Ilsa Koch is known all over the world as "Frau Lampshade" or "Witch of Buchenwald". She also had other nicknames, and they all indicated her unprecedented cruelty towards prisoners of fascist camps.
Ilsa Koch is one of the most violent women in the history of the world. There were legends about her atrocities against concentration camp prisoners, and many of them are confirmed by facts. She poisoned pregnant women with dogs, sewed wardrobe items and accessories from the skin of murdered prisoners, and boasted of them to the ladies and gentlemen of high society. Who is she and where is she from? Why did an ordinary girl become the most terrible overseer in the history of the world?
Biography of the "Buchenwald Witch"
The future "Frau Abazhur" was born at the end of September 1906, in an ordinary working-class family. At school, she was noted as a diligent student, an open and sociable girl, in whose character there was not even a trace of cruelty towards people or animals.
The only thing that distinguished Ilsa from her peers was that she believed that they were not worthy of her attention. The girl communicated with many, but was not really friendly with anyone. She stopped the courtship of the guys from her native village immediately.
After graduating from high school, Kehler (Koch) Ilsa graduated from librarian courses, got a job at the local library and worked there for some time. Colleagues, as well as school teachers, spoke very well of her. Fundamental changes in her character and behavior happened after the girl joined the ranks of the NDSAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) in 1932. She became even more arrogant, stopped communicating even with those peers whom she once "favored".
In 1934, Ilse Koch's fateful meeting with her future associate and husband Karl Koch took place. It was then that the outgoing and flamboyant librarian began to turn into a monster. Psychologists who have studied her life story are sure that perversion was inherent in her consciousness from the very beginning, but it began to open up only after Ilsa found a like-minded person in her husband.
Marriage and "new opportunities"
Ilsa and Karl Koch entered into an official marriage in 1936, and almost immediately the newly-made wife, as a volunteer, got a job as a warden in a concentration camp, where her husband was the commandant. Very soon she became the spouse's secretary, which opened up new opportunities for her - she could do anything on the territory of the camp. Just a few months later, the commandant's wife was more feared than himself, and not only by the prisoners, but also by the employees.
In 1937 Karl Koch was transferred from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Buchenwald. Ilsa followed him. And it was in this camp that the woman showed her true face - no one allowed himself such atrocities in relation to the prisoners. In addition, Ilsa entered the so-called high society of Nazi Germany. Surprisingly, among gentlemen and ladies, she received only approval for her terrible atrocities.
The first steps and crimes of the "Buchenwald Witch"
For several years, Ilsa Koch drank and enjoyed her unlimited power over the prisoners of Buchenwald and Majdanek (where her husband was later transferred). She did not walk around the camps without a whip. Everyone who caught her eye, sometimes even employees, could get a whip in her legs or face. Any disobedience could be the cause of death. But the most terrible atrocities she committed in relation to the prisoners of concentration camps.
Most of all, Ilsa Koch was attracted by prisoners who had tattoos on their bodies - former "prisoners", gypsies, sailors. The latter often had colored tattoos, which was quite unusual for that period. Ilsa found an unusual "use" for such prisoners - their skin served as a material for the manufacture of handbags, lampshades for lamps, gloves and other items.
The first "handicraft" "Frau Lampshade" made of human skin was a handbag with the image of a red monkey and gloves. With these items, she appeared at a Christmas celebration organized especially for SS officers and their families. The woman did not hide what the purse and gloves were made of, she even boasted about them, and most of the audience expressed their approval of her "resourcefulness".
Ilsa Koch launched a whole production. The selected prisoners were killed by injection so as not to accidentally spoil the "material". They worked with leather in a special workshop organized on the territory of the concentration camp. Very soon, the fanatic boasted to the wives of other SS officers with unique items - lampshades, tablecloths, book bindings, paintings on the walls made of human skin, and even underwear. In addition, Ilsa collected the internal organs of the murdered, storing them in jars tied with red ribbons.
Punishment
The atrocities of the famous Ilse Koch did not last long. In mid-1942, her husband was accused of corruption, and a few months later, both spouses were arrested. After a long investigation, Karl Koch was sentenced to death, but Ilsa was acquitted, went to her parents, but not for long. At the end of June 1945, she was arrested by the Americans, two years later she was sentenced to life imprisonment, but the sentence was soon overturned. All evidence of her fanaticism, items from her terrible collection, magically disappeared from the case.
In 1949, Ilse Koch was again arrested by the German authorities. There were 4 witnesses that it was on her order that prisoners with tattoos were killed, and then skin was removed from their corpses, again on her order. The "Buchenwald Witch" never came out again. In 1967, she committed suicide in a prison cell.
