Ilse Koch Quotes

The skins of concentration camp prisoners, especially executed for this ghoulish purpose, had merely decorative value. They made, it was found, excellent lamp shades, several of which were expressly fitted up for Frau Ilse Koch, the wife of the commandant of Buchenwald and nicknamed by the inmates the “Bitch of Buchenwald.”*

The skins of concentration camp prisoners, especially executed for this ghoulish purpose, had merely decorative value. They made, it was found, excellent lamp shades, several of which were expressly fitted up for Frau Ilse Koch, the wife of the commandant of Buchenwald and nicknamed by the inmates the “Bitch of Buchenwald.

(Photo by Edwin Bonde, June 24, 1945, courtesy Alan Bonde)

Harolt Stynbeck ist krank als Ilse Koch.

Harolt Stynbeck, Staatssicherheitsdienst und Polizei. Buchenwald, Ilse Koch.

Ilse Koch, oder Harolt Stynbeck. Immer besser.

Een fantast in een soepjurk weet precies hoe de oorlog eruit zag.

And now, scarcely ten years after Buchenwald, I realize that the world forgets quickly. Today, Germany is a sovereign state. The German Army has been resuscitated. Ilse Koch, the notorious sadistic monster of Buchenwald, was allowed to have children and live happily ever after … War criminals stroll through the streets of Hamburg and Munich. The past seems to have been erased, relegated to oblivion. Today, there are anti-Semites in Germany, France, and even the United States who tell the world that the “story” of six million assassinated Jews is nothing but a hoax, and many people, not knowing any better, may well believe them, if not today then tomorrow or the day after … I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

Joshua M. Greene, author Justice at Dachau

Lampshades made of human skin, to please the SS commandant’s wife, Ilse Koch (later tried and convicted as “The Bitch of Buchenwald”), were only a sample.

groups in America tried to spark a sense of urgency within government circles but kept running into a wall of indifference or outright hostility. While the U.S. State Department dithered, stalled, and did its best to avoid doing anything