not that desperate. And so they tell her to come back when she's 18. You're like, give it a, give it a while. So she goes off, works on a dairy for a bit and then tries again. And so in July 1942, 18 year old Irma entered Ravensbrook's training program. Now you got trained on the job and you didn't need any prerequisites other than falling under the right label in the eugenics handbook. Now, training usually took four weeks. After three whole weeks, Irma had completed her training to become an SS Aufseheren or overseer. Like that shows you just the pretension of those labels because it's like you're not just a guard, you're an overseer, right? The training was harsh and brutal, designed to make the guards tough and remove any natural empathy one might have towards other humans. The Aufzerheron were desensitized to the brutality and suffering, designed to be cruel, calculated and efficient. The prisoners were seen as sub human. So like, I think fairly early on there was a situation where Irma had like walked out and a camp member had walked in front of her and Irma had said, sorry. I said, camp member, prisoner, prisoner had walked in front of her and she goes, sorry. And so Irma had to be cured of this because Ravensbrook had initially female political prisoners. Like that was kind of the concept of it. It was a female only concentration camp, which I'll delve more into next week. So the idea was that you were curing people of, or curing women of, like the wrong ideas, the wrong lifestyles and they would become like good Nazis through punishment. Like, that's the general gist of it. So when she becomes an officer heroine, it's like a little bit of pack mentality and a little bit of specific people were chosen for the job. So they weren't just picking anyone. They needed people who would uphold Nazi values and believed the ideology. Needless to say, the specific women chosen for these positions were adapting fairly swiftly in their roles. The male guards had military training, so it could be assumed that they would have an easier time assimilating. But the women did it quite well. The overseers would work in calculated cruelty during the day, but at night, the night, nights were like party time. It was like being in college. So they would feast and party, they would gorge themselves on food and booze and they would just like hook up with each other, like kind of like frat house mentality. But everyone was just like drinking, eating, boinking. It was all Excess. And what's interesting as well is like, this kind of behavior was encouraged. Like they were like, yeah, go hook up with each other, go shag about, it's absolutely fine as long as you're shagging people. Like, as long as they're again, the right label in the eugenics handbook. Now, remember earlier when I mentioned that Irma never got into a fight she couldn't win and now she'd actually run away from confrontation if there was a chance she could lose? Yeah. So she's in her fucking element here. She's at Ravensbrook. She thrived because she could not lose. She was superior. She was part of the important crowd with her Hugo Boss uniform and her snazzy hobnail boots, armed with a pistol, a whip and a fist full of power. The authoritarian structure of Nazism and the camps served her well. She had something she never had as a farm girl, authority and power. And she loved wielding both. Prisoners would tremble at the approach of her shiny boots. Her uniform was always perfect. She would show up a juxtaposition and would inflict torture and pain upon the prisoners. Because, yeah, Ravensbruck was a straflage or a punishment camp. So female members of, like the Resistance, political prisoners, Poles, etc. Like, that was your initial gripping. They had different sections of labour. You had sorting soldiers uniforms, like the Red army uniforms. They were going through it, sorting through those. You had factory work for Siemens Heinkel, probably more linen textiles. They were doing construction, they were doing digging ditches and they were sometimes on corpse duty, which was just moving the bodies of the dead to get rid of them, the crematoria. Oh, and they even had women working as seamstresses for the army uniforms for the Nazis for the winter campaign. So you had roll call, which conveniently overlapped with work call. And sometimes they'd have breakfast like before, before Irma's there. Like, breakfast was much better. You'd have like porridge and dried fruits and things like that. But we're in the war now and supply isn't great. So sometimes you'd have coffee and black bread and then at noon sometimes you get a meal of thin soup and bread. So women would work non stop except for the noon break and any pause led to being whipped. And this is over an 11 hour day. And one of the most common punishments in the camp was 20 blows to the bare buttocks with a heavy stick. And Irma, she relished in doling out punishments.
