Nazi Concentration Overseer Irma Grese

Daniel Patrick Brown's (1996) The Beautiful Beast is a work devoted to the life and crimes of a German woman known as Irma Grese who served as an SS-Aufseherin under the Nazi's in Hitler's Germany during the Holocaust. Aufseherin is roughly translated as a "matron" or "overseer" of the concentration camp prisoners, a role Grese served with honor and relish (Brown, 1996, p. vi). Brown's book traces Grese's life, though she only lived until she was twenty-two, a life that was fairly undistinguished until she volunteered for duty as an SS-Aufseherin. Brown associates Grese's rapacious nature in her duties to the "femme fatale" or "beautiful beast" included in much mythology (p. xvi). He explains the difficulties in providing accurate details of Grese's short life, primarily because she died so young, led an undistinguished life before her time as an SS-Aufseherin, and because she lived her early life in what would become the "Soviet bloc of Europe" (Brown, 1996, p. xix).

After explaining some of the problems associated with biographic analysis, including the search for answers where none may exist, Brown (1996) provides chapters on Grese's formative years and her medical training. The SS-Aufseherinnen appeared in greater numbers later in the war, when Hitler needed to enlist more aid in helping with his Final Solution to the Jewish problem. Brown (1996) maintains that among SS members known for excessive cruelty, Grese ranked "first" among the S

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ven frail personality had been revealed to the world" (p. 75). Brown does an excellent job of trying to show the human side of Grese, as well as the "beast." He uses a number of primary and secondary sources to support his account of the "beautiful beast," as well as records and interviews with survivors of the holocaust and Grese's trial. The author admits his version of Grese's life is not a "definitive" one, but he does a good job of trying to show how a beautiful young woman became a beast of cruelty during Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Brown, 1996, p. xi). Critique There are a number of lessons that can be gleaned from Brown's (1996) chronicle of the life, cruelties, and death of Irma Grese. Of these, the one that stands out the most is how Hitler's propaganda machine and the atmosphere of Nazi Germany were responsible for transforming ordinary, young, and even beautiful women like Grese into beasts of cruelty and terror. This occurred because such barbaric acts as those committed by Grese were aligned with "duty" to Germany, as Grese admitted herself when asked how she could have committed such atrocities against other human beings (Brown, 1996, p. 68). My overriding feeling about this book is one of sadness and loss

Category: History - N