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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 4: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about him Geesy Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 4: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 5: By the time of her execution, at thirty six, Maria
Speaker 5: Mandel had achieved the highest rank possible for a woman
Speaker 5: in the third right. As head overseer of the women's
Speaker 5: camp at Auschwitz Berkanal, she was personally responsible for the
Speaker 5: murders of thousands and for the torture and suffering of
Speaker 5: countless more. In this riveting biography, Susan J. Eischeid explores
Speaker 5: how Maria Mandel, regarded locally as a nice girl from
Speaker 5: a good family, came to embody the very worst of humanity.
Speaker 5: Born in nineteen twelve in the scenic Austrian village of Munskirken,
Speaker 5: Maria enjoyed a happy childhood with loving parents who later
Speaker 5: watched in anguish as their grown daughter rose through the
Speaker 5: Nazi system. Mandel's light mirrors the period in which she
Speaker 5: lived turbulent, violent, and suffused with paradoxes. At Auschwitz Berkanal,
Speaker 5: she founded a notable women's orchestra and adopted several children
Speaker 5: from the transports, only to lead them to the gas chambers.
Speaker 5: When her interest waned after the war, Maria was arrested
Speaker 5: for crimes against humanity. Following a public trial attended by
Speaker 5: the international press, she was hanged in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 5: For two decades, Eischeid has excavated the details of Mandel's
Speaker 5: life story, drawing on archival testimonies, speaking to dozens of witnesses,
Speaker 5: and spending time with Mandel's community of friends and neighbors
Speaker 5: who shared their memories as well as those handed down
Speaker 5: in their families. The result is a chilling and complex
Speaker 5: exploration of how easily an ordinary citizen chose the path
Speaker 5: of evil in a climate of hate and fear. The
Speaker 5: book that we're featuring this evening is Mistress of Life
Speaker 5: and Death, The Dark Journey of Maria Mandel, the head
Speaker 5: overseer of Auschwitz Birkanal, with my special guest musician and
Speaker 5: author Susan jay Eischeide. Welcome to the program and thank
Speaker 5: you very much for this interview. Susan Eyeschide, thank.
Speaker 6: You very much for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this very impressive
Speaker 5: and extraordinary book.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 5: Now, by training and your credentials, you are a musician
Speaker 5: and a classic oboist, and you had a strong interest
Speaker 5: you write in music and musicians of the Holocaust. Tell
Speaker 5: us how you became involved with writing this book about
Speaker 5: Maria Mandl and the connection to your primary interest, WHI
Speaker 5: is music? Tell us about that.
Speaker 6: Sure, I've been a performer performing musician for many years now,
Speaker 6: and early on in my career, in addition to playing
Speaker 6: in orchestras and teaching at a university, I began to
Speaker 6: perform music that was written in the Holocaust and doing
Speaker 6: a lot of research into the topic. And as part
Speaker 6: of my research and discovery of this amazing material about music,
Speaker 6: I also discovered the many musical activities that existed in
Speaker 6: Hitler's camps and ghettos. Somewhat extraordinarily, most of the concentration
Speaker 6: in death camps had artistic activities, including musical activities, and
Speaker 6: I became very interested in an orchestra that was formed
Speaker 6: in the death camp of Auschwitz, Bert Canal. This orchestra
Speaker 6: was unique in that it was the only women's orchestra
Speaker 6: in the entire Nazi camp system. And as I learned
Speaker 6: more about the orchestra and began to interview survivors of
Speaker 6: that orchestra, I became acquainted with the story of Maria Mandel,
Speaker 6: and she was the highest ranking SS female auxiliary in
Speaker 6: the camps. She was head overseer at Ashchwitz Beer can
Speaker 6: Now during a lot of the story that I tell,
Speaker 6: and so I became interested in her, like, how did
Speaker 6: this person responsible for so many deaths and atrocities also
Speaker 6: have this side where she found great comfort and solace
Speaker 6: in music. And however, inadvertently she did create the orchestra,
Speaker 6: which in turn say helped save the lives of the
Speaker 6: women in that orchestra, although that certainly wasn't her primary intent.
