Where is Buchenwald located? Buchenwald concentration camp

Story

Chronology of events:

• 1937 – On July 15, the first prisoners arrive from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the following weeks, the Sachsenburg and Lichtenburg camps are disbanded, and their prisoners, including political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses, criminals, and homosexuals, are transferred to Buchenwald. The commandant of the camp is Karl Koch. On August 14, the first prisoner of Buchenwald was hanged. It was a worker from Altona, 23-year-old Herman Kempek.
• In February 1938, under the leadership of Martin Sommer, a torture chamber and a room for executions were created in the so-called "bunker". On May 1, the SS command allocates a category of Jews among the prisoners. Prisoners are deprived of lunch because of the alleged theft of radishes from the camp garden. On June 4, worker Emil Bargatsky is hanged in front of the assembled prisoners. This was the first public execution in a German concentration camp.
• February 1939 - the first epidemic of typhus, in November - an epidemic of dysentery. At the end of 1939, there were 11,807 prisoners in the camp, 1,235 of them had died.
• 1940 - the beginning of the construction of the crematorium. On August 22, an order was issued to extract gold teeth before burning corpses. The crematorium has been operating since the summer of 1940.
• In September 1941, the first Soviet prisoners of war were shot near the camp. Later, to the west of the camp, in the SS stable, a firing device appears. According to rough estimates, about 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot under the leadership of the SS. Soviet prisoners of war were not counted in the camp's statistics.
• 1942 In January, the first medical experiments are carried out on prisoners. At the end of the year there were 9,517 prisoners in the camp, every third prisoner had died.
• 1943 Prisoners are placed in a small camp. In April, block 46 hosts the 13th wave of medical experiments. More than half of the prisoners die a painful death. Not far from the city of Nordhausen, the Dora underground work camp is being built, in which V2 rockets were manufactured. During the first six months, 2,900 prisoners die. At the end of the year, there were 37,319 people in the camp, of which 14,500 were citizens of the USSR, 7,500 Poles, 4,700 French, and 4,800 Germans and Austrians. Almost half of them are in the outer camps.
• 1944 Ernst Thalmann, chairman of the KKE, shot in the crematorium building. On August 24, the Allies bombed the weapons factories and the SS barracks. 2,000 prisoners are injured, 388 die. The Buchenwald camp and its affiliates hold 63,048 men and 24,210 women. 8,644 people die. In October-November 1944, prisoners from concentration camps in Latvia begin to arrive, primarily from Kaiserwald and Dondangen. There are about 2,000 of them in total.
• In January 1945, thousands of Jews arrive from Polish concentration camps. Many of them are mortally ill, hundreds of bodies remain lifeless in the cars. In February, Buchenwald becomes the largest death camp: 112,000 prisoners are kept behind barbed wire in 88 branches of the Buchenwald concentration camp. In March, an armed uprising breaks out on the territory of the camp, organized by the forces of the prisoners themselves. The participants in the uprising manage to recapture and retain camp areas, the rebels begin to broadcast the SOS signal on the radio. A few days later, the nearby American troops reach the camp and first of all issue a decree on the surrender of the weapons they have to the prisoners, also, the Americans restore the part of the wall with barbed wire destroyed during the uprising. The battalion of Soviet prisoners of war refuses to surrender their weapons, since they are the only evidence of an armed liberation uprising held in the camp and continues to exist as an independent military unit. Behind Last year existence, 13,959 people died in the camp. Hundreds of emaciated prisoners die after the camp is liberated. On April 16, on the orders of the American commandant, 1,000 Weimar residents come to the camp to see the atrocities of the Nazis.
• In July/August, the camp comes under the control of the Soviet military command and the NKVD. The so-called "Special Camp No. 2" is being created here, which worked until 1950. At first, the camp served for the internment of Nazi war criminals, and later prisoners began to enter it for political reasons.
• In total, about a quarter of a million prisoners from all European countries. The number of victims is about 56,000 people.

medical experiments

Many medical experiments were carried out on the prisoners, as a result of which most died a painful death. Prisoners were infected with typhus, tuberculosis and other dangerous diseases in order to test the effect of vaccines against the causative agents of these diseases. Diseases developed very quickly into epidemics due to overcrowding in the barracks, insufficient hygiene, poor nutrition, and also because these diseases were not treated.

