Who was Irma Grese?

Irma Ida Ilse Grese (7 October 1923 – 13 December 1945) was a notorious SS guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Belsen concentration camps, and probably Nazi Germany’s most infamous female war criminal of World War Two.

In all the concentration camps in which she worked, Grese gained a reputation for brutality against those held in any of the camps she worked in. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, she held the rank of Senior SS-Supervisor (Oberraufseherin) and was in charge of the 30,000 female prisoners held there.

After the war Grese was accused of torture and murder at the camps she worked at. Some at her post-war trial believed that she was personally responsible for 30 deaths a day at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Grese was accused of setting her dogs on to prisoners and whipping others to death.

In June 1945, Grese was indicted under a Royal Warrant by the British. Captured at Belsen in the last days of the war, Grese was charged with crimes against humanity in the Belsen Trials held between September 17th 1945 and November 17th 1945. Grese, aged just 21, was found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to death.

On December 13th, 1945, Irma Grese was hanged.