True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

In my final instalment of my Horrific History & True Crime series, I have chosen to write about Josef Kramer, otherwise known as 'The Beast of Belsen'. First of all I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has commented about the posts in this series and read them, I really appreciate it and I'm very honoured that you have found my posts to be interesting and informative. It's one thing to be told that my posts have been an interesting read but to also hear that you've learned some new things, well, that is also a nice thing to hear. 

Before I begin getting into the last subject in this series, I would like to let you know (and I'm sure you will be pleased to hear) that I will be starting a new Serial Killer series next week. I know how many of you find my Serial Killer cases to be fascinating and the posts always do incredible with the views. 

As you know. I am very old school and have a vast collection of books on various Serial Killers in my collection, so from next week onwards I will be delving deeper, researching, writing and putting together posts for my Serial Killer series so I hope you will join me for that. 

You're probably familiar with the name Josef Kramer? You may or may not be but he was another sick and twisted individual who was a devoted follower and believer in the Nazi regime. He was born on the 19th of November 1906 in Munich, Germany. His early life was normal, no traumatic incidences or strange behaviour. He was brought up in a strict, religious household and was taught to have manners and always say please and thank you. 

As he got older his life didn't seem to have much of a direction as if he wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He wasn't one to hold down a job for very long and spent most of the time unemployed. He had some previous experience in retail and there was some hopes that he would make a career as an accountant but his heart wasn't really in it. 

Like a lot of Germans, he was exposed to Nazi propaganda and believed in their promises of putting German people first and creating better jobs and living conditions so he joined the Nazi party in 1931. By 1932 he decided he wanted to join the SS, he flourished in training and was soon working as a prison guard before being promoted to the position of guard in a number of the concentration camps 

In his position as guard at the camps, Josef couldn't have been happier, it was like he had found his calling. He was a very proud Nazi and because of how ambitious he was, how he conduced himself towards prisoners and how devoted he was to the regime, he was moved further up the ranks to the point of being given his own camp to manage and that was Bergen-Belsen.

Like all of the camps, Belsen was appalling, the conditions were horrendous and the prisoners were tortured, starved, worked to death or sent to the gas chamber. It really was hell on earth. 

Josef was promoted quickly partly due to his sadistic and evil ways which was a huge bonus for anyone who was a Nazi trying to climb the ranks. It seemed the more evil you were, the more benefits and responsibility you were given and now here he was in charge of his own camp where he'd spent most of the time before this, being unemployed. 

He had no proper experience, no organisational skills and no heart. He was a maniac and a dangerous one at that. When he arrived to take over the Belsen camp by the end of 1944, there were around 15,000 prisoners at the camp, the place was horrendous and already the stuff of nightmares but when he took the helm, things got dramatically worse. 

The camp was already bursting at the seams, there was a lack of food and disease was everywhere. Despite the terribly poor state of the prisoners, they were forced to work to death. Josef enjoyed torturing these poor people, kicking them, shooting them for his own sadistic pleasure. He took an active part in selecting prisoners for the gas chambers as well as forcing them into the gas chambers himself. 

He would beat people, shoot them and there were incidences where he once kicked a woman to death and shot some starving prisoners for eating rotten potato peelings that they'd found in the mud. 

(Bergen-Belsen. Picture credit: Wikipedia)

He had no soul and was very proud of his role. Unknown to him though, his evil reign of terror was to be a short lived one because just months later, the whole Nazi regime was about to come crashing down. The British Army was on their way to liberate the camp and try their best to bring the Nazi war criminals who were responsible for all of the sickening atrocities, to justice. 

In April 1945, the British Army descended upon Bergen-Belsen and what they found was the stuff of nightmares, there were no words for it. There are some clips on YouTube (viewers discretion is advised) which I will include at the bottom of the post which show the devastating conditions of the camp and the prisoners. 

I mentioned earlier about Josef Kramer taking over the camp in late 1944 and the numbers of prisoners being around 15,000, well by the time the British Army arrived, that number had swelled to 60,000 just in a matter of months. There was no food and Josef said himself that hundreds of prisoners would die every day due to lack of food and the diseases that ran rampant in the camp. 

The British Army were made of tough stuff (forgive me for blowing our own trumpets - my grandparents fought in the war) and had seen a lot in their time but nothing could have prepared them from Bergen-Belsen or the other scenes from neighbouring camps. There was decomposing bodies everywhere, scattered all over the ground, some were piled on top of each other. There was flies, insects and rats everywhere. There were people who were barely alive, their bones and ribs protruding through their pale, malnourished skin. 

The smell was horrific, a mix between decomposing flesh and human waste. there was horror at every turn and there was no escaping it. 

I mentioned in previous posts in this series that some of the guards made a run for it, Dr Josef Mengele used his money and connections to flee, others were caught some time later but in the case of Josef Kramer, well, that was an unexpected turn of events. 

With all of this going on, some guards escaping, some being caught (who were forced to gather the bodies on the ground under order by the British Army) and thousands of prisoners, guards and British soldiers in this one place of hell, Josef stood there without a care in the world. 

Instead of running off and joining his Nazi pals on the run and ending up in Argentina. Josef Kramer proudly stood before the British Army like this whole disgusting place of death and torture under his watch was something to be proud of. He stayed right there and actually took British soldiers on a tour of the camp, showing them around without a shred of remorse. He seemed proud and like he had accepted his fate, 

Well, of course they took him away and put him on trial where he tried to deny everything. He said he wasn't part of the selection process and had no idea what the gas chambers were for. His excuse was (like we've all heard before) that he was simply following orders. 

Despite his 'charming' personality (yes, he was a charming sadist and psychopath who thought he was clever at manipulating people) and denials of the extent of his involvement in the deaths of thousands of innocent people, the evidence and witnesses was too much to deny. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. 

Josef Kramer was executed on the 13th of December 1945 by the famous British executioner, Albert Pierrepoint. (on a side note: if you would like me to write about Albert Pierrepoint in a future post, please let me know as his story is quite a fascinating one in itself) Josef was 39 years old. 

And there you have it. In this series we had Irma Grese who met the hangman's noose for her crimes, Dr Josef Mengele who escaped justice for his murders, sadistic torture and so-called experiments. Ilse Koch who almost got away with it, served some of her life sentence and then took her own life for her sickening pleasure and fetish for human skins. Ilse's husband, the equally evil Karl Otto Koch, who took the fall for everything and met his end in front of a firing squad, and finally here, we have Josef Kramer he stood proud with no regret or apology for his crimes. 