- [24:05]
Jessica
I'm 42 and no one tells you how your energy just disappears. Not Overnight it creeps in. Now I need a nap after grocery shopping. Turns out NAD levels start dropping faster after 30. That's why I tried ageless NMN from Simply Nootropics. One scoop gives you the same amount of NMN in 50 pounds of broccoli. I'm not going to be binging broccoli anytime soon, but I do use two scoops of NMN a day. It's science backed, third party, tested and used by over 100,000 people over 40. Especially powerful for women in perimenopause or menopause. It helps with energy, mood, sleep and clarity. No pills, no junk, just clean cellular support. And right now they're throwing in their premium $44 TMG supplement, a free gift which helps your body absorb NMN better. Get feeling like you again. Backed by their 60 day money back guarantee. Go to simplyneutropics.com and use the code nonapps for $10 off plus your TMG gift and free shipping. That's simply no tropics.com, code. N O N A P S hey listeners, Meet Russell.
- [25:10]
Katy Charlwood
Hey.
- [25:11]
Marc Maron
Russell just launched a fitness app and he needed to get the word out to busy professionals looking to stay fit. So I turned to acast. I used their Smart recommendations feature to easily find shows that talk about health and fitness. Booking sponsorships through their platform was a breeze and just like that, my app was in their ears during their morning run. Sounds like a smart move Russell. How's business looking now? Sweat is pouring and so are the installs. Spread the word about your business with podcast ads on Acast. Start today at go.acast.com advertisement and Irma.
- [25:51]
Katy Charlwood
She is this juxtaposition blonde haired baby faced teenager with her blue eyes and her neat suit and shiny boots and she looked angelic, she looked sweet. But she was the complete opposite. In 1943 she travelled back home to visit her dad who had remarried. He'd remarried a widow and initially he's like really impressed that his daughter has a job and a good paying one at that. Now he is aghast though when she starts talking about life at the camp and her pride as she regales the stories of inflicting torture and abuse. So there's already some tension there and it only gets worse. He thinks maybe he's showboating or she's showboating, you know, to begin with and it's like maybe I'll just, I'll let it slide. She just, she's maybe just acting up wee bit. That is until his stepchildren children are affected. I. I couldn't find exact details on this because he'd remarried a widow. And I think one of the children was hers, and then I think one of the children's is theirs together. So his now youngest daughter, she comes in sobbing absolute tears. Her favorite doll is in pieces. Irma had ripped its heads and limbs off and laughed at the little girl's distress. And our dad's just not dealing with this very well. He's like, this is a weird as shit thing to do, right? And then she lets her younger brother, her youngest brother, play with her loaded gun. And he aims it at their father because he's a child. And he thinks this is silly fun times. And he just grabs the. Dad, Albert, he just like grabs it out the kid's hand and fucking whacks Irmo with it. He's like, fuck this for a game of soldiers. Get out. Like, get out my house. So he just kicks her out. He's like, I'm done. And so she heads out back to Ravensbrook, where she finds out that she's been promoted. Her supervisors believed that she had such talent that she shouldn't be wasted at Ravensbrook as a mere work overseer. Oh, no. In March, Irma had been assigned to Auschwitz Birkenau. And if you thought she thrived in Ravensbruck, oh, she really thrived in Birknow. So she gets there and she's assigned to Camp B in Birkenau, which is the largest of the camps in the Auschwitz 2 complex. So there was three Auschwitz altogether, Auschwitzein Auschwitz Ije Birkenau, and then Auschwitz Drei Morrowitz, I think is the last one. So she starts off as a telephone operator of the Blokfuhrer, which is a member of the Totenkopfabunde, the death head units. And they had these, like, little skull pins on their uniforms. And I feel like I shouldn't have to tell people that if you've got skulls on your uniforms, that you're the baddies. Like, you're the baddies. Like, you're not. You're not the heroes of this situation. Skull on the uniform, pretty much the villain. Like, I feel like we can agree on that. Like, let's just have skulls on our uniform. That's not creepy in macabre at all. Says me, who, like, wears skulls all the time. At