December 13th, 1945.
9:34 a.m.
Hamlin Prison, Germany.
A young woman walks into an execution chamber.
She’s 22 years old, blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful.
She’s wearing a clean prison dress.
Her hair is neatly styled.
She looks around the room at the British military officer standing at attention, at the wooden gallows in the center, at the noose hanging from the beam, and she smiles.
She actually smiles.
Her name is Irma Gracie.
In 8 minutes, she’ll be dead, hang by the neck until her body stops twitching.
She’ll be the youngest woman executed under British law in the 20th century.
And I’m warning you now the story of what Irma Grace did to earn that noose.
The calculated sadism she inflicted on thousands of women at Ravensbrook, Awitz, and Bergen Bellson, and why at age 22 she had to die will make you understand that some people don’t deserve to breathe.
Before we dive in, make sure you’re subscribed because we’re about to uncover the brutal reality of the beautiful beast of Bellson.
How a dairy worker’s daughter became the second highest ranking female guard at Ashvitz.
How she selected prisoners for gas chambers while wearing expensive perfume.
How she beat women until they bled from their breasts.
How she set half- starve dogs on prisoners.
And how she walked to the gallows laughing, unrepentant to the end.
October 7th, 1923, Recken, Germany, a small village in Meckllinburgg, 50 mi north of Berlin.
Irma Ilsa Graca was born to Alfred Graca, a dairy worker at the local manor house and Bertha Winter.
She was the third of five children.
Her father worked long hours for modest pay.
Her mother tended the family garden and raised chickens, geese, and pigs.
It was a hard life, but normal.
No obvious signs of what Irma would become.
In 1936, when Irma was 13, her mother, Bertha, killed herself.
She drank hydrochloric acid.
Why? She discovered Alfred was having an affair with a pub owner’s daughter.
Bertha chose a horrific death rather than live with the humiliation.
Irma found the body.
She watched her mother die screaming in agony.
Did this traumatize her? Turn her into the monster she became? Maybe.
Or maybe she was always broken.
Either way, her mother’s suicide didn’t make her compassionate, it made her cruel.
Alfred remarried in 1939 to a widow with four children.
He also joined the Nazi party in 1937.
And Irma at age 13 joined the League of German Girls, the Boon Deutsche Medal, the female version of the Hitler Youth.
She was obsessed with it.
She attended every meeting, every rally.
She sang Nazi songs.
She learned about Aryan supremacy, about the Jewish threat, about Germany’s destiny to rule Europe.
Her father disapproved.
He joined the Nazi party for practical reasons, to keep his job, to fit in, but he didn’t want his daughter consumed by ideology.
Too late.
Irma was a true believer.
In 1938, at age 15, Irma left school.
She had poor grades and was bullied by classmates.
She worked various jobs.
6 months on a farm, 6 months in a shop.
Then she tried to become a nurse.
She worked as an assistant at an SS sanatorium for 2 years, but she couldn’t get a nursing apprenticeship.
In 1942, the labor exchange had a different assignment.
They sent her to Ravensbrook concentration camp.
She later claimed she protested.
I tried again to become a nurse, but the labor exchange sent me to Ravensbrook concentration camp.
Although I protested against it.
That’s what she said at her trial.
But there’s no evidence she actually protested.
No record of refusal.
She could have said no.
Women who refuse camp assignments were reassigned, not punished.
But Irma accepted.
In July 1942, at age 18, she arrived at Ravensbrook for training.
Ravensbrook was the main concentration camp for women.
It held tens of thousands of female prisoners, political prisoners, Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, so-called associ.
New female guards were trained there.
The training was brief, a few weeks.
They learned camp procedures, hierarchy, discipline.
They were told prisoners were subhuman, enemies of the Reich, criminals.
They were given uniforms, whips, authority.
Irma thrived.
Within months, she became a supervisor.
She was 19 years old and she’d found her calling.
Beating women, humiliating them, breaking them.
She wore heavy boots.
She carried a whip.