In addition, in the camp from December 1943 to October 1944. experiments were carried out to study the effectiveness of various poisons. During these experiments, poison was secretly added to the prisoners' food.

The experiments were documented in the patient observation log of SS doctor Erwin Ding-Schuler, were confirmed by camp doctors, and were also described in the book of the former prisoner, Austrian sociologist and philosopher Eugen Kogon (Eugen Kogon) "State of the SS" ( Der SS-Staat) (1946).

Reliable information, documents and protocols of interrogations are presented in the collection of Angelica Ebbinghaus “Destruction and treatment. The Nuremberg trials of doctors and its consequences "(Vernichten und Heilen. Der Nürnberger Ärzteprozess und seine Folgen). This book came out with donations from 8,000 doctors after the German Federal Medical Office refused to fund the project.

Organized resistance

Political prisoners in the course of a long work managed to take some key positions in the management of the camp. They influenced the statistics of forced labor and the defense of the camp. The hospital barracks were also under the control of the prisoners.

For example, one of the most staunch members of the resistance, Albert Kunz, was sent to the Dora camp, where V-2 rockets were being manufactured. With the support and organization of Kunz, sabotage actions were organized there in the work of the plant.

International Camp Committee

With the arrival of new political prisoners from the countries occupied by the Nazis, anti-fascists of various nationalities created resistance groups. From these groups, the International Camp Committee (Das Internationale Lagerkomitee) was created in July 1943, which, under the leadership of the communist Walter Barthel, resisted the Nazis. The committee was founded in the hospital barracks, where its secret meetings were held. Later, the committee organized the International Paramilitary Organization (Internationale Militärorganisation).

Liberation

In early April 1945, the SS took several thousand Jews out of the camp. However, the Nazis failed to carry out the mass evacuation of prisoners, scheduled for April 5, 1945. In the last weeks of the existence of Buchenwald, an underground armed organization arose here. When American troops entered Buchenwald on April 11, 1945, the organization already exercised control over the camp. Of the 238,380 prisoners who have passed through Buchenwald since its founding, 56,549 have died or been killed.

The Americans brought the inhabitants of Weimar to the camp, most of whom declared that they knew nothing about this camp.

Functioning of the camp in 1945-1950 in the NKVD system

In the period 1945-1950. the camp was used by the NKVD, initially called "Special Camp No. 2", and in 1948 it was integrated into the Gulag system. According to Soviet archival data, 28,455 prisoners passed through the camp in 1945-1950, of which 7,113 died.

Memorial

In 1951, a memorial plate was erected on the territory of the former camp in memory of the participants in the camp Resistance, and in 1958 a decision was made to open a national memorial complex in Buchenwald.

Today, only a cobbled foundation remains of the barracks, which indicates the place where the buildings were. Near each one there is a memorial inscription: “Barrack No. 14. Roma and Sinti were kept here”, “Barrack No. ... Teenagers were kept here”, “Barrack No. ... Jews were kept here”, etc.

The creators of the Buchenwald memorial complex preserved the building of the crematorium. The walls of the crematorium have plaques with names on them. different languages: it is the relatives of the dead who perpetuated their memory. Observation towers and barbed wire in several rows have been preserved, the gates of the camp with the inscription “Jedem das Seine” (“To each his own” in German) have not been touched.

see also

• International Day for the Liberation of Prisoners of Nazi Concentration Camps
• Outer camps of the Buchenwald concentration camp

Notes

Literature

• Libster M. In the Crucible of Terror: The Story of a Man Who Passed Through the Fascist Terror. - Per. from English. - M.: Special book, 2007, 250, 192 p.: ill. ISBN 978-5-9797-0003-8
• Max Liebster: Hoffnungsstrahl im Nazisturm. Geschichte eines Holocaustüberlebenden; Esch-sur-Alzette, 2003; ISBN 2879539900

Photo gallery

Railway station2.JPG

Railway station Buchenwald

Main gate sign.JPG

The inscription on the main gate "To each his own"

Buchenwald Crematorium

Crematorium ovens.JPG

Buchenwald crematorium ovens

The barracks of the Buchenwald concentration camp were located on this territory.