Another thing that all of these monsters had in common was the lack of remorse, even seeing the death, the suffering all around them was not enough to bring a flash of humanity. Just when you thought they had gone far enough they would go further, there was no line drawn. 

I always think of the innocent prisoners who died and suffered so horribly in these camps and the people who were beaten and had their homes and livelihoods stolen from them but I also think of these soldiers not just from the British Army but other countries too (the ones with the purest of hearts) who went into these camps and saw the devastation before them. I can imagine it must have left some terrible psychological scars. Just seeing the pictures from the camps and the footage on the TV screen is enough but to be there, to see it in front of your very eyes, to smell the death all around. It just doesn't bare thinking about. 

RIP to all of the victims and survivors of WW2 and God Bless all of the soldiers and good Samaritans who did what they could do help the victims and bring the war criminals to justice

Further reading & sources:

- Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants | Book by Ian Baxter

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | Book by Laurence Rees

- The Nazis & The Final Solution | Book by Laurence Rees

- Josef Kramer | Murderpedia

- Josef Kramer | Wikipedia

- Josef Kramer | Encyclopedia Britannica

- The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen | (Documentary Clip)

Thank you again for joining me in this series. I will be doing another series in this vein soon. As mentioned earlier my Serial Killer series starts next Sunday. See you on my socials x

 I know what you're thinking when you see the title of this post, you're probably thinking.....Ed Gein & I wouldn't blame you (I actually covered the life and story of Ed Gein back in 2020 here if you're interested in reading). I originally intended to focus on just Ilse Koch for this post until I did further research into her husband who happened to be just as sick and twisted as she was. 

The pair of them cut a very sadistic and evil pair and I'm surprised that they are not talked about more when the subject of evil couples in history are discussed. I really appreciate all of the amazing feedback I have gotten so far in this series (In case you haven't read the first two subjects of my Horrific History & True Crime series, check out Irma Grese and Josef Mengele).

With a lot of people, especially young people like myself who are just learning more about everything that went on with the evil Nazi regime and the role of the concentration camps, it's easy to forget how huge the whole operation was. Some people think that the camps were limited to a small number, mainly being Auschwitz but when you do your research you see how it was a whole lot more, more than you could even imagine. 

Auschwitz concentration camp was like a little city in itself, there was a theatre, a cinema, a sports hall, swimming pool, restaurant etc and right next to this was blocks of hell where people were starved, beaten, tortured, raped, experimented on and murdered. It's so hard to describe not just Auschwitz but all of it's neighbouring camps because they were literally hell on earth.

Sometimes I think about visiting Auschwitz to go and lay some flowers, pay my respects and possibly write more about it but then the thought leaves my mind and I decide to leave it. I don't know if I ever will because I think I would find it very difficult from all of the research I have done. It's one thing reading and researching but to see everything, the belongings of the victims, the remains of the gas chambers right there in front of your eyes....I'm not sure how I would cope with that. I think it would haunt me. 

I have read a lot of comments from people who have actually visited Auschwitz and they have spoken about how huge the place actually is and the very uncomfortable feeling when you are taken by the tour guide into the gas chambers with other tourists. Some people find it morbid, others think that it's important that we face it and see the reality of the situation that these things happened. For me, I can imagine people having panic attacks in such a place. I'm not sure how I would react. What are your thoughts on this? 

But, moving on to my subjects in this post, Ilse and Karl Koch, these two were another set of components in the Nazi regime. Like most Nazis, they came from unremarkable backgrounds and there was nothing in their childhoods to suggest any major trauma or what was to come later. Ilse was born in Dresden, German in 1906 as Margarete Ilse Kohler, she officially joined the Nazi party in 1932. Karl-Otto Koch was born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1897, he joined the Nazi party just a year before Ilse, in 1931. 

Karl had been a decorated soldier but he was no stranger to controversy having previously spent time in prison for forgery. He paints a very dishonest individual who would cheat on his first wife (who wasn't accepting of his Nazi views) which eventually resulted in divorce in 1931. He was a fanatical and ambitious Nazi (like a lot of them were) and became a favorite amongst the likes of Heinrich Himmler (he was said to have been far worse than Adolf Hitler himself and was the architect of the Holocaust) who selected him as not only a model Nazi but for further promotion up the ranks (Himmler and his fellow Nazis had observed and heard about Karl's sadistic methods of torturing prisoners at the concentration camps and were very impressed with him). He also introduced him to Ilse and the pair were married in 1936. 

A year after the marriage, Karl was promoted to commandant (Officer in charge of the camp) at Buchenwald. The role of the camp was for the prisoners to be worked to death. Life expectancy, due to the conditions, torture, starvation and slave labour, was said to be 2 to 3 months at most although some prisoners were able to survive for much longer. Ilse didn't have an official role, like most Nazi wives, she was expected to remain in the home and raise a family. Ilse had other ideas and took it upon herself to become a a guard and overseer of the camp. With her husband in charge there was nothing that she couldn't do. 

The couple lived in luxury as the prisoners lived in appalling conditions and like all of the Nazi guards and commandants at the various camps, they over abused their positions and even more sadistically than one could imagine. They both enjoyed torturing prisoners. Ilse was bored at home and used the camp as her own sadistic playground. 

Knowing that the camp was full of men of all ages, Ilse (who some would describe as an attractive woman) would wear provocative clothing to tease the sex starved prisoners. A lot of these men had not had intimate relations with a woman for years so this was another form of torture that she enjoyed very much. She was a sexual sadist, who would tease male prisoners and then have them punished or murdered for daring to look at her. She loved and craved attention from men and was rumoured to have had affairs with some of the guards from the other camps whilst still being married to Karl. 

As Ilse and Karl had not been brought up with much money, they both enjoyed the novelty and trappings that came with being considered 'The Nazi Elite'. They enjoyed living in their luxury home with servants, delicious food, wines and expensive clothing as well as their sadistic playground on the other side where they tortured prisoners. 

Like a lot of Nazi criminals at the time, Ilse and Karl would help themselves to various items that were taken from the prisoners in the camp. They went a step further with the thefts and began taking more money and expensive items and using them for their own gain, stealing money and building a personal sports facility so that Ilse could ride horses. They kept the stolen money in private bank accounts. They were basically stealing from their fellow Nazis and this didn't go down well in the slightest. 

As well as ripping off their fellow Nazis (even though all the goods and money originally belonged to the prisoners of the camps) Ilse had been conducting some evil torture and experiments of her own, she would select prisoners from Auschwitz who had certain tattoos and arrange for these people to be murdered so that she could have their skins, if they had gold teeth, she would have them removed and would add to her and her husband's private stash. Ilse worked alongside a doctor in the camp to have the stolen human skins made into lampshades and other artifacts, reportedly, other limbs and remains were removed. 

