The Bitch of Buchenwald
The Bitch of Buchenwald Also known as Beast of Buchenwald", the "Queen of Buchenwald" and the "Red Witch of Buchenwald", Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch became infamous for her sadistic, brutal treatment of prisoners. While at Buchenwald, Koch allegedly engaged in gruesome experiments; selected tattooed prisoners were murdered and skinned to retrieve the tattooed parts of their bodies. This was allegedly done to help a prison doctor, Erich Wagner, in his dissertation on tattooing and criminality. In 1940, she built an indoor sports arena, which cost over 250,000 reichsmarks (approximately $62,500), most of which had been seized from the inmates. In 1941, Karl-Otto Koch was transferred to Lublin, where he helped establish the Majdanek concentration and extermina...