Barrack number 5

In memory of homosexual.JPG

In memory of representatives of sexual minorities

One of the metal poles at the burial site of a Soviet special camp. Caption: "Unknown 889"

Links

• Muslim Magomaev Buchenwald alarm
• Eyewitness accounts and a list of Soviet prisoners of war
• Official website of Buchenwald (German) (English) (French)
• List of all concentration camps and their branches (German)
• Jehovah's Witnesses at KZ Buchenwald (German)
• Day of liberation of prisoners of fascist concentration camps. Reference

Concentration camps of Nazi Germany
Amersfoort Arbeitsdorf Banica Bardufoss Belzec Bergen-Belsen Berlin-Marzahn Bolzano Breitenau Bretvet Buchenwald (list of divisions) Vaivara Return Westerbork Herzogenbusch Grini Gross-Rosen Dachau Dzialdovo Dora-Mittelbau Drancy Thrushes

Buchenwald is a concentration camp that, thanks to a well-established system of massacres, has become one of the most famous testimonies of the crimes of the Nazi regime in Europe. He was not the first either in the world or in Germany itself, but it was the local leadership that became the pioneers in the conveyor killings. Another famous camp in Auschwitz started to work in full force only from January 1942, when the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) headed for the total physical extermination of Jews. But much earlier this practice came to Buchenwald.

The concentration camp was marked by its first victims in the summer of 1937. In early 1938, a torture chamber for prisoners was first created here, and in 1940, a crematorium, which proved its effectiveness as a means of mass extermination. Prisoners for the most part were political opponents of Hitler (in particular, the leader of the German Communists - Ernst Thalmann), dissidents who dared to disagree with the course of the NSDAP in the late thirties, all kinds of inferior, according to the Chancellor, and, of course, Jews. In the summer of 1937, the first settlement took place in Buchenwald. The concentration camp was located on the land of Thuringia, near Weimar. For the entire time of its existence, for eight years, until April 1945, about a quarter of a million people passed through its barracks, of which 55 thousand were destroyed or exhausted by physical labor. This was Buchenwald - a concentration camp, a photo from which subsequently shocked the whole world.

Experiments on people

Among other things, which Buchenwald noted, the concentration camp was also famous for experiments on people. With the full approval of the highest Nazi leadership, in particular Reichsführer Heinrich Gimmer, people here were deliberately infected with dangerous viruses for experimental testing of vaccines. The prisoners of Buchenwald were infected with tuberculosis and a number of other diseases. Very often, this ended not just in the death of the experimental subjects, but also in the infection of their neighbors in the barracks and, as a result, severe epidemics that claimed the lives of thousands of prisoners. In addition, experiments were actively carried out in the camp regarding a person, his extreme degree of endurance, the possibility of surviving in extreme conditions, when local doctors simply watched

people dying in artificially created conditions: in water, cold, and so on.

Liberation

Buchenwald (concentration camp) was liberated in April 1945. On April 4, one of the satellite concentration camps, Ohrdruf, was liberated by American troops. The lengthy preparation of the prisoners made it possible to form the armed resistance forces right on the territory of the camp. The uprising began on April 11, 1945. In its course, the prisoners managed to break the resistance and take the territory under their control. Several dozen Nazi guards and SS men were taken prisoner. On the same day, American formations approached the camp, and two days later, the Red Army.

Post-war use

After Buchenwald was captured by the Allied forces, the concentration camp was used by the Soviets for several more years as a Nazi internment camp.

Buchenwald is not on the map of sights in Germany, it is not on the lists of the most visited places, and there are very few tourists there. We pass through the main gate with the famous inscription “To each his own” and enter the camp. Where the barracks stood in dense rows, now the ground is bare. In the distance, on the patchwork fields, the blades of windmills rotate steadily, at the memorial plate a group of teenagers listens to the guide. We look around and head to the crematorium.

2. The main gate of the camp

3. Inscription: "To each his own"

4.

5. Crematorium building

The crematorium is one of several surviving buildings. Since the dead prisoners of Buchenwald have no graves, it is here that relatives come to honor their memory, bring flowers, and install commemorative plaques.

6.

7.