She strutdded through the barracks like she owned the place.
Survivors later testified that she was already brutal at Ravensbrook.
Already sadistic, already enjoying it.
In March 1943, Irma was transferred to Avitz Burkanau, the largest death camp in the Nazi system, a factory of murder where over 1 million people were gassed and burned.
Irma was assigned to the women’s section of Burkanau.
She was 19 years old and she was about to become one of the most notorious war criminals in history.
At Ashvitz, Irma rose quickly.
She was loyal, obedient, enthusiastic.
In autumn 1943 at age 20 she was promoted to Oberal Searin senior SS supervisor the second highest ranking female guard at Awitz.
She had authority over 30,000 women mainly Polish and Hungarian Jews.
She could do whatever she wanted to them and she did.
Survivors described Irma as stunningly beautiful.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect skin.
She wore tailored uniforms made by prisoner seamstresses from stolen clothing.
She wore expensive perfumes confiscated from murdered Jews.
She spent hours styling her hair.
She looked like a fashion model and she used her beauty as a weapon.
Jazella Pearl, a prisoner physician, wrote, “She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Her face had an angelic clarity, and her blue eyes were the liveliest and most innocent eyes imaginable.
” Olga, another prisoner doctor wrote, “It defied belief that such a pretty girl could be so cruel.
When she walked through the camp with a whip in her hand, she was surrounded by a cloud of choice perfume.
The perfume was psychological torture.
Prisoners lived in filth.
They hadn’t bathed in months.
They smelled of death and decay.
And Irma would glide past wearing French perfume, reminding them of everything they lost.
home, beauty, humanity.
But Irma’s beauty masked depravity.
She carried three things everywhere: heavy boots, a platted whip, and a pistol.
Survivors testified about her signature methods.
She would beat women with the whip, aiming specifically at their breasts.
She’d kick them with her boots until they bled.
She’d set her half-starved German Shepherd on prisoners, watching as the dog tore flesh from bone.
She’d shoot prisoners who couldn’t keep up during roll call.
Just raise her pistol and fire.
One shot.
Dead.
Elona Stein, a Hungarian survivor, testified, “I was working in the kitchen at Burkanau when I saw a woman go to the dividing wire to speak to her daughter in the adjoining camp.
Greece, who was passing on a bicycle, immediately got off, took off her leather belt, and beat the woman with it.
She also beat her on the face and head with her fists.
And when the woman fell to the ground, she trampled on her.
The woman’s face became swollen and blue.
Daniel Shaffran, a Polish survivor, testified, “I have seen Gracie beat prisoners in Awitz.
She had a pistol, but she was using a riding crop.
The beatings were very severe.
” He also testified that during a selection for the gas chamber, two girls tried to escape by jumping out a window.
They were lying on the ground injured.
Greece walked up to them and shot both in the head.
Just like that.
Two bullets, two dead girls because they didn’t want to die in a gas chamber.
But Irma’s worst crime was the selections.
Every few weeks, SS doctors would conduct selections.
Prisoners deemed unfit for work were sent to the gas chambers.
Irma participated eagerly.
She’d walk through the barracks, examining women like livestock, pointing, “You out! You out!” Those selected knew what it meant.
Within hours, they’d be dead.
Abraham Glennoweski testified that Irma sent both sick and healthy Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers during selection.
She didn’t just select the weak.
She selected anyone.
Healthy women, pregnant women, women who annoyed her.
Women who were too beautiful.
According to Olenuel, Irma had a ponchant for selecting not only the sick and the weak, but any woman who had retained vestigages of her former beauty.
Jealousy.
Pure jealousy.
She’d send beautiful women to die because she didn’t want competition.
Helena Copper, a capo at Avitz, testified that when Irma oversaw a punishment detail, she was responsible for the deaths of at least 30 prisoners per day.
30 every single day for 7 months.
That’s over 6,000 deaths from one assignment.
And Irma enjoyed it.
Survivors testified that she took pleasure in cruelty.