least I used to back in my emo days. I like cute skulls, but I really. I'm really worried that it's gonna veer into. What's the word now the sidebar, what's the De la Muertez? The sort of Day of the Dead and things like that. And I don't want to, like, appropriate culture, so it's like, I like a pretty skull, but I need it to not be appropriation, please. So if anyone knows where I can get like that, that'd be great. Let me know. So the Block Fuhrer, they're in charge of the prisoner barracks attendance, work detail, rations, and administering Zyklone B, like that was their job. And Irma, she arrives at the camp when the four large crematoria were constructed and nearly complete. And so she had a variety of duties. Like I said, she was a telephone operator. She censored mail, and she even commanded a garden squad. She was given a job of overseeing punishment detail, the Straftkommando, where she was responsible for the deaths of approximately 30 prisoners per day. Now, allegedly, she had some kind of infraction that put her on, like, prisoner detail or, like, punishment detail. And. And I'm. I'm not sure that is a punishment for her because she's like, I only did it for, like, a day or two. And it's like, no, she. She did it for about seven months. Like, she was there a good. Maybe seven weeks, but she was there a good while. Like, a good long while. No, I think it was seven months. And so she's on punishment detail, and that's already a thing. But she's doing something right there for Nazis, because in May 1944, she gets promoted to Oberovsahern, the second highest rank an SS of Saharan could achieve. And she's 20, right? She's in charge of over 30,000 female prisoners at Birkenau Block C. And every single survivor remembers her whip, pistol and boots. And she really loved her wips. Like, she really loved her wips. And she even fashioned one herself out of, like, I want to say, like, cellophane and barbed wire. Like, there's this thing that she sort of fashioned, and it's so people remember the whip, the shiny boots and the pistol that and how beautiful she was. Like, Dr. Giselle apparel talks about her cruelty hidden under the skin of someone so beautiful. Like, there's just a common theme. Everyone's like, wow, she's so gorgeous. How can she be evil? That's. That's not how this works. So Irma Ghazi, she liked nice things, and she liked power. She would wear expensive perfumes and taunt prisoners under her command because, remember, the Nazis stole belongings. So Irma would take the finest clothes she would take, the perfumes she would have. She would take the attire that she liked and she would have it tailored. So she had a dressmaker who said that she was really fond of, like a navy suit. Like, she really loved navy. Her clothes were always pristine and her hair perfectly coiffed. And she would stomp to the camp, completely done up. Makeup, hair, and just a waft of perfume wherever she went. Irma believed that after the war she was going to be a movie star. Like, she was genuinely convinced that she was gonna go out there, she was gonna be a star of stage and screen and everyone was going to adore her. Like Gen. Like she told people about this. She was like, I'm gonna be a star. Spoilers, but no, you're not. But she loved nice things and she reveled in the fact that she had all this, all this finery and the prisoners did not. She loved showing them how much power she had. She would make them smell her perfume. She would show off her jewellery and her clothes and she would just rub it in as much as possible. And any chance she got to inflict pain, she used it like any excuse whatsoever for the teeniest tiny infraction, anything that broke or even bent a rule. She would lash women. She was particularly fond of whipping large breasted women. Like this is reported throughout her story. Like, there's so many tales of her doing this. Specifically, she would lash the nipples. Like she'd make sure they were naked. She would lash the nipples which would get infected. And so Irma would bring women to Dr. Peril to operate on with an unsterilized knife and no anesthesia. And Irma would come to watch these operations. And according to the doctor, was getting off on it. Direct quote. Irma Greze was enjoying the sight of this human suffering. Her tense body swung back and forth in a revealing rhythmic motion. Her cheeks were flushed and her wide open eyes had the rigid, staring look of complete sexual paroxysm. She did this on several occasions, watched the operations of the women whose breasts had been slashed open