The Holocaust And The Nazi Party - 1505 Words

Between the years of 1939 and 1945 many of the people in Germany let out their inner beast. Some likely never knew this inner brutality existed within them and others had kept it hidden deep inside intentionally. Irma Grese used the Holocaust to express her inner most anger and hate. She abused, killed, and controlled the people in the camps she worked at, all with the blessings of the German Nazis she worked for. A Holocaust survivor, Olga Lyngel, later described Grese as a â€Å"twenty-two year old girl†¦completely without pity.† This description of Irma Grese only gives a glimpse into her true essence. She consisted of a nature so completely devoid of compassion and empathy it barely resembled anything close to normal human behavior.†¦show more content†¦Her father worked on someone else’s land for wages. Alfred and Berta Grese raised their children in Wrechen, a small village located north of Berlin, near the future location of Ravensbrà ¼ck co ncentration camp. Alfred Grese did join the NAZI party, but never received the indoctrination that Irma did. Irma at age twelve returned home with her father and siblings to find her mother had committed suicide by drinking hydrochloric acid. Her sister Helene testified at her trial on her behalf and seemed to claim that other children bullied Irma as a child and that she tended to be a coward. Helene Grese stated in her testimony, â€Å" In our schooldays when, as it sometimes happens, girls were quarrelling and fighting, my sister had never the courage to fight, but on the contrary she ran away.† She left home around the age of fourteen and moved to a nearby village working on a local farm. She obtained several menial jobs over the next few years. At the age of fifteen she went to work as an apprentice nurse at Hohenlychen. History professor Wendy Lower wrote in her book, Hitler’s Furies, that, â€Å"Young women of modest backgrounds asserted themselves by le aving their villages, enrolling in training programs as typists or nurses, and joining a political movement.† This statement seems to apply directly to Irma Grese. Her work as a nurse at Hohenlychen likely introduced her to the