Ilse would take her gruesome items that were made from human skin and body parts, and decorate her house with them. She would give some away to fellow Nazis as gifts. 

When word soon spread to those higher up about Ilse and Karl's behaviour towards prisoners, the torture, the mutilation of human skins and the constant thefts, they both suddenly found themselves in hot bother. 

The Nazis didn't care about stealing from the Jews or the other innocent people they tortured and murdered during WW2 for their phoney cause but a fellow individual Nazi taking money and goods for their own benefit was frowned upon in a big way. 

The horrific experiments that Ilse Koch had arranged and the skinning of prisoners to make sickening artifacts was almost too insane to believe but when you consider all of the other horrendous atrocities that were being done in the camps for sadistic pleasure or 'in the name of science' (see my Dr Mengele posts), you realise (along with the witness accounts and evidence produced) that these horrific and extremely cruel events occurred. So, along with the pair ripping their fellow Nazis off, their conduct and what was deemed 'Needless experiments' (to benefit themselves and not the Nazi regime) was also listed for them to be brought before their superiors and to answer for their conduct. Karl also didn't do himself any favours when he was sent to another camp and carelessly allowed some of the prisoners to run amok. All of this was noted and a decision had been made. 

They'd both been married for quite a while and had one son and two daughters whilst all of this was going on. In 1944 the pair were brought to trial in front of their fellow Nazis and Ilse pretended to be 100% innocent of all wrongdoing claiming that the lampshades and other artifacts were actually animal skin. There was no escaping that they'd both been found out for stealing as evidence in their lifestyle, the bank accounts and the expensive sports facility that Ilse had built. Karl took the blame for it all and was sentenced to death, Ilse managed to get away with it. 

In a shocking twist to events, Karl was sent to the very camp that he was once commandant of, Buchenwald. He was treated like every other prisoner and declared a POW, he was taken out of one of the blocks and shot to death by firing squad. If Karl had been given a life sentence, no doubt he would have been walking out of the gates to freedom along with the other prisoners when the camp was liberated just a short time later in 1945. 

When the camp was liberated in 1945, members of the German public along with soldiers had been granted the rights to view the camp and what they saw was something so indescribable and horrific. They witnessed the skeletal remains of people who had starved or been worked to death, all piled up together like trash, human body parts kept in jars, dead and decomposing corpses all over the place and a table full of what was said to be lampshades, book covers etc made from human skin and body parts. The camp was originally meant to house 8,000 prisoners but the shocking number of people forced to squeeze into this vile place was actually 80,000. 

This wasn't the end of the story for Ilse though, she almost got away with her crimes but she was arrested again and it was soon time for her to face the music. Whilst waiting for her trial for her crimes, she managed to get herself pregnant by a fellow German prisoner. Being the master manipulator that she was, one wonders if she thought that being pregnant would gain her some sympathy, but it didn't work. As soon as the child was born (he was named 'Uwe') he was taken away and she ended up being served a life sentence. 

When Uwe got older he found out who his natural birth mother was and instead of running for the hills like a lot of normal people would, he decided to visit this monster on a monthly basis in an attempt to build a relationship with her. Ilse saw Uwe like she saw other people, someone that she could use for her own gain and a possible opportunity for her to try and get out of prison. 

Her other children wanted nothing to do with her. her two daughters moved away, changed their names and started a family. Her other son, however, met a more tragic fate. Being just children when their parents were carrying out their sickening crimes, the Koch children were completely innocent of what their parents had done but that didn't stop the feelings of shame and humiliation. The girls were able to move on and cut Ilse out of their lives but their brother couldn't live with what his parents had done and ended up taking his own life. 

So, Uwe was all that Ilse had left because nobody wanted to know, she'd burned so many bridges and caused so much pain and suffering that she deserved the punishments that were now on her shoulders. She finally gave up September of 1967 and hung herself in her prison cell. She'd apparently been having a series of nightmares and delusions that previous prisoners (who she had tortured and sent to death) were haunting her. 

After her death, her estranged son Uwe went to the newspapers and tried to tell his mother's side of the story based on what he knew. Nobody was interested. One does wonder if Uwe really cared about his mother or saw this as a way to make some money, who knows? I guess it's pretty hard for me to understand why someone would want to track down their mother who they found out was a Nazi war criminal and had been responsible for all of these horrendous things, you'd think that you'd want to distance yourself as much as possible from that person and get on with your life. 

Despite her efforts to change the public perception of herself by using her estranged son, Ilse Koch has gone down in history as one of the most evil and sadistic women to have ever lived. Her sadistic ways put her husband in her shadow and they were both cold hearted people who enjoyed inflicting pain on others. 

RIP to those people who lost their lives (and thoughts for all of those who suffered) at the hands of these evil people. Thoughts also to the survivors and those brave enough to share their stories to help educate us all about what really happened in those horrifying days, weeks, months and years that the Nazis were in power. 

Further Reading & Sources:

- The Beasts of Buchenwald | Book by Flint Whitlock

- Karl-Otto Koch | Biography

- Buchenwald | Holocaust Encyclopedia

- Karl-Otto Koch | WW2 Database

- Ilse Koch | Britannica

- Ilse Koch | Biographics

- Ilse Koch | Wikipedia

- Ilse Koch | WW2 Database

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | Book by Laurence Rees

- Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants | Book by Ian Baxter

I hope you will join me next time for my final subject in this 'Horrific History & True Crime' series (please check out my previous posts in this series: Irma Grese: The So-Called Beautiful Beast of Auschwitz and The Life & Sadistic Crimes of Dr Josef Mengele) 

If you would like to see me do another series similar to this one, please let me know in the comments below. See you in the next post or on my Socials x

 (Josef Mengele's life on the run. Picture credit: NY Times)

Continued from part one 

Josef Mengele thought he'd got away with it. He thought he was clever and smarter than everyone else and this was demonstrated in his first 10 years of being on the run from the authorities. Either he didn't think anyone was looking for him or at that point he didn't care if he was being hunted, because he openly used his real name and went about public life in Argentina.

He wasn't the only Nazi war criminal who fled there, fellow monster Adolf Eichmann along with numerous others chose Argentina as the place to be. At the time Argentina had half a million Germans living there so there was a big German community and easy for them to blend into. 

So for 10 years he used the money his wealthy family sent to him through his close connection, Hans Sedlmeier. He built a successful business for himself selling farming machinery. He lived in luxury, went to restaurants, cafes, the grocery store, all out in the open without a care in the world who saw him and at that time nobody bothered him. 