and had become infected with the lice and dirt that pervaded the women's camp. Don't worry, it gets worse. Dr. Pell. Continues. Our Marese invariably arrived to watch the operation, kicking the victim if her screams interfered with her pleasure and giving herself completely to the orgasmic spasms which shook her entire body and made saliva run down the corners of her mouth. Now, I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna be so bold as to say, ew. And also, ick. Now, I'd like to say I'm not here to yuck anybody's yum, but I'm yucking this. Yummy. I am yucking it. This is not an appropriate yum. No. Not in any sense of. Of the world, no. Remember when I told you this was not gonna be a pleasant episode? If you're still listening and you're thinking, why? Why did I keep listening? Listen to my warnings in future. Okay, so Irma, she had two big dogs. This is something else. She had. She had two big dogs. Alsatians, as far as I know now. Okay, I have to explain Alsatians, because it's gonna bug me. So Alsatians, right, were known as German shepherds, right? Alsatians, German shepherds. They're a dog, right? And obviously, after the First World War, it became incredibly unfashionable. Do you have anything German? So they're like, it's an Alsatian because it's from Alsace Lorraine, which sort of fluttered between, like, French and German ownership for a while. So they're like, look, it's an Alsatian. And then they were like, no, no, we can call it a German shepherd again, motherfuckers. Just pick a lane. Okay, so she had these two German shepherds, right? And she would cycle around the camp with a dog at her side, and. And she would accompany female prisoners on the 16 kilometer trek to work. If someone couldn't keep up, she would set the dog on them. This was a walk to the Siemens factory where they were making, like, parts for V2 rockets, if I'm not mistaken. And so initially, they're doing the 16 kilometer hike to this satellite. And then they're like, oh, we're losing too many workers with this massive walk. And it's taken up too much time. So they do end up moving it closer after. But anyway, if a girl dropped something or spilled something as they were going, like, as they were making their way to or from work detail, Irma would have them beaten, then have the dogs tear them apart. There's reports of a cart falling over. Just because they're traveling over this, like, awful terrain and it's hard to steer a cart. And because everyone was so afraid of Irma Ghazi that when she showed up, people just got more anxious and nervous and more mistakes would happen. Because she's a big scary bitch, right? I say big scary bitch. She was a wee scary bitch. And so they're just, like, genuinely terrified of her. And so mistakes are more likely to happen. And so There was an incident with two girls and, you know, the cart goes over and she sets two dogs on them and they try to run away. Like she sets them, she sets them on them and one of the girls, like, she almost gets away, but the dog gets her and just starts literally tearing her apart. Like teeth into flesh and just like ripping off noses. Getting ankles, like the whole shebang. Now, don't you think that was the worst? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You sweet summer child. She would sometimes find a woman in active labor and tie their legs together just so she could watch them suffer. This feels like a good time for a break. I'm gonna. I'm gonna give you a break for like a couple seconds. May there be ads? Maybe.
- [40:09]
Jessica
I'm 42. And no one tells you how your energy just disappears. Not overnight. It creeps in. Now I need a nap after grocery shopping. Turns out NAD levels start dropping faster after 30. That's why I tried ageless NMN from Simply Nootropics. One scoop gives you the same amount of NMN in 50 pounds of broccoli. I'm not going to be binging broccoli anytime soon, but I do use two scoops of NMN a day. It's science backed, third party, tested and used by over 100,000 people over 40. Especially powerful for women in perimenopause or menopause. It helps with energy, mood, sleep and clarity. No pills, no junk, just clean cellular support. And right now they're throwing in their premium $44 TMG supplement, a free gift which helps your body absorb NMN. Better get back to feeling like you again. Backed by their 60 day money back guarantee. Go to simplyneutropics.com and use the code nonapps for $10 off plus your TMG gift and free shipping. That's simply nootropics.com, code. N O N A P S. Say hello to Samantha. Hi there.