8. Prisoners of the camp

There is also a pathology room. Its main task was to replenish anatomical collections, here gold teeth were pulled out from the dead, and souvenirs were also made from human skin. Especially popular among the SS were human heads dried to the size of a fist. Among the camp guards, Ilse Koch ("Frau Lampshade") was known, who received her nickname for the order to kill prisoners with tattoos on their bodies, in order to later make gloves, lampshades or book bindings out of them. In Buchenwald, as in many camps, they conducted medical experiments on people: they infected prisoners with typhus and tuberculosis, and tested the effect of vaccines on them.

9.

10. Crematorium furnaces. In total, about 56,000 prisoners died in the camp.

11.

There are numerous hooks on the walls of the basement of the crematorium, more than 1000 people were hanged here, not only soldiers, but also foreigners driven to work. And in the destroyed stable building, 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war were shot in the back of the head.

12. In the basement

13.

The places where the barracks with prisoners were located are covered with rubble, next to each there is a column with the number of the barracks, in some places there are commemorative plates.

15. April 1945. The tallest building in the background is the same as in photo #14.

16. Place of the fifth block

17.

There was also a separate children's block in Buchenwald, its creation was achieved by political prisoners. How they did it is a mystery to me. They saved more than 300 children from different countries.

At the end of the war, the prisoners, having learned that American soldiers were rushing to their aid, organized an uprising - during the years of the war they managed to hide a sufficient amount of weapons in the camp. The prisoners captured the guards and occupied the towers, and the American army arrived in time to secure their victory.

But the story of Buchenwald did not end there. Five more post-war years, until 1950, it was used by the NKVD of the USSR as a special camp for internees. During this time, more than 7,000 people died in Buchenwald.

A little away from the camp, on a hill, there is a huge stele, visible from afar. It stands in memory of the victims of Buchenwald, of its heroes, of those who did not give up and were not broken in spirit, of people who retained their humanity in spite of everything.

22.

Buchenwald was a men's camp. The prisoners worked in a factory a couple of kilometers from the camp that produced weapons. There were 52 main barracks in the camp, but there were still few places, and many prisoners were placed in tents even in winter. Not a single person survived from the cold.

In addition to the main camp, there was also the so-called "small camp", which served as a quarantine zone. The living conditions in the quarantine camp were, even compared to the main camp, so inhuman that it is hardly imaginable.

About thirteen thousand people were accommodated on an area of ​​several hundred square meters, which accounted for approximately 35% of the total number of prisoners.

By the end of the war, as the German troops retreated, prisoners from Auschwitz, Compiegne and other concentration camps left by the Nazis were transported to Buchenwald. By the end of January 1945, up to four thousand people arrived there daily.

Cannibalism flourished there

Considering the fact that the "small camp" consisted of 12 barracks converted from stables with an area of ​​40 by 50 meters, it is not difficult to calculate that about 750 people lived in each barracks, about 100 died daily. Their bodies were taken out each morning to roll call in order to receive their rations of food.

Those who were more or less on their feet were forced to work for the improvement of the “small camp”, although the portion for those kept in quarantine, as for non-workers, was reduced to a piece of bread. Considering the inhuman conditions, it is not difficult to guess that the relations between the prisoners in the "small camp" were much more hostile than in the main one.

Cannibalism flourished there and many cases of murder for a piece of bread were noticed. The death of a bunkmate was perceived as a holiday, since more space could be taken up before the arrival of the next transport. The clothes of the deceased were immediately divided, and the already naked body was taken to the crematorium.

The treatment of "quarantine" was reduced to vaccinations that were carried out by the medical staff, for example, against typhus, but they further contributed to the spread of the disease, since the syringes were not changed. The most severe patients were killed with phenol.

Cruel experiments on prisoners

Many medical experiments were carried out on the prisoners, as a result of which most died a painful death. Prisoners were infected with typhus, tuberculosis and other dangerous diseases in order to test the effect of vaccines against the causative agents of these diseases. Diseases developed very quickly into epidemics due to overcrowding in the barracks, insufficient hygiene, poor nutrition, and also because these diseases were not treated.

In addition, in the camp from December 1943 to October 1944. experiments were carried out to study the effectiveness of various poisons. During these experiments, poison was secretly added to the prisoners' food.

