On April 15, 1945, British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. They discovered around 13,000 unburied bodies and nearly 60,000 prisoners who were sick and starving. Thousands more inmates died from diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis in the months that followed.
Among the captured Nazi personnel forced to help bury the dead was a young woman who would become one of the most infamous figures of the Holocaust. Her name was Irma Grese.
Grese was born on October 7, 1923, in Wrechen, then part of the Weimar Republic. She was the third of five children, and both of her parents worked as dairy farmers. Her father, Alfred Grese, was a devout Christian who opposed the Nazis and refused to let his children join Nazi youth organizations.
Despite her father’s resistance, Nazi ideology permeated German schools. Children were taught love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism. In 1936, when Irma was 13, her mother committed suicide after discovering her husband’s affair.
Irma struggled academically and was bullied at school. She dropped out at age 14 and worked briefly on a farm and in a shop. In 1939, at 15, she became an assistant nurse at the Hohenlychen Sanatorium, where she trained under Dr. Karl Gebhardt, a Nazi doctor who later conducted medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners.
In July 1942, Grese arrived at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, the only major women’s camp established by the Nazis. More than 132,000 women from across Europe passed through the camp, and over 92,000 perished. Ravensbrück also served as a training center for female SS guards.
At Ravensbrück, Grese witnessed horrific medical experiments. Dr. Gebhardt and his assistants broke prisoners’ legs, infected wounds with bacteria, and performed amputations without anesthesia. Many women died, and survivors often suffered permanent damage.
Grese’s father was horrified when she told him she was supervising prisoners at the camp. He beat her with a belt and forbade her from returning home.
In March 1943, Grese was deployed to Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland. Birkenau was the largest camp in the Auschwitz complex, divided into sections separated by electrified barbed-wire fences. It served as both a labor camp and a center for the extermination of Jews.
At Auschwitz, Grese found herself in a position of power for the first time. According to her sister Helene, Irma had been timid as a child and would run from fights. At the camp, however, she could strike people who could not strike back. She enjoyed it.
Grese became known as “the Hyena of Auschwitz” and “the Beautiful Beast.” She was feared for her cruelty and brutality. She carried a woven leather whip covered with cellophane so blood could be easily washed off. She beat prisoners at the gate during roll calls, often for no reason other than enjoyment.
Doctor Gisella Perl, a former Auschwitz prisoner, described Grese as beautiful but deeply depraved. Survivors recalled that Grese had affairs with both male and female camp personnel, including Dr. Josef Mengele and Commandant Josef Kramer.
Grese was also accused of selecting female prisoners for the gas chambers, often choosing beautiful women out of jealousy. She reportedly had relationships with female inmates and would send them to the gas chamber when she grew bored of them.
In May 1944, Grese became senior guard of Lager C at Birkenau, supervising thousands of Hungarian prisoners. The camp was severely overcrowded, with up to 1,000 prisoners in each block. Sanitary conditions were horrible, and latrines ceased to function.
Grese beat prisoners for stealing food or showing up late to roll calls. She forced inmates to kneel for hours or hold heavy stones above their heads. She kicked women with her heavy boots and set her starved dogs on prisoners who could not keep up during work marches.
Despite her cruelty, Grese sometimes helped prisoners. Alice Tenenbaum, then 14, was sent to the gas chamber 16 times by Mengele. Each time, Grese pulled her out. After the war, Alice learned that Grese saved her because she resembled Irma’s sister Helene.
Grese left Auschwitz on January 18, 1945, as Soviet forces approached. She accompanied a forced transport to Ravensbrück and then to Bergen-Belsen, arriving in March 1945. Conditions there were catastrophic, with little food, no sanitation, and outbreaks of typhus.
At Bergen-Belsen, Grese continued her abuse. She beat starving prisoners, forced them to kneel holding stones, and made them perform exhausting exercises until they collapsed. Prisoners nicknamed her “The Beast of Belsen.”
On April 17, 1945, two days after the camp’s liberation, Grese was captured by British forces. When asked why she committed such crimes, she replied that it was her duty to exterminate anti-social elements for Germany’s future.
Grese was tried at the Belsen Trial, which began on September 17, 1945. She admitted to beatings but denied killing anyone. The British military tribunal sentenced her to death by hanging.
On December 13, 1945, at age 22, Irma Grese was executed. Her final word was “schnell,” meaning quickly. She was the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the 20th century.