- [41:15]
Marc Maron
Samantha built a SaaS platform that helps small businesses manage their workflow. But she needed a smarter way to reach decision makers.
- [41:22]
Jessica
That's where ACAST came in. They helped me produce a professional audio ad which played to business owners and ops leads using their audience attributes targeting tools. Suddenly, my platform was showing up in the ears of the exact people I needed to reach.
- [41:35]
Marc Maron
Now that's streamlined marketing. Samantha, what's your tip for scaling smart?
- [41:38]
Jessica
Solve a real problem and make sure the right people hear about it.
- [41:42]
Marc Maron
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- [41:55]
Katy Charlwood
And we're back. So Irma had many lovers. She had sexual relations with men and women and allegedly had an affair with Dr. Joseph Mengele himself. I don't know. I don't care about the man. I don't care if I've pronounced his name correctly, because he, and I'm gonna say this one time, he was a cunt. I don't care about his name. So Irma would stand with him at selections and help choose who would live or die. She also helped him find women to experiment on. Again, allegedly, Dr. Mihaly broke things off with Irma when he discovered her rapes of women. Now, people often refer to this as her affairs with women, but these women couldn't consent because they were prisoners and she was an overseer. So, no, there is no consent here. We're not. Okay, so Mengele here, he's. He's breaking off, allegedly, not because the abuse is wrong, but because it broke the Race and Resettlement law, which is basically no homo and no race defilement, right? Because he's like, don't do that. But not enough to report her. Like, so that's why it's kind of like an alleged liaise. It's like, if he knew, why didn't he report her and get her, like, shipped off? So Irma would sexually assault female inmates, and when she was finished with them, she would send them to the gas chambers because dead men tell no tales. One male inmate rejected her because, you know, they're all around, and she was like, I like the look of him. So she wants him. And he says, no, thank you. And according to Oral and Gael, this Georgian man had a lover or wife in the camp. Like she existed. And so Irma decided, you know what's good? You know what the best reasonable, rational response to this is? She has the woman dragged by the hare, buck naked and whipped, and she was then sent to the camp brothel. And the man, she had him shot. When the Red army advanced into Poland in January 1945, Irma was transferred back to Ravensbruck for two months before being sent to Bergen Belsen in March. Now, Bergen Belsen, I think I've brought this up before. Like, people go, why don't you mention Bergen Belsen when you talk about the big camps? Because it wasn't originally like, a camp for holding people necessarily. It was a transit camp. Like, it was initially a transit camp. People were sorted there and then sent off to other places. It was never meant to hold people for any length of time. Like, that was not its design. So as it became a dumping ground for prisoners arriving from death marches, from camps all over, you know, even Auschwitz. It became more overrun. And there were prisoners who had left Auschwitz and made it all the way to Bergen Belsen, only to see the hyena of Auschwitz appear. Because here's the thing, she would laugh all the time. She would laugh and giggle about all of the horrible things she was doing. Like there's this weird, weird way that she just exists because she's like very juvenile because she's like, oh, whoops. And then she's very vicious and extreme. And so you've got these people who arrive there, these inmates, and then you've got her back and they're just like, shit. Like this is not great for them because they already know what she's like. And also, here's the thing. Irma wasn't supposed to stay in Bergen Belsen. The plan was to move her somewhere else, but she requested to stay because she had a boyfriend at the camp. Enter Franz Wolfgang Hartzinger, the chief engineer of Auschwitzeh construction department, whom she had been boinking back at Birkenau. So he's there. And who else is there? Joseph Kramer, the new commandant of Bergen Belsen, previously Auschwitz. So Irma is at the camp for three weeks, three whole weeks. And just those three weeks there, she earns the title the Beast of Belsen. She would force people to stand in the snow for extra long roll call, sometimes from 3am to 9am Sometimes she'd make them hold heavy rocks over their heads so that when they were finally exhausted and they let go, they would crush their own skulls. If someone didn't stand up straight, they were