Ilse Koch is known worldwide as the "Frau Lampshade" or "Buchenwald Witch." She also had other nicknames, and all of them pointed to her unprecedented cruelty in relation to prisoners of fascist camps.
Ilse Koch is one of the most cruel women in the history of the world. Legends circulated about her atrocities over prisoners of concentration camps, and many of them were confirmed by facts. She poisoned pregnant dogs, sewed wardrobe items and accessories from the skin of dead prisoners, and boasted to the ladies and gentlemen of high society. Who is she and where from? Why did an ordinary girl become the most terrible warden in the history of the world?
Biography of the "Buchenwald Witch"
The future "Frau Lampshade" 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 the character of which there was not a trace of cruelty towards people or animals.
The only thing that distinguished Ilse from her peers was that she believed that they were not worthy of her attention. The girl talked 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 Köhler (Koch), Ilse graduated from librarian courses, got a job in a local library and worked there for some time. Co-workers, like school teachers, spoke very well about her. Dramatic changes in her character and behavior occurred after the girl joined the ranks of the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1932. She became even more arrogant, stopped communicating even with those peers whom she had once “favored”.
In 1934, the fateful meeting of Ilza Koch with her future associate and husband Karl Koch took place. It was then that a sociable and vibrant librarian began to turn into a monster. Psychologists who studied her life story are convinced that perversion was laid in her mind initially, but she began to reveal herself only after Ilse found a like-minded person in the face of her husband.
Marriage and "new opportunities"
Ilse and Karl Koch entered into an official marriage in 1936, and almost immediately the newly-made wife volunteered as a volunteer in a concentration camp, where her husband was a commandant. Very soon, she became the secretary of her husband, which opened up new opportunities for her - she could do anything in the camp. After only a few months, the commandant’s wife was more afraid than him, not only prisoners, but also employees.
In 1937, Karl Koch was transferred from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Buchenwald. Ilse followed him. And it was in this camp that a woman showed her true face - no one in relation to prisoners allowed such savagery. In addition, Ilsa entered the so-called high society of Nazi Germany. Surprisingly, among the 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 reveled in and enjoyed her unlimited power over the prisoners of Buchenwald and Majdanek (where her husband was later transferred to). She did not go through camps without a whip. Everyone who caught her eye, sometimes even employees, could get a whip on her legs or face. Any disobedience could cause death. But she committed the most terrible atrocities in relation to prisoners of concentration camps.
Most of all, Ilsa Koch was attracted to prisoners who had tattoos on their bodies - former "convicts", gypsies, sailors. The latter tattoos were often colored, which was quite unusual for that period. Ilsa found such prisoners an unusual "application" - their skin served as the material for the manufacture of handbags, lampshades for lamps, gloves and other items.
The first "craft" "Frau Lampshade" made of human skin was a handbag with a picture 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 her purse and gloves were made of, even boasted about them, and the majority of those present expressed their approval of her "resourcefulness."
Ilsa Koch launched a whole production. Selected prisoners were killed by injection in order not to accidentally spoil the “material”. They worked with leather in a special workshop organized on the territory of a concentration camp. Very soon, the fanatic was boasting 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 slain, storing them in jars tied with red ribbons.
