One Example You are in the dock, Warder Grese, and evidence is being given for and against you. I could fill a book with the list of your crimes. Let me remind you of only one of them, not the worst of them, but typical. Do you remember a day in June 1943? It was at Camp Birkmann, Block 14. On one side of the square the Aryan women were lined up, and on the other, the Jewesses.Behind us there was a bench where a few women were sitting, so broken in body and spirit that they could not stand on parade. As you passed, one of the poor wretched creatures made an involuntary gesture of fear.You, Irma Grese, made out that she tried to kick you.That she, poor victim of the Nazi terror, should have tried to kick you, the mistress of life and death for her, – what a cruel joke! Do you remember what you did to her? You pushed her into the middle of the square, though she could scarcely walk. You made her kneel on the flagstones, made her hold two heavy pieces of rock above her head, made her repeat incessantly “I kicked the Warder! I kicked the Warder!” I was so frightened that I couldn’t count how many strokes of your whip you gave her. Perhaps you remember.Then your friend Ritter of the SS came along. He began to kick her in the face with his spurred jackboots, until the blood ran. Then you shouted, “Get up, you...” and let the woman go back to her cell.Two weeks later she was dead.
Our Verdict You have forgotten all these things. You plead mitigating circumstances as you stand on trial. The eyes of the world are fixed on Lueneburg, awaiting the verdict.But your victims have already passed judgment on you.We sentence you to live and suffer as we did, and never again to see the light of freedom.Schutzhaeftling No. 45554 – (Now again called; Isabella Rubinstein)View the original article published a1945 edition of The Palestine Post here.