He would meet up with fellow Nazis for drinks and lunch and would do medical treatments for them as they couldn't go to a Doctor. He even met No1 Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann for lunch a couple of times. There was this laid-back 'We've got away with it' attitude that seemed to be going on and they were all settled and happy until Josef turned on the TV one morning and saw the news headline. 

It was 1960 and Adolf Eichmann had been captured by the Israel authorities. In that moment, Josef's life came crashing down (as I'm sure it did for a lot of the other Nazi criminals living in Argentina). They found Adolf Eichmann, kidnapped him, interrogated him and he was to be put on trial with the likelihood of being hanged for his crimes. 

Eichmann was number one on the most wanted list by Nazi hunters and Josef was second. When Mossad (Israel Intelligence) finally got their hands on Eichmann they not only wanted to take him back to Israel to face justice, they wanted to find Josef Mengele to take him back too. They kept Adolf in a safe house and repeatedly questioned him about Josef. Adolf refused to speak and denied knowing his whereabouts, eventually he finally said that he had met up with Josef a couple of times in Argentina but he didn't know his exact address. 

So this information confirmed to Mossad that they'd been looking in the right place and that Josef Mengele was alive. They continued to search and then gave up for the time being and concentrated on getting Adolf Eichmann back to Israel to face trial. 

Josef was no stranger to using false documents and various names. Panic that he was to be next to be captured set in and he realised that he was no longer safe in Buenos Aires. He tried to be more low-key and lived on farms and took labour jobs using a false name. He kept dogs for protection and also had armed bodyguards on occasions. He and his wife Irene got divorced, she wanted to marry someone else and his father suggested that he marry his younger brother's widow. This 'arranged marriage' was purely for family business purposes. Karl didn't want the woman to marry someone outside of the family so they were married and hardly saw each other, there was the odd visit but they had to be careful and communicated with letters back and forth. Josef was very close with her son too. 

With Josef's own son Rolf, they hardly knew each other but letters would be regularly sent back and forth and Rolf only saw his father on two occasions (since he went on the run), once when he was 12 and Josef was introduced to him a 'Uncle Fritz' and later on towards the last year of Josef's life in 1977. 

Various sightings of Josef were reported to Mossad and they were investigated but nothing came of it. Adolf Eichmann was put on trial and sentenced to death, he was executed by hanging on the 1st of June 1962. 

Attentions were now fully back on Josef and a team of agents went in search of him again. This time they thought they had him in their sights, a man fitting Josef's characteristics was spotted at a location (that had been reported to them) with what looked like two bodyguards, they took pictures and returned home and requested more action to be taken, At the time Israel was facing a lot of troubles in their own country and authorities higher up decided to drop the search that they thought would be pointless. Their belief at the time was the pictures weren't enough evidence that the individual was indeed Josef Mengele, they'd wasted far too much time and money searching for him previously so they stopped their search. 

Josef was unaware that Mossad were no longer looking for him and was now living in fear and anxiety. He became a recluse and grew a moustache in an effort to hide the prominent gap in his top set of teeth. His close contact, Hans Sedelmeir had already been questioned by German authorities along with his ex wife and family about his whereabouts and each of them either said that he was dead or that they did not know where he was and this was accepted by the authorities. Like many historians and writers have said, if the German authorities had looked through the Mengele letterbox they would have found out Josef's exact location and he would have been found. 

In 1976, Josef, who was now living with a family in Sao Paulo in Brazil was declining with his health and apparently suffered from depression and thoughts of suicide. He was frail, older and had suffered a stroke. The years of being on the run and having to constantly look over his shoulder had taken their toll. 

In 1977 he wrote to his son Rolf and asked him to come and visit him before he died. He knew his health was getting worse. Rolf went to meet his father in Brazil (he used a fake passport and took $5,000 from the Mengele family to give to his father) and it was an emotional meeting. Rolf was there for two weeks and the subject of Auschwitz came up, Rolf wanted answers, he wanted to know the truth. Josef was asked about his crimes, the experiments and torture of children, the gas chambers etc and he refused to accept responsibility. He denied a lot of the allegations, claimed it was all lies and then said that he did not create Auschwitz, the camp was already there when he came along and he was just simply carrying out orders. 

As Rolf left knowing that it was highly likely to be the last time he would see his father, Josef said to him that he could die in peace now that Rolf had visited him. 

Rolf Mengele later appeared on an American TV show in 1986, The Phil Donahue Show with the amazing Gerald L Posner (who co-wrote the book 'Mengele' - The complete Story with Johh Ware) and cut a sorrowful figure with so much pain on his face. I've seen many people comment about Rolf and the general view is one of sympathy. Rolf wasn't even born when Josef first went to Auschwitz, he was born in 1944 and just a child when these horrifying crimes were committed, he also had a very estranged, very distant relationship with his father. Rolf was credited for his openness to talk and go on national television to show his face and admit who and what his father was. He also participated with the Mengele book. He was criticised however for not turning in his father to the authorities. 

On the Donahue show, Rolf sat uncomfortably with the look of utter horror on his face as Phil Donahue read out excerpts of the Mengele book about his father's crimes. Rolf said that he could not bring himself to turn his father in and was put in a difficult position. I think it's hard for a lot of us to understand but knowing what I know about Josef Mengele and his crimes, father or not I would have had to do the right thing. 

Rolf will be in his late 70s now and I don't even know if he is still alive. I can't find anything on him. He went on to lead a quiet life (not surprisingly). If anyone knows what became of Rolf, please leave a comment below. 

So, Josef had a final meeting with his son and continued to live with the family in secret. The family suggested that they go to the beach on the 7th of February 1979 and Josef was a bit hesitant as he didn't like to be out in public but it was a very warm day and he ended up agreeing to go along. They spent time on the beach and it was a beautiful day. The family encouraged Josef to take a swim and he got into the water and all seemed well at first until he swam too far in and began to have a stroke. His friends made a dash for the water and pulled him out but it was too late. Josef Mengele was dead at 67 years old. He'd lived the majority of his life on the run and many years in fear of being captured and now he was gone. 

The family buried him in a paupers grave with a false name and let his contacts including Rolf know that he was now deceased. Rolf went to visit the family to collect his fathers belongings and they claimed that they wanted to have Josef cremated but the Mengele family refused. The family also begged Rolf to keep quiet because they lived in fear of authorities catching on to them for harbouring a criminal. 

Rolf, at the time of speaking publicly in 1986 was cut off from the Mengele family. Josef's family and even the women he had been married to, refused to believe that he had done all of these sickening things, they claimed it was all lies and propaganda despite the numerous amount of evidence and witnesses presented. 