She’d smile while beating prisoners.
She’d laugh while setting her dog on them.
She’d hum Nazi songs while conducting selections.
Witnesses also testified about Irma’s sexual depravity.
She had affairs with SS doctors, with married officers, and with female prisoners.
Olga Leniel claimed Irma engaged in sadistic sexual abuse of Jewish women.
A prisoner who served as Irma’s maid testified that Irma’s sexual interactions with imprisoned Jewish women were sadistic in nature and frequent.
Power, control, domination.
That’s what Irma wanted.
To own people completely, to decide who lived and who died, to inflict pain without consequence.
For 2 years, she did exactly that.
In January 1945, the Red Army was advancing toward Ashvitz.
The camp was being evacuated.
Prisoners were forced on death marches westward.
Irma was briefly transferred back to Ravensbrook.
Then in March 1945, she was sent to Bergen Bellson.
Bergen Bellson was collapsing.
The camp was designed for 10,000 prisoners.
It now held over 60,000.
There was no food, no water, no sanitation.
Typhus was rampant.
Prisoners were dying by the hundreds every day.
Irma was assigned as Arbetstein’s furerin, labor service leader.
She was supposed to be transferred out, but she refused.
Why? because her new lover, France Hatsinger, a married SS officer 14 years older, was stationed there.
She called him Hatchi.
According to testimony from another guard, Greece and Hatsinger were very close and regularly sneaked off secretly to have sex.
Even as the camp descended into hell, Irma was having an affair.
At Bergen Bellson, Irma continued her brutality.
Daniel Chaffron testified he saw her beat a girl with a riding crop about 2 weeks before British liberation.
The beatings were very severe.
On April 15th, 1945, British forces of the 11th Armored Division liberated Bergen Bellson.
When Brigadier Bob Danielle tried to enter a hut, someone poked him in the back.
He turned around.
Irma Grecy stood behind him with her German Shepherd and a pistol pointed at his spine.
He described her as an immaculate German woman, very tidy and very well-dressed.
She was pointing a gun at a British officer.
He shouted at her.
She ran.
Irma and the other female guards weren’t immediately arrested.
The British made them bury the dead.
Over 10,000 corpses were scattered around the camp.
Rotting in the sun, the guards were forced to drag bodies to mass graves.
Photographers documented it.
Images of SS guards hauling skeletal corpses became some of the most iconic photographs of the Holocaust.
Irma Greca, the beautiful beast carrying dead prisoners.
Then she was arrested.
On September 17th, 1945, Irma stood trial at Lunberg, the first Bellson trial.
45 defendants, the camp commandant, Yseph Kramer, SS Dr.
Fritz Klene, and three female guards, Irma Gresa, Elizabeth Falconrod, and Wana Borman.
Each defendant wore a numbered placard.
Irma was number nine.
She faced two charges: war crimes at Bergen Bellson and war crimes at Awitz.
murder, torture, selecting prisoners for gas chambers, setting dogs on inmates, arbitrary shootings, beatings with whips.
The trial lasted 54 days.
Survivors testified.
One by one, they took the stand.
They identified Irma.
They described what she’d done.
They pointed at her and said, “She beat me.
She shot my friend.
She selected my mother for the gas chamber.
” Some witnesses broke down crying.
Others spoke with cold fury.
Irma sat stone-faced.
She wore a different hairstyle everyday trying to look good.
Even though her lover Hatsinger had died of typhus on April 23rd, she didn’t know.
She still thought he was alive.
Still wanted to impress him.
When films were shown of Awitz and Bergen Bellson, corpses piled like cordwood, mass graves, skeletal survivors, Irma showed no emotion, nothing.
When prosecutors questioned her, she was arrogant.
Did you carry a whip at Awitz? Yes, it was a very light whip, but if I hit somebody with it, it would hurt.
Common Dant Kramer prohibited whips, but you went on using them.
Yes.
So, you did this against orders? Yes, she admitted it.
She used the whip even when ordered not to.
