Irma Grese Essay

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In addition to her attire, she used her words to demean the already morose women under her command. Olga Lengyl recalled Grese calling her “filthy scum,” “pig,” and “swine” moments before Grese reprimanded or beat her. The Jewish people view pigs as unclean and unholy. They do not eat pork for this reason. Irma Grese’s use of these specific terms on Jewish women contained an even worse connotation than if she said them to a woman of a different faith. Rabbi Mendy Kaminker wrote, “Colloquially, the pig is the ultimate symbol of loathing; when you say that someone “acted like a chazir [pig],” it suggests that he or she did something unusually abominable.” Though perhaps Grese only thought of pigs as dirty, nasty animals. Which is the same way she viewed the women in her vicious care. While Irma Grese mastered the art of humiliating the inmates, she also quickly perfected her skill with corporal punishment …show more content…

Irma Grese quickly climbed the corporate ladder at Birkenau. Daniel Brown stated she “was promoted to the rank of Oberaufseherin, or “Senior SS Matron.” This gave her even more leeway to abuse the women confined within the camp. When she walked around camp, Irma Grese carried with her a riding whip, the kind normally used for horses, sometimes a truncheon and a pistol. She liberally used each of these weapons when dealing with the prisoners. At her trail many of her former victims testified about her beating them and others. One victim named Gertrude Diament testified, “Grese at both Auschwitz and Belsen…beat women with sticks and when they fell to the ground she kicked them as hard as she could with her heavy boots.” Additionally, Ilona Stein testified that Irma Grese noticed a mother and daughter talking. She immediately walked over “before the mother could get away and the mother was beaten severely and kicked by

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