On the 31st of May 1985, the authorities were back on the tail of Josef's closest contact, Hans Sedelmeir and searched his home where they found letters from Josef Mengele together with a letter informing him of Josef's death. Authorities went straight to the location written on the letters and confronted the family who denied everything but a search of the house showed that they kept some pictures of Josef along with mementos. 

They ended up admitting the truth and led Investigators to Josef's place of burial and exhumed the remains. At first people didn't believe it, thinking he had faked his death but after forensic specialists from all over the world carefully examined the remains it was 100% determined that this was in fact Josef Mengele. The whole horrific story had come to an end, the search was completely over and he would never face justice for his crimes. 

Some believe that he did suffer in his final years and that gives them some satisfaction others believe that he had the easy way out and died on a beautiful beach in paradise and it was an insult to his numerous victims.

There were so many chances to have caught Josef Mengele but he had far too many connections and far too much money and unfortunately back then (as in many cases today) if you had the money, you could buy your way out of a situation or pay people to keep quiet. 

Rolf said that his father never showed any remorse for his crimes, for him he was just carrying out his duties and he remained a proud Nazi right up to the end. 

The Universities of both Munich and Frankfurt revoked Josef's PhD & MD after learning of his crimes. 

I think about all of those children, all of those people who were victims of Josef Mengele and of all the victims who were murdered in the holocaust. I think of the survivors who managed to live and went on to teach generations and tell their stories, incredible people like Eva Mozes Kor. It's such a heartbreaking and evil part of history that a lot of us will never understand because we are not supposed to. That level of evil is not understandable, it is unimaginable and must never be repeated again

RIP to Eva Moses Kor and the numerous victims of Josef Mengele and the evil Nazi regime. My thoughts, prayers and heart go out to anyone who suffered, who lost a loved one and to those who still live with the terrible memories today. We will never forget what happened and your stories will continue to be told for generations to come. 

Further Reading & Sources

- Mengele: The Complete Story | Book by Gerald L. Posner & John Ware

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | Book by Laurence Rees

- Auschwitz | Book by Laurence Rees

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | BBC Documentary Series

- The Nazis & The Final Solution | BBC Documentary

- WW2 Articles | War History Online

- Nazi War Criminal: Mengele | World In Action (1978, Documentary)

- Nazi Hunters | Timeline (Documentary)

- Rolf Mengele: Interview on The Donahue Show (1986) | Gerald Posner's Youtube Channel

- Josef Mengele | Wikipedia

- Josef Mengele | Holocaust Encyclopedia

- Eva Moses Kor | Timeline Documentary

- Auschwitz | Memorial & Museum

Thank you for getting through these two posts with me in this series. I will be back next week with the third instalment of my Horrific History & True Crime series with a new subject x 

I knew that out of the evil individuals that I would be researching and writing about for this series, that this one was going to be a real challenge. Josef Mengele was a name that was notorious with Auschwitz concentration camp and he was the world's most infamous Nazi fugitive. What made this man so dangerous was not only was he highly intelligent and pure evil, he came from a wealthy background, had friends and connections in high places and was able to avoid capture for 35 years!

Money, connections and cover-ups were Josef Mengele's best friends and they saved him from the hang man's noose. I'm going to cover his story here and in part two and as you probably know some of his crimes, you won't be surprised for me to tell you that I will be sharing some very gruesome and horrendous details. Some of the details included here you may already know and some you may not. I have spent hours upon hours doing my research and even I have uncovered things I never knew before. 

So, let's get into it. 

Josef Mengele, who was the eldest of three sons, was born on the 16th of March 1911 in Gunzburg, Germany to parents Karl and Walburga. He came from a wealthy family who made farm machinery so Josef grew up wanting for nothing and never had to worry about money. He had a decent childhood, no traumatic events, no reports of strange behaviour or signs of what was to come later. He was a great student and did well academically. He had the choice to follow in his father's footsteps and work within the family company but Josef was very independent and wanted to make a name for himself in his own way. He wanted to do something in the military or medical field. 

He managed to combine both and spent some time studying at University where he gained a PhD in Anthropology (from the University of Munich) and an MD (from the University of Frankfurt). During his studies he was mentored by another infamous Nazi physician called Otmar Freiherr Von Verschuer. Josef was Otmar's star pupil and the pair remained close in the following years. Otmar was a human biologist and Nazi who was obsessed with genetics and twins (a path that Josef had been studying himself and later became obsessed with). 

Being a follower of the Nazi regime, he joined the Nazi party in his early 20s and became an SS officer on the front line, his studies in genetics were put on hold. He became a decorated soldier and a hero as he managed to save the lives of two fellow soldiers. He was awarded the Iron Cross as well as other medals for his exemplary service, however, things came to a halt when he suffered injuries on the front line and was declared unfit for service. Not one to give up his career in the SS (he was proud of being a recognised Nazi and was so ambitious) he decided to return to the medical field. 

Josef (to some people) at the time would have been described as a handsome young man, he was always immaculately dressed and was never short of female attention. He was self-conscious about the slight gap in his upper teeth and the fact that with his dark hair and slightly tanned skin, he looked a bit exotic. The Nazis were obsessed with carrying on and multiplying what they called 'The Master race'. Anyone from a Jewish background or any background they deemed 'Not 100% pure German' or if someone happened to be disabled or homosexual they believed these people were to be banished off the face of the earth. They wanted blond hair, blue eyes and white skin. Anyone who had an exotic look to them would be viewed with suspicion (and in a lot of cases, murdered in the gas chambers, shot or worked to death) 

In 1939, Josef married his first wife Irene, a woman he had met during his medical studies and the marriage was said to be a happy one. 

His long time mentor Otmar recommended that he go to Auschwitz concentration camp and wrote a letter of reference for him. Josef, with all of his credentials, passed the application process (not that the Nazi's were fussy who they took on board as I mentioned in my last post) and went to Auschwitz in 1942 just 2 months after his 32 birthday. At that time, Being 32 and having achieved so much in his medical and military career, Josef was seen as not only a shining star but an up and coming young scientist. Otmar and Josef believed they were on the verge of something great that would make them world famous scientists in the genetic field. They were obsessed with unlocking what they called 'The Secret Twin Code'. They wanted to multiply 'The Master Race' and believed that twins had the answer so their studies were focused on them. 

Josef Mengele remained at Auschwitz from 1942 to 1945 and some would say that he wasn't there that long but what he had done in his time there was enough to give him not only the nickname 'The Angel of Death' but 'The Most Evil Man In The World'. 