She beat prisoners for fun, not duty.
Were you told about the gas chambers? No, the prisoners told me.
You knew prisoners were being gassed? Yes.
Did you select prisoners for the gas chambers? No.
She lied.
Witness after witness testified they saw her conducting selections.
She’d send women to their deaths and then deny it.
Her only defense was the standard Nazi excuse.
Himmler is responsible for everything that has happened.
But I suppose I am as much to blame as the others above me.
Following orders.
No choice.
[ __ ] The prosecution demolished this.
They presented evidence that no guard had ever been punished for refusing to participate in killings.
Guards who objected were reassigned, not executed.
Irma had choices.
She chose cruelty.
Her only moment of vulnerability came when her sister Hela testified.
Helen described how in 1943, Irma visited their father wearing her SS uniform.
She was proud.
She tore the head and limbs off Hela’s young daughter’s doll just to be cruel.
When their father’s young son playfully aimed Irma’s pistol at him, Alfred took it away and struck Irma with it.
They argued.
Hela hadn’t seen violence, but she heard them fighting about Irma being in the S.
When Helen testified, Irma broke down sobbing.
It was the only time she showed emotion during the entire trial.
On November 17th, 1945, the verdict came down.
30 defendants guilty, 14 acquitted, one too sick to stand trial, 11 death sentences, 19 prison terms.
Irma Grees, guilty on both counts, sentenced to death by hanging.
Joseph Kramer, death.
Fritz Klene, death.
Elizabeth Vulcanrot, death.
Wana Borman, death.
When Irma heard the sentence, she didn’t react.
Still arrogant, still composed, still beautiful.
The condemned were transferred to Hamlin prison to await execution.
According to reports, Irma spent her final weeks writing letters, styling her hair, acting like she was still in control.
On the night before her execution, guards heard her singing Nazi songs loudly, defiantly.
She was 22 years old and she was going to die, and she was singing songs about German supremacy.
December 13th, 1945, 9:34 a.
m.
Albert Pierre Point, Britain’s chief executioner, stood in the corridor outside Irma’s cell.
He’d flown to Germany specifically for this execution.
11 condemned prisoners would hang that day.
Three women first, then the eight men in pairs.
Pierre Point described the scene in his memoir.
At last we finished noting the details of the men and RSM O’Neal ordered, “Bring out Irma.
” She walked out of her cell and came towards us laughing.
She seemed as Bonnie a girl as one could ever wish to meet.
Laughing, she was walking to her execution and she was laughing.
She answered O’Neal’s questions, but when he asked her age, she paused and smiled.
I found that we were both smiling with her as if we realized the conventional embarrassment of a woman revealing her age.
Eventually, she said 21, which we knew to be correct.
She was actually 22, but she lied about her age even on the way to the gallows.
Vanity.
O’Neal asked her to step on the scales.
They needed her weight to calculate the drop.
Too short and she’d strangle slowly.
Too long and she’d be decapitated.
Pierre Point was a professional.
He got it right.
Follow me, I said in English, and O’Neal repeated the order in German.
Irma walked into the execution chamber.
She looked around at the British military officers standing at attention.
At the wooden gallows, at the noose.
She walked calmly to the center of the trap.
Pierre Point placed the white hood over her head.
He positioned the noose around her neck.
He adjusted the knot behind her left ear.
He stepped back.
The trap opened.
Irma Grace dropped.
The rope snapped taut.
Her neck broke.
She was unconscious instantly, dead within seconds.
It was 9:34 a.
m.
The entire process from entering the chamber to death took 12 seconds.
Pierre Point was efficient.
After Irma, Elizabeth Vulcan was hanged.
Then Hana Borman, then the eight men, two at a time.
By 10:38 a.
m.
, all 11 were dead.
The bodies were left hanging for an hour.
Then they were cut down, placed in wooden coffins, and buried in unmarked graves in the prison cemetery.
No ceremony, no markers, just numbers on the coffins.
Irma Greece was dead at 22, the youngest woman executed under British law in the 20th century.