The experiments were documented in the SS doctor Erwin Ding-Schüler's patient journal.

The camp paths were not fortified and were slippery. Many prisoners wearing wooden shoes were injured. During the entire existence of Buchenwald, not one person escaped from it, because the small area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe camp was patrolled around the clock by four SS units.

But the history of Buchenwald does not end with April 1945, when the camp was liberated. Behind the Americans appeared Soviet troops, and the land of Thuringia, where the camp was located, went to the Soviet zone. On August 22, 1945, a new "Special Camp No. 2" was opened in Buchenwald.

The special camp existed here until 1950. It contained not only former members of the NSDLP, but also those who were accused of spying for the former allies of the USSR or were seen as disloyal to the new Soviet regime.

mass graves

Of the 28,000 prisoners, 7,000 people died from malnutrition and disease over the five-year period of the camp's existence. In the GDR, the existence of "Special Camp No. 2" was hushed up, and only in 1990 the documents were made public. In 1995, steles with the numbers of the dead prisoners were erected at the site of mass graves.

In 1951, a memorial plate was erected on the territory of the former camp in memory of the participants in the camp Resistance, and in 1958 a decision was made to open a national memorial complex in Buchenwald. Every day people come there. German schools have special program including obligatory history and visit to Buchenwald.

Scary data on sexual assault

For some of them, Buchenwald is the grave of relatives, for others it is a nightmare of youth that has not been overcome. For others, a story told at school and a school trip. However, for all of them, Buchenwald is not a dead land, but an eternal and painful memory that makes the old people tell their experiences and emotionally awakens the young.

Relatively recently, even more frightening data was made public. In Germany, publicized hitherto little known fact from the Nazi past. That is, historians and specialists, of course, knew about it, but it’s not very clever to talk about this even after 60 years.

Secret brothels in Buchenwald. They did not write about their existence in concentration camps either in Western or Eastern Germany, and even more so in the USSR. The very proximity of the words "brothel" and, say, "Buchenwald" looked blasphemous.

The former prisoner of Buchenwald, Dutchman Albert Van Dyck, dictates his memoirs about two years in a concentration camp: the horrors experienced by many, and a separate chapter - untold by anyone.

Albert van Dyck, former prisoner of the Buchenwald concentration camp:

"This is a camp with barracks, and there was a brothel."

The fact that there were brothels in concentration camps, and not for protection, but for prisoners, was reluctantly recognized by some. Van Dyck was the first to honestly say that he had been to the Buchenwald brothel.

Albert van Dyck:

“These women were despised by most of the prisoners. But did they come there voluntarily? Not".

A visit to the special barracks cost two Reichsmarks, or 10 daily wages of a prisoner, despite the fact that only the best workers were paid wages. But Europeans in concentration camps were allowed to receive money from home.

Albert van Dyck:

“The elders told me: shame on you, mom saved up money for you, and you spend it on a woman? But I was not ashamed: they wash you, shave you, give you clean clothes, you get a woman. That's how I met Frida."

For Van Dyck, this is the memory of the first naive love, and for historians and politicians, brothels, as it were, spoiled the picture of horror and heroism in the Nazi camps, places of mass murder and secret resistance.

The newsreel clearly shows the numbers of Nazi concentration camp prisoners, but they were filmed in black and white. It is difficult to notice other insignia there - multi-colored stripes.

In the memorial on the site of the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp, they are, as it were, in the very heart of the prisoners.

• Political prisoners had red stripes.
• Greens are for criminals.
• Blue - for guest workers.
• Pink - for homosexuals.
• Yellow - the Jews.

Women for concentration camp brothels were recruited from the category of "black triangles" - gypsies and anti-social elements.

It is believed that this is Himmler's idea: to separate hundreds of women's concentration camp prisoners from the rest and arrange brothels to increase labor efficiency. In the Buchenwald photo album of the SS, a photograph of the barracks has been preserved. It was here that the young Van Dyck visited.

Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, criminals were not allowed there, but the physical condition of the rest was terrible - what kind of pleasure is there ?! The privilege was enjoyed by a minority - the elders in the barracks, clerks, cooks, orderlies.