beaten. Sometimes she'd make them kneel with the threat of being shot. She even set up what's known as the potato peel trap. You've got about 500 prisoners per day dying of starvation, right? And some disease, but mainly caused by the starvation because the disease is easier to kill you when your body is weaker. And so she starts a rumour that there's a pile of potato peelings at the back of the camp kitchen. And so she waited in the dark until two desperate sisters arrived. And then she attacked them from behind, smashing their skulls together. They would survive this, but this memory would stay with them until the day they died. She'd set up waiting for someone to take the bait just so she could hurt them. Outside the camp, the Nazi regime was crumbling. The British army was approaching and Irma did not want to leave her lover. So she stayed at the camp. The 11th Armored Division reached Bergen Belsen on 15 April 1945. And during the Liberation, Irma confronted Brigadier Bob Daniel with a silver revolver and an Alsatian. So he goes to open this door, he sees the lock is busted. And so he goes to the door and as he grabs it, he feels something poke him in the back. And he turns around and there's this blonde blue eyed girl with a silver gutton, an Alsatian. And he's like, what? He's kind of like thrown off by this idea. And so he starts shouting at her. And then she just legs it. Like she goes. And he doesn't want to chase her because like the dog isn't on like a leash. So he's like worried about where this dog is and if the dog is gonna get him, which I think is fair. Like they're not. There's a reason they're trained to be police dogs, right? So he shouts at her, she likes it. And eventually she and the other of Sahanen were discovered in the women's camp because all the male ss, they were arrested. But the women were given the job of burying the 10,000 corpses that lay around the camp. And they did it. Like they weren't like off put, they just did the job. They're like, okay, fine, I guess we're burying these bodies now because so many people were dying per day and because like the supply chain was busted, there wasn't enough coal to like get rid of all the bodies. Like they couldn't cremate them. Like there just wasn't enough, there was just too much. And so the officer in, and they were described as homely by one British captain. Like they're in like men's boots and they're wearing military attire and like they've all got like haggard faces and they're all older. And so he sees them and that's his kind of like impression. And then he spots the beautiful young blonde woman and he's like, what? And, and so more people come in, more soldiers, like they're just confused, right? Who, who is she? What is this? Like, was she forced to be here? Like there's all these like ideas because they can't like grasp the concept. But Irma is arrested on 17 April, and her along with the officer Herman, they were temporarily held in Wehrmacht Panzer Training Academy, which is like three kilometers away. And she's interviewed by a journalist and a camp survivor. And they're just like, why? Why did you do this? And her response is cold. She says, it was our duty to exterminate the antisocial elements so that Germany's future would be assured. And on 16 June 1945, Irma, Joseph Kramer and 43 other Bergen Belsen personnel were indicted on charges of murder and ill treatment at Bergen Belsen and at Auschwitz Birkenau. Irma was interrogated by a British investigating officer and she had drunk the Nazi Kool Aid and was so fully committed she was convinced that what she did was right and basically signed her own death warrant because she couldn't see the horror of it. 45 Nazis associated with Bergen Belsen were put on trial on the 17th of September 1945. Each was given a number. Irma was number nine. And so they all had a placard with a number on it. In this five officer military tribunal, Irma received a lot of attention because she was beautiful and monstrous. And at the trial she was well dressed, her hair was styled like it was perfectly done every single day. And she didn't cry or show any remorse when shown footage from the camps or the bodies piled high or the skeletal victims. She did cry, though, once, when her sister Helene was brought in as a character witness. She claimed that as a child Irma was a coward, ran from fights so she could not be the perpetrator of such crimes. And when she spoke of the fight with their father the last time Irma was home, then Irma cried. On 17th November 1945, Irma was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. When the convicted were returned to their cells in Lunberg, Irma broke down and cried. Unsurprisingly. All the convicted appealed