And here’s what makes Irma’s story so disturbing.
She wasn’t a monster from birth.
She was an ordinary German girl, daughter of a dairy worker, poor student, wanted to be a nurse, got sent to a concentration camp instead, and within months she became a sadist who beat women to death, selected thousands for gas chambers, and enjoyed every second of it.
What does that tell us about human nature? About the capacity for evil that exists in all of us? Hannah Arant wrote about the benality of evil.
The idea that genocide isn’t carried out by monsters, but by ordinary people who make choices.
Irma Grace is the perfect example.
She wasn’t insane.
She wasn’t psychotic.
She was a normal person who chose cruelty when given permission, when given power, when told that her victims were subhuman.
She thrived in that environment.
She volunteered for selections.
She beat prisoners who didn’t need beating.
She went beyond what was required.
She found satisfaction in suffering.
And when she was caught, she showed no remorse.
She laughed on the way to the gallows.
She sang Nazi songs the night before her execution.
She died unrepentant.
Did she deserve to hang? Absolutely.
She selected thousands for death.
She beat women until they bled.
She set dogs on prisoners.
She shot people for fun.
Following orders is not a defense.
Being young is not a defense.
Being beautiful is not a defense.
She had choices.
She chose evil and she paid for it with her life.
But here’s the injustice.
Irma Greece was one of approximately 3,700 female concentration camp guards.
Most were never prosecuted.
Most went home, changed their names, lived normal lives, got married, had children, grew old, died peacefully in their beds.
Irma was unlucky.
She was at Bergen Bellson when the British arrived.
She was stupid enough to point a gun at a British officer.
She was notorious enough that survivors remembered her.
So, she was caught, tried, convicted, executed.
But thousands of others escaped justice entirely.
Think about that.
Thousands of women who did similar things, who beat prisoners, who selected people for gas chambers, who tortured inmates.
They’re still out there.
or they were until they died of old age, living normal lives, never facing consequences.
Irma Greece hanged at 22.
She deserved it.
But what about all the others? What about the guards who worked at camps for years instead of two? What about the ones who killed hundreds instead of thousands? What about the ones who got away? We’ll never know.
History forgot them.
But their victims remember the women Irma beat.
Remember the prisoners she selected for death, if any, survived.
Remember the thousands who died because of her.
They can’t remember anything.
They’re dead.
Ashes from the crematoriums at Awitz.
Bodies in mass graves at Bergen Bellson.
Gone.
Forgotten.
Except we refuse to forget.
We tell these stories.
We document the crimes.
We name the perpetrators.
Irma Graca.
Beautiful, brutal, unrepentant.
She hanged on December 13th, 1945.
She was 22 years old.
She’d worked in concentration camps for 3 years and she sent thousands to their deaths.
That’s the truth.
The brutal unvarnished truth about who Irma Greece was and why she had to die.
She wasn’t executed because she was a low-level guard.
She was executed because she was a sadist who enjoyed torturing women.
Because she selected prisoners for gas chambers with a smile.
Because she beat them with whips and boots and set dogs on them.
Because even when caught, even when facing death, she showed no remorse.
She laughed, she sang, she died defiant.
What other stories from history should we tell? Let us know in the comments and subscribe because these stories matter.
Every victim of Irma Grace matters, every woman she beat, every prisoner she selected, every life she destroyed.
We tell these stories to remember, to bear witness, to ensure that never again means something.
Because the truth is that Irma Gres was hanged on December 13th, 1945.
She walked to the gallows laughing.
Her neck broke.
She died in 12 seconds.
And the world became a slightly better place.
If we forget that, if we sanitize the Holocaust, if we pretend that perpetrators were all high-ranking Nazis and low-level guards were just victims, then we dishonor every victim.
Irma Gracie deserves to be remembered for exactly what she was.
A war criminal, a torturer, a murderer, a woman who beat prisoners to death and selected thousands for gas chambers, and a woman who hang for her crimes at age 22.
