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Ilse Koch, born Ilse Kohler Schnitzel (September 22, 1906 – September 1, 1967), was the wife of Karl Koch, the commandant of the concentration camp Buchenwald. She is infamous for taking souvenirs from the skin of murdered inmates with distinctive tattoos. She may or may not have possessed lampshades made from human skin, however her family dinner table is reputed to have been decorated with shrunken human heads. She was variously known as "the Witch of Buchenwald" ("Die Hexe von Buchenwald") and "the Bitch of Buchenwald" ("Buchenwälder Schlampe") by the inmates because of her sadistic cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. Born in Dresden, Germany, her father was a farmer. She was known as a polite and happy child in her elementary school. At the age of 15 she left school and went to work at a factory. Later, she went to work as a librarian. At the time the economy of Germany had not yet recovered from Germany's defeat in World War I. While working as a librarian she began to become interested in the rising Nazism in Germany, and established (partly sexual) relationships with a few SA soldiers. Her rise to infamy began in 1936 when she began working as a guard and secretary at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. There she met and married the commandant Karl Otto Koch. In 1936 she came to Buchenwald not as a guard, but as the wife of the commandant. There, influenced by her husband and her power, she began torturing the inmates of the camp. In 1940 she built an indoor sports arena, which cost over 250.000 marks, most of which were taken from the inmates. In 1941 Ilse became an Oberaufseherin ("chief overseer") over the few female guards who served at the camp. In 1943 Ilse's husband was arrested for threatening officials, embezzlement and other offenses and was removed from the camp, while Ilse stayed behind - now romantically attached to Waldemar Hoven, the camp's doctor. After a lengthy trial Karl was acquitted of embezzlement and returned to Buchenwald. In 1944, with larger numbers of female prisoners entering the camp, Ilse continued her reign of terror and commanded twenty female overseers (Aufseherinnen) in Buchenwald. Her power over her subordinates was absolute. Ilse terrorized female and male prisoners at Buchenwald. She even had a whip fitted with razor blades at the end, which she used on pregnant women. In April 1945, Ilse walked out of the camp and continued living outside the camp wire in a well furnished home. When US GIs arrived at Buchenwald and heard many stories about the former "wife of the commandant," the soldiers arrested Ilse. After World War II, Ilse was tried by a war crimes tribunal and sentenced to a life term in 1947, later commuted to four years, with the reason that "not enough evidence are given". After being released in 1951, she was immediately re-arrested and tried by a German court again due to the large number of protests against the decision, and was sentenced to a life term. She committed suicide by hanging herself at Aichach women's prison on September 1, 1967 after writing a final letter to her son. She was 61 years old.
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