Auschwitz, Beast Of

   The striking blue-eyed blonde Erma Grese, the “Beast of Auschwitz,” was also dubbed by prisoners in Auschwitz as the “Beautiful Beast.” Grese was the most notorious Schutzstaffel (SS) guard in the history of Auschwitz, where witnesses at her trial testified that she set dogs on bound prisoners, chose who went to the gas chambers, and was accused by survivors of the death camp of ordering the skinning of three inmates, from which she subsequently made into lamp shades. She ended the war at Bergen-Belsen where she was captured by British soldiers on 17 April 1945. Grese was one of a relatively small number of women who had worked in the concentration camps and were hanged for war crimes by the Allies.