Map of sexual violence in Europe during the Second World War: Wehrmacht brothels on all fronts are marked in green, in concentration camps in gray.

“Everyone was promised release in 6 months, but no one, of course, was released. Many returned to the women's camp pregnant, many with syphilis,” says a former prisoner of the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Hundreds of prisoners of concentration camp brothels lived in shame after the war. Military sexual violence was recognized by the UN as a crime against humanity only in the 21st century.

Inza Eshebach, director of the memorial at the former Ravensbrück concentration camp:

“Women, of course, did not talk about this after the war. It's one thing to say: I worked as a carpenter or I built roads, and quite another - I was forced to work as a prostitute.

More than 60 years after the war, it turned out that a whole chapter of its history was completely unknown. Now this is an archive search. But maybe someone like Albert van Dyck will still dare to tell about himself and break the last taboo of World War II.

According to statistics, most of the maniacs and perverts are men. However, there are women who can give odds to any maniac, whom the tongue does not dare to call the weak or fair sex.

In contact with

Odnoklassniki

One of them is Ilse Koch, or "Frau Lampshade", who, along with another SS, tops the list of the most terrible women of all time. world history.

To bring Hitler's ideas to life, performers were needed - people without pity, compassion and conscience. The Nazi regime diligently created a system that could produce them.

The Nazis created many concentration camps in the territory they occupied, intended for the so-called "racial cleansing" of Europe. The fact that the prisoners were disabled, old people, children did not matter to the sadists from the SS. Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau and Buchenwald became hell on earth, where people were systematically gassed, starved and beaten.

Ilse Köhler was born in Dresden to a working-class family. At school she was a diligent student and a very cheerful child. In her youth she worked as a librarian, she loved and was loved, she was successful with the village guys, but she always considered herself superior to others, clearly exaggerating her merits. In 1932 she joined the NSDAP. In 1934 she met Karl Koch, whom she married two years later.

How did Ilse turn from a quiet, inconspicuous librarian into a monster that kept the whole of Buchenwald at bay?

Very simply: "like attracts like" and when her egoism combined with the ambitions of the SS man Karl Koch, Ilse's hidden perversity became apparent.

In 1936, Ilse volunteered to work in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where Karl served. In Sachsenhaus, Karl even among "his own" acquired a reputation as a sadist. At that time, Koch reveled in power, watching the daily destruction of people, his wife received even more pleasure from the torment of prisoners. In the camp they were more afraid of her than the commandant himself.

In 1937, Karl Koch was appointed commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, where Ilse was infamous for her cruelty to prisoners. The prisoners said that she often walked around the camp, distributing lashes to everyone she met in striped clothes. Sometimes Ilse took a hungry ferocious shepherd with her and set it on pregnant women or exhausted prisoners, she was delighted with the horror experienced by the prisoners. It is not surprising that behind her back she was called "the bitch of Buchenwald."

Frau Koch was inventive and constantly came up with new tortures, for example, she regularly sent prisoners to be torn to pieces by two Himalayan bears in a state zoo.

But this lady's true passion was tattoos. She ordered the male prisoners to undress and examined their bodies. She was not interested in those who did not have tattoos, but if she saw an exotic pattern on someone's body, then her eyes lit up, because this meant that she was facing another victim.

Ilse was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshade". She used the dressed skin of murdered men to create a variety of household utensils, which she was extremely proud of. She found the skin of gypsies and Russian prisoners of war with tattoos on the chest and back to be the most suitable for crafts. This allowed us to make things very "decorative". Ilse especially liked the lampshades.

One of the prisoners, the Jew Albert Grenovsky, who was forced to work in the pathological laboratory of Buchenwald, said after the war that the prisoners selected by Ilse with tattoos were taken to the dispensary. There they were killed using lethal injections.

There was only one reliable way not to get "bitch" on the lampshade - to mutilate your skin or die in a gas chamber. To some, this seemed like a blessing. Bodies of "artistic value" were taken to the pathological laboratory, where they were treated with alcohol and carefully skinned. Then it was dried, oiled vegetable oil and packed in special bags.

And Ilse, meanwhile, improved her skills. She began to create gloves, tablecloths and even openwork underwear from human skin. “I saw the tattoo that adorned Ilse's panties on the back of one of the gypsies from my block,” said Albert Grenovsky.