Josef hit the ground running when he arrived at Auschwitz and treated the place like it was his own personal human laboratory with human guinea pigs. He enjoyed watching the cramped trains that were packed full of starving, terrified people pull into the ramps at Auschwitz. He would stand there in his uniform with a white coat over the top, sometimes with a stick or sometimes with a cigarette (he was a chain smoker) and would often be seen smiling or whistling. 

Josef wasn't the only Doctor at Auschwitz, there were others, some were Nazi Doctors and some were prisoners. He was promoted into a more senior role and pretty much did what he wanted when he wanted. The other Nazi Doctors hated doing the selection process, they found it to be depressing and stressful (as sick as the Nazis were, there was the odd one or two who had their limits to how much suffering they could enforce on people). 

In the selection process, Josef would organise the people coming off of the trains into two groups, one group to the left (sent straight to the gas chamber) and one to the right (sent to work in the camp). This was a life and death situation which he enjoyed immensely. His focus was finding as many twins as he could for his 'experiments' but with everyone else he would put all elderly, disabled and young children straight to the line for the gas chamber to be murdered immediately and would select what he deemed to be strong, young and healthy people to be put in the other line to be sent to work. The people who were sent to work were in no means meant to be saved, his plan was that they would work but be worked to death. The plan for death was the same for all of these people whether it be straight to the gas chamber on arrival or a slow drawn out agony of starvation, illness and exhaustion until their bodies couldn't take any more. 

The women were all sent to block 10 and were regularly selected for sterilization, horrific sexual assaults or other horrendous procedures. Every day groups of men and women would be taken to one of the blocks and put into one of the rooms under the pretence that they were to fill in medical forms. There was a window looking into this room where Nazi Doctors would stand (Josef, often in attendance) and operate the levels of a machine that was on the other side in the room with the people. The room was then filled with extreme levels of radiation that in the space of only 3 minutes was able to destroy the reproductive organs of both the men and the women thus sterilizing the women and castrating the men. A lot of the time, prisoners were unaware that this was happening to them, they were awake for this sickening procedure. 

Some female prisoners would be subjected to injections of various substances into their uterus that would basically block their Fallopian tubes, this was an extremely painful procedure. 

Although Josef was fixated on experimenting on twins, he carried out a lot of horrific procedures and 'experiments' on women that included: 

- Jumping on a pregnant woman's stomach until she miscarried.

- Forcing a new mother to tape up her breasts so that he could see how long it would take for her newborn baby to starve to death. 

- He would dissect babies and toddlers when they were still alive. 

- He would stitch people's skin together.

- He would often select groups of children to take to the gas chamber and give them sweets (the children nicknamed Josef 'The Good uncle' because he would bring them candy in order to get them to co-operate with him). Whilst they walked in front of him he would shoot them in the back of the head. 

- He would beat women to death with his bare hands. 

- He would force twins to have sex with each other to see if twins could produce others sets of twins.

- He would have women stripped naked in the pouring rain or snow and force them to run around in front of him whilst he watched and humiliated them.

- He would inject dye into people's eyes in an effort to try and change their eye colour. 

- He once grabbed a newborn baby from his mother's arms, by the head and threw the child violently onto a pile of rotting dead bodies. 

- Himself with a group of fellow SS guards, created a burning pit and threw children (who were still alive) under the age of five into the burning flames. When some of the children tried to crawl out, Josef and the other monsters would push them back in with sticks or shoot them. 

And the list of these sickening atrocities continued in his experiments with twins. Twins would be subjected to all sorts of horrors and excruciating pain. His usual routine would be to inject one twin with various substances or diseases and leave the other twin in a normal state. He would often drain them of pints of blood. Every day he would compare the vitals of the twins to see how long it would take for one of them to die. Once one twin had died, he would inject chloroform straight into the heart of the surviving twin so that both children had died at approximately the same time. 

He would then rush both of the children onto his examination tables and do comparative autopsies. Eyeballs and other organs were removed and packaged up to be sent to Otmar Freiherr Von Verschuer in a box labeled 'War Materials'. Survivors have recalled seeing a wall of human eyes in one of Josef's medical rooms. 

Josef's medical rooms were kitted out with the best equipment, antiques and paintings. The floor was made of red concrete. It looked liked something out of a professional hospital. 

You may have come across the incredible Eva Mozes Kor whenever reading about Josef Mengele or watching a documentary about him. To say she was an incredible woman is an understatement! Sadly she passed away in 2019 at the age of 85 but it gives me a little comfort to know that she went on to live a long life and became the icon that we love and know today. Eva and her sister Miriam were cruelly ripped from their mother's arms when they were forced off of the train at Auschwitz. Eva could only watch powerless as their mother was dragged away never to be seen again. She was just 10 years old and both she and Miriam were subjected to Josef's cruel experiments. 

Eva would endure constant injections of various diseases and suffer the pain, the swellings and rashes all over her body. Blood would be taken from her regularly and she would fade in an out of consciousness. On one occasion when her little body was barely hanging on to life she recalled Josef Mengele coming into the room with some other Doctors. She overheard him saying that she had two weeks to live whilst laughing. Eva was determined to hang on and survive. She wanted to be strong for both her and her sister. In the end, not only did Eva manage to save her own life against all odds, she saved her sister's too. Luckily both girls were still alive when the camp was liberated in 1945. Eva became an inspirational speaker and travelled the world (how amazing it would have been to have met such an incredible person) sharing her story. She was amazing and will never be forgotten. A lot of people who suffered in Auschwitz couldn't bare to talk about the atrocities they went through and that's understandable but Eva wanted the world to know, she wanted younger generations to know. She was a remarkable person who wanted peace and unity. 

I will leave some links below about Eva if you would like to know more about her. 

Whilst Josef Mengele was busy destroying lives in Auschwitz his first and only child Rolf was born in 1944. This relationship would be a difficult one as both father and son were not only different in personalities but the results of what was to come less than a year later proved for them to bond would become increasingly difficult with the circumstances. 

The horrendous living nightmare that was the holocaust and Auschwitz was to come to an end in January 1945. Josef Mengele and some of his fellow Nazi war criminals knew the net was closing in 10 days before the Red Army arrived and managed to escape. Josef Mengele had conducted 'experiments' on 3000 sets of twins at Auschwitz and only 300 of these children survived. He was also responsible for numerous other murders and 'experiments'. 