to the Field Marshal Baird of Montgomery. They were denied. On 10 December, they were transported to Hamel and Britain's official hangman, Albert Pierpont, was flown in to execute the beasts of Belsen. He decided to hang the three women individually. So one, then the other, then the other would be taken out one at a time. Then the 10 men, the remaining 10, they would be executed in pairs for efficiency. The night before the execution, the three women sang Nazi songs into the night. Think horrible Nazi songs. And on 13th December 1945, at 10.03am, Irma Cressy was executed on the Halmon gallows. At the age of 22, Irma was the second youngest Nazi war criminal hanged and the youngest person hanged by the British in the 20th century. And unlike her victims, she got a proper burial, like she was buried in one grave and then she was moved to another and she got respect and death that her Victims did not like. She was trained to see them as subhuman, and she saw them as subhuman. And she was so young. Like, we talk about the red pill and how easy it is for people to follow down things like the alt right pipeline. And that's the thing when you have this socialization, when this is just smothered on you, your ideology, it becomes it. And you do one bad thing and then the next thing you go a little bit worse and you escalate and you escalate until you're the Beast of Belsen. And so ends the story of Irma Grassy. If you. I don't want to say liked this episode because, like, ugh. Please feel free to rate and review five stars. If you don't have anything nice to say, just don't say anything at all. It's fine. Well, you can say mean things about Irma and Nazis. Fine. Not. But me, though. I'm a delight, okay? I am on the socials doing social things. There will be bonus Patreon episodes coming soon, and they are more light hearted than this because we need some joy. So that's the thing that's happening. And so, yes. Thus ends the story of Ian McGlessey and the first episode in this concentration camp Nazi series. I don't like it. I don't. There was no nice way to say it. I don't like it. You can follow me on socials. Oh, goodness. Recommendation time. I didn't do recommendations. Okay, let's do this. Recommendation Times for recommending the things. Yes, for listening. I've been listening to Framed An Investigative Story. It's. It's a very interesting take on crime reporting, crime podcasting, crime telling, which it's. It's really good. It's very interesting. I enjoyed that for watching. You know what? I've been watching Murder She Wrote. I've been watching it from the beginning. I watched the first episode of Murder She Wrote in, like, what's that, 1984? And let me tell you, it's amazing. It starts off with, you know, Jessica telling this dude, you know, how his play is working and how. And how he's just like a bad trophy writer, like, by accident. Then there's a scene where she's saved by a young black dude on the streets of New York, which is just golden and mk. She also kisses a dude because she's like a widow, an old lady widow. That's the whole concept of her character. And this dude's like, I think you're hot. Which is nice. He ends up not being a good dude. But anyway, I've been re watching Murder She Wrote starting from the beginning and I am having a great time, let me tell you because I needed some joy in my life and for reading. You know what I started reading and this is so childish but I started reading Murder Most Unladylike. Like it's this kids detective series because I'm trying to get my kids into reading certain stuff but I wouldn't double check what they're reading for us. And I'm like I actually really like these. So I started reading Mortar Most Unladylike. So enjoy that. With that, I'm gonna bid you adieu. Oh if you're London based or London accessible, News is coming soon about a show. So stay tuned for that. And with that I'm gonna bid you adieu. Adios. Au revoir. Au revoir my friends. Bye bye.
- [59:26]
Jessica
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- [60:26]
Katy Charlwood
Acast powers. The World's best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend. Hi, I'm Cara Berry, host of Everyone's Business But Mine. If you don't know me, think of me as your new friend and fellow busybody as I talk about everything under the pop culture sun. From the best way to detect a celebrity breakup or pregnancy to recapping your favorite reality TV shows from the Housewives cinematic universe. Welcome to Plathville Summer House, Sister Wives, and so much more. Check out Everyone's Business But Mine, airing multiple times a week everywhere you listen to podcasts, Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcast everywhere Acast. Com.