Apparently, Ilse Koch's fanatical entertainment became fashionable among her colleagues in other concentration camps, which multiplied in the Nazi empire like mushrooms after rain. It was a pleasure for her to correspond with the wives of the commandants of other camps and give them detailed instructions how to turn human skin into exotic book bindings, lampshades, gloves or tablecloths.

However, one should not think that Frau Lampshade was alien to all human feelings. One day, Ilse saw a tall, stately young man in a crowd of prisoners. The broad-shouldered two-meter hero immediately liked Frau Koch and she ordered the guards to intensively fatten the young Czech. A week later he was given a tailcoat and taken to the chambers of the mistress. She came out to him in a pink peignoir, with a glass of champagne in her hand. However, the guy grimaced: “- I will never sleep with you. You are an SS woman, and I am a communist! Damn you!"

Ilse slapped the impudent slap in the face and immediately called the guards. The young man was shot, and Ilse ordered the heart, in which the bullet was stuck, to be taken out of his body and alcoholized. She placed the heart capsule on her nightstand. At night, the light was often on in her bedroom - Ilse, by the light of the “tattooed” lampshade, looking at the dead heroic heart, composed romantic poems ...

Soon the authorities drew attention to the "cannibalistic craft" of Mrs. Koch. At the end of 1941, the Kochs appeared before the SS court in Kassel on charges of "excessive cruelty and moral decay". However, at that time the sadists managed to escape punishment. And only in 1944 a trial took place, at which they failed to evade responsibility.

On a cold April morning in 1945, just a few days before the camp was liberated by the Allied forces, Karl Koch was shot in the courtyard of the same camp, where he had recently controlled thousands of human destinies.

The widowed Ilse was no less guilty than her husband. Many prisoners believed that Koch committed crimes under the diabolical influence of his wife. However, in the eyes of the SS, her guilt was insignificant. The sadist was released from custody. Nevertheless, she did not return to Buchenwald.

After the collapse of the “Third Reich”, Ilse Koch hid, hoping that while the “big fish” were being caught in the SS and the Gestapo, everyone would forget about her. She was at large until 1947, when justice finally caught up with her.

Once in prison, Ilse made a statement in which she assured that she was only a “servant” of the regime. She denied making things from human skin and claimed that she was surrounded by secret enemies of the Reich, who slandered her, trying to avenge her official zeal.

In 1951, a turning point came in the life of Ilse Koch. General Lucius Clay, High Commissioner of the American occupation zone in Germany, by his decision shocked the world on both sides of the Atlantic - both the population of his country and the Federal Republic of Germany, which arose on the ruins of the defeated "Third Reich". He gave Ilse Koch her freedom, stating that there was only "minor evidence that she ordered someone to be executed, and there was no evidence of her involvement in the manufacture of tattooed leather crafts."

When the criminal was released, the world refused to believe in the validity of this decision. Washington lawyer William Denson, who was the prosecutor at the trial that sentenced Ilse Koch to life in prison, said: “This is a terrible miscarriage of justice. Ilse Koch was one of the most notorious sadists among the Nazi criminals. It is impossible to count the number of people who want to testify against her, not only because she was the wife of the camp commandant, but also because she is a creature cursed by God.

However, Frau Koch was not destined to enjoy freedom, as soon as she left the American military prison in Munich, she was arrested by the German authorities and put back in jail. Themis new Germany, trying to somehow make amends for the mass crimes of the Nazis, immediately put Ilse Koch in the dock.

The Bavarian Ministry of Justice began searching for former prisoners of Buchenwald, extracting new evidence that would allow the war criminal to be locked in a cell until the end of her days. 240 witnesses testified in court. They talked about the atrocities of a sadist in a Nazi death camp.

This time, Ilse Koch was judged by the Germans, in whose name the Nazi, in her opinion, faithfully served the Fatherland. She was again sentenced to life imprisonment. She was firmly told that this time she could not count on any indulgence.

That year, on September 1, in a cell in a Bavarian prison, she ate her last schnitzel with salad, tied the sheets and hanged herself. "Bitch of Buchenwald" personally committed suicide.