Just 10 days before the liberation, Josef (who was proud of his sadistic work at Auschwitz and a proud Nazi) packed up all of his medical files in a suitcase, disguised himself and managed to escape. It was easy for him to do so at the time because the camp was in sheer chaos with prisoners everywhere and Nazis trying to blow up buildings and burn documents. The initial orders from above was that all the remaining prisoners in the camp were to be murdered and some were but the remaining Nazis were too busy trying to save their own skin and make a run for it that many of the prisoners were left alive. 

The first of many close shaves for Josef came when American soldiers managed to get hold of him and took him away for investigation. The so-called investigation included Josef along with some other SS soldiers being questioned (of course they all lied) and being subjected to having their arms examined. It was standard practice that as soon as a soldier joined the SS, his blood group would be tattooed under his arm. On a very rare occasion, Josef refused at the time to have this tattoo and this is what saved him. The American soldiers believed that he was not part of the SS because he did not have this tattoo and he was set free. 

So Josef Mengele, the monster responsible for the horrendous torture and murder of innocent people, the majority of them young children and babies was free to do as he pleased and with his money and connections. He remained in Germany at first, going straight to his family and stayed with them for a few years (nobody was looking for him) before he was off on a plane with his fake passport to live the high life in Buenos Aires in Argentina. 

To be continued in part two....

Further Reading & Sources

- Mengele: The Complete Story | Book by Gerald L. Posner & John Ware

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | Book by Laurence Rees

- Auschwitz | Book by Laurence Rees

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | BBC Documentary Series

- The Nazis & The Final Solution | BBC Documentary

- WW2 Articles | War History Online

- Nazi War Criminal: Mengele | World In Action (1978, Documentary)

- Nazi Hunters | Timeline (Documentary)

- Rolf Mengele: Interview on The Donahue Show (1986) | Gerald Posner's Youtube Channel

- Josef Mengele | Wikipedia

- Josef Mengele | Holocaust Encyclopedia

- Eva Moses Kor | Timeline Documentary

- Auschwitz | Memorial & Museum

Thank you for reading part one, click here for part two x 

I've decided to do something a little different on my blog and that is to publish a series of posts looking back into history with the true crime connection and where better to start than the unimaginable horror that was the Nazi regime and the holocaust. 

My series will be called 'Horrific History & True Crime', I have been planning these posts for quite some time and have stacks of books that I have been getting through in my research. I hope that you will find this series interesting and as always I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or elsewhere on my social media

It's quite strange to see the number of WW2 books that I have ordered all stacked up in a huge pile next to my true crime bookcase but it's all for my research. I hope to bring you information that you may not have seen before or heard about in the documentaries. After this series I will be writing a serial killer article so I have a lot of interesting content coming up so I hope you will join me for that too. 

So let's make a start and I wanted to talk about an aspect of the Nazi regime that isn't spoken about as much as it should be and that is the role in which the female SS officers played in the concentration camps. As those of us who study true crime cases know, sometimes women can be just as evil as men and in some cases even worse. 

We hear a lot of the roles in which the male SS guards and commandants played but only a little bit of the crimes of female Nazi criminals such as Irma Grese and Johanna Langefeld and I hope to talk a little bit more about this in my post. 

Before I begin, obviously I am talking about a very sensitive subject and I'm doing so for history and educational purposes and as always I aim to be as sensitive and as respectful as I can be when sharing certain details but still stating the facts of what took place. Some of the details will be disturbing so please keep that in mind before continuing to read on. 

I'm going to talk about Irma Grese in this post, the so-called 'Beautiful Beast of Auschwitz' which was amongst her many nicknames, others popularly referred to her as the 'Hyena of Auschwitz' because of her sadistic laugh. Irma was the youngest Nazi criminal to be hanged for her crimes in 1945 at the tender age of just 22 but who exactly was she and what role did she play in one of the most horrific mass murders of all time? 

Irma came into the world on the 7th of October 1923 and there was trouble from the very beginning. Her parents were hardworking farmers and her father was a devout Christian who wasn't afraid to raise his hand to his children to keep them in line. Irma had two brothers and two sisters and although her father liked to paint himself as a holy man, he didn't seem to take his marriage vows very seriously. He badly neglected his wife and the household at times was a very negative place to be. Not surprisingly with the troubles at home, Irma struggled academically, not being able to focus. She experienced some bullying from other children especially other girls because of her academic short comings and when approached by bullies she had a tendency to run away and hide rather than stand up and deal with the problem. At this stage in her life, Irma was afraid of confrontation and seemed to cut quite a timid, quiet and powerless individual. 

More turmoil was to come when it was revealed that her father had been having an affair with a younger woman. Not only did the affair rock the family to it's core but Irma's mother was utterly devastated and committed suicide by drinking Hydrochloric Acid 

Death by drinking Hydrochloric Acid is a very horrific and painful way to die and her mother must have suffered terribly. A tragic end to a very unhappy life with a cold and distant husband became all too much and she saw no other way out. To add insult to injury, Irma's father continued the affair with this younger woman and married her. Not surprisingly, Irma's relationship with her father became very strained and a rebellious attitude soon began to emerge within Irma. 

Having to deal with the bullies, the difficulties at home with a strict father and losing her mother at a young age, Irma began to turn from the timid, quiet young girl to one who was angry, resentful and cold. She was dealing with trauma and abandonment issues and was looking for somewhere desperately to belong, somewhere she could be in complete control. Unable to cope with the bullies and academic struggles at school, she dropped out at the age of 15 and decided to concentrate on finding a job. 

At first it looked as if things were going to take a positive turn as she had partaken in farm work and then worked in a shop with her heart set on becoming a nurse. The nursing career didn't work out and Irma became obsessed with joining the SS. Irma and her siblings had already been exposed to Nazi propaganda in school but her father forbade discussion about it in the home, he was heavily against it. One wonders if this was part of the reason for Irma's Nazi obsession, a chance to get back at her father? She took a job as an assistant nurse in the SS sanatorium against her father's wishes. She wanted to join The League of German Girls along with her sister but her father was against that. The relationship between father and daughter continued to struggle and when the Nazis were advertising for young single women between the ages of 20 to 40 to work at what they were originally calling 'work camps' for POWs (The women were promised a good wage, benefits, uniforms and a comfortable place to stay), Irma put herself up for the role. 

Before she began working as a fully fledged guard she had to undergo vigorous training and health checks. The training was said to have involved the dehumanization of the trainee guards. Irma made a mistake on the first few days of her training as she had accidentally stepped on a prisoner and apologised. This was frowned upon because the guards were being trained to be cold. There was set rules that were publicly advertised about treating the prisoners with respect, no unlawful killing or abuse but of course this was all for face value. The guards were actually encouraged to abuse the prisoners and basically work them (or beat them) to death. 