Speaker 6: And so as I dug more and more into Mandel's
Speaker 6: story and learned more about her, I just covered that
Speaker 6: she wasn't sort of intrinsically evil, natural born killer. She'd
Speaker 6: been born into a very warm, supportive, loving family. She
Speaker 6: was always known as a very nice girl from a
Speaker 6: good family and for me. The greatest question which then
Speaker 6: emerged was this idea of how this otherwise normal, compassionate,
Speaker 6: nice person turned into an extraordinarily evil perpetrator in the Holocaust,
Speaker 6: and sort of what factors led to that transformation and
Speaker 6: sort of the things we could learn from that in
Speaker 6: a broader sense. So that's sort of how I got
Speaker 6: into the topic.
Speaker 5: Incredible, Let's talk about that upbringing and what you learn
Speaker 5: from it. Talk about she was born in nineteen twelve
Speaker 5: in a beautiful Austrian village of and I'll get you
Speaker 5: to pronounce this properly, Moon's clerk in tell us about
Speaker 5: her early life and her parents.
Speaker 6: Sure village is Munskirchen. And if you're familiar with German
Speaker 6: and Austrian geography, probably the largest town is Passeu in Germany.
Speaker 6: It's on a conjunction of three rivers, and muns Kirshen
Speaker 6: is across one of the rivers in a more rural
Speaker 6: part of Austria. Her parents, her father's name was Franz Mano,
Speaker 6: and he was a master shoemaker. He had sort of
Speaker 6: a big business in town with like most of the
Speaker 6: people who lived in Munskirshen. Then there was also an
Speaker 6: accompanying farm where they grew all their own food. And
Speaker 6: Maria's mother, who was named Anna and she was also
Speaker 6: from nearby village. Together they had four children, of which
Speaker 6: Maria was the baby, so she was the youngest child
Speaker 6: and she was raised in this very nurturing household. Again,
Speaker 6: that was in the nineteen twenties, you know, in Austria,
Speaker 6: so the norms were somewhat different than we're used to.
Speaker 6: Women were very much second class citizens, so usually her
Speaker 6: goal growing up in most of the young women was
Speaker 6: they aimed to get married and have a family, and
Speaker 6: that was sort of the considered an expected thing. Maria's
Speaker 6: mother suffered from depression throughout her lifetime, so she had
Speaker 6: a lot of challenges. But ultimately Maria grew up in
Speaker 6: this family and until the Anschluze, which is when Australia
Speaker 6: was annexed by Germany, her life was really on a
Speaker 6: good trajectory. She had gotten a job in the local
Speaker 6: post office, she was engaged to be married to a
Speaker 6: young man in the community, and so everything was going
Speaker 6: pretty well for her until that point.
Speaker 5: Tell us about her father's political leanings and how that
Speaker 5: got her fired from the post office, and what was
Speaker 5: the climate at that time regarding people that didn't sign
Speaker 5: up for the National Socialist Party.
Speaker 6: Sure, well, Munskirkin, especially in the years leading up to
Speaker 6: the Anschlus had a couple of different political parties. There
Speaker 6: were the sort of the Nazi Party coming up her
Speaker 6: Foul Pay my German Actions not Great, which was a
Speaker 6: Christian social Democrat kind of party. So Franz Mondel was
Speaker 6: sort of leader in that party and in the community,
Speaker 6: and so her family was definitely not Nazi. They did
Speaker 6: not support the Nazis. Franz was actually pretty outspoken against
Speaker 6: the Nazis. And then of course when the Nazis came
Speaker 6: to power, that was the big reason. Her then fiance
Speaker 6: had been was a member of the Nazi Party, was
Speaker 6: coming up in the ranks, and he essentially dumped her.
Speaker 6: He said, I can't have a fiance or you know,
Speaker 6: my future wife cannot be someone who does not support
Speaker 6: the Nazi Party. So I think the great irony of
Speaker 6: Maria's life, and the great tragedy for all of her
Speaker 6: victims down the road, is that had she not been
Speaker 6: fired for not being a Nazi from this job, she
Speaker 6: probably would not have followed this path into evil that
Speaker 6: she ended up.
Speaker 5: Pursuing Interesting Now, what does she do in response to
Speaker 5: this heartbreak of the fiance? Where does she travel to
Speaker 5: and what does she try to get a job doing
Speaker 5: and what does she end up working?
Speaker 6: Sure, well, after she lost her job, I think she
Speaker 6: was just looking for a new start, a new beginning,
Speaker 6: so she traveled to Munich where she had some family.
Speaker 6: I believe her uncle was living there and at the
Speaker 6: time begun to see the establishment of some of the
Speaker 6: early concentration camps. And at that point there was only
Speaker 6: one concentration camp specifically designated for women, and that was Liechtenberg,
Speaker 6: which was in