Irma began to excel in the training at a base near Ravensbruck (an all female concentration camp) before being moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau as a fully fledged guard and then on to Ravensbruck where she had been promoted to the second highest ranking of guard position. 

Irma returned home to visit her father on one occasion and purposefully wore her SS uniform knowing how much it would antagonize him. The visit was very hostile, depending on accounts, Irma was allegedly beaten by her father for wearing the uniform. Whatever took place that day an argument ensued, Irma was told by her father never to return to the family home again. 

From 1942 to 1945 and barely into her 20s, Irma Grese was becoming more and more of a monster in her role at the camps. The more sadistic and evil she was, the more she seemed to get the approval of her peers and the benefits and promotions that came with it. Although biologically she was young, it was like she had been living the life of an evil, sadistic torturer for decades. Gone was the quiet, timid young girl who was frightened of confrontation and instead was this cold hearted creature that I cannot find the words for. 

Irma loved her role as a guard, she enjoyed the power and would get off on it. She is often described in books and documentaries as a beautiful, blonde woman with blue eyes. I don't see that, I just see a frumpy girl with a face that would turn milk sour. When researching some things you have to be careful as some people like to over glamorise certain people and Irma Grese is often over glamorised in my opinion. 

She was narcissistic and wouldn't pass a mirror without looking at her reflection, she would tell anyone who would listen (or be beaten and forced to listen) that when the war was over she was going to be a huge star in the movies. 

The survivors named her 'The Beautiful Beast of Auschwitz', well she was certainly a beast, an evil beast who would torture the women of the camps by slashing at their bare breasts with a pleated whip that she carried around with her at all times along with her pistol. She would beat them if they didn't cry loud enough. She enjoyed targeting people and working them to death. 

She took great pleasure in selecting people to be sent to the gas chamber and would often select women she thought were prettier or slimmer than her. She would force prisoners to perform sex acts on her and if they refused to do so, she would beat them to death or set her dogs on them (Irma also had two aggressive dogs that she would keep starved and set them onto the prisoners for her own amusement). Irma would happily stand and watch as the dogs ripped apart prisoners. 

She was known to force prisoners to stand out in the rain and snow for 6 hours at a time. If any prisoner was seen to be trying to get some rest or sit down for 5 minutes, she would shoot them or beat them to death. Irma would line prisoners up and just shoot random people just because she felt like it and was alleged to have killed up to 30 people on a daily basis. 

With her constant torturing and murdering of prisoners, Irma was busy doing something else too and that was having sex with various male guards of the camps. She had affairs with Josef Mengele (The notorious DR Death) and Commandant Josef Kramer amongst others and these affairs enabled her to have certain 'privileges' such as, with Mengele, she would select certain prisoners for his medical experiments picking women she felt were more beautiful than her. She would often attend the experiments and laugh as procedures were done without anaesthesia especially the ones where some of the female victims had sores and severe, deep cuts on their breasts from where she had violently whipped them (because of the appalling condition of the camp, these horrible injuries were often full of mites and painful infections).

She was also known to have tied the legs together of female prisoners as they were giving birth. The torture and hell that was suffered by the prisoners of Auschwitz and neighbouring camps are unimaginable horror, when you think you have heard enough or think how much worse can it possibly have gotten, you find out more horrific details that just blow your mind and sicken you that much more. 

Her affair with Josef Mengele soon came to an abrupt end when he found out that she was having sex with female prisoners (Irma would routinely rape other women in front of other prisoners and when she grew tired of them she either send them to the gas chamber or beat them to death). 

Thousands of people, male and female died at the hands of Irma Grese but her evil and unimaginable crimes were soon brought to an end on the 17th of April 1945 when she was captured by the British Army. 

The war was officially declared over in 1945 and some Nazis were captured and others were able to flee. Irma stood trial among other female guards who were just as evil as she was but for some reason she was the main focus. She was one of only three female guards sentenced to death, the others got various sentences or were let go. 

At her trial she remained defiant throughout and felt that she had carried out her duties to the best of her ability, she never showed any remorse. The only time she expressed emotion was when the argument with her father was brought up in the court room. 

She was sentenced to hang along with two other female guards, Johanna Bormann and Elizabeth Volkenrath.

The night before her execution, she remained strong in her Nazi beliefs and sang Nazi propaganda songs all night with her fellow prisoners. The morning soon came and without emotion she stood on the gallow, as the cap was placed over her head she said ''SCHNELL'' (meaning 'quickly') in German and with that she was put to death. 

After about 20 minutes she was declared dead and her body was placed in a coffin for burial. 

The horrors of Nazi Germany in WW2 are the stuff of nightmares and it's very hard to believe that such horror actually happened. No matter how many years go by or books I read, documentaries I have watched, every time I am absolutely horrified and in utter disbelief that these events actually happened and I hear and read new shocking stories and details all the time about it. 

These monsters (what else could I possibly call them?) who worked in these camps or the guards who patrolled the streets and damaged or stole the properties of Jewish people and other victims from different backgrounds, were mostly from uneducated backgrounds and had normal jobs before the war. It seemed that anyone could join up and be given a gun and a uniform and given free reign to do whatever they liked to an innocent selection of communities. 

I learned about some of WW2 in high school but only bits and pieces, obviously they didn't teach us the full truth of the atrocities. Like a lot of people, I have read books and watched the documentaries but I am still learning and I think it's very important to learn about this horrifying part of our world's history. Someone said we learn from history so as not to repeat it again. I write this post as the current situation in Ukraine (March 2022) is going on, where innocent people are being forced to flee their homes and children have been killed. We still live in a dangerous world and it's up to us to stand together to support one another and try to ensure that something like the holocaust never happens again. I know we can't control certain situations but us ourselves just being good people, standing against such atrocities and being a support to people in need can do so much. 

RIP to those who have lost their lives at the hands of the evil Nazi regime and those who have died as the result of all wars and respect to those who have fought for peace and continue to do so. 

Further reading & Sources: 

- Irma Grese: Hitler's WW2 Female Monsters Exposed | Book by Jerry Larson & Erik Clark

- The Nazis: A Warning From History | Book & Documentaries by Laurence Rees

- Irma Grese: Article | Daily Mail

- Irma Grese | Capital Punishment UK

- Irma Grese | Wikipedia

- Ravensbruck | Holocaust Encyclopedia

- Ravensbruck | Wikipedia

- Auschwitz - Burkenau | Memorial & Museum

- Auschwitz | Holocaust Encyclopedia

Thank you for taking the time to check out my post and hope you will join me next week for the next part of my Horrific History & True Crime Series. See you on my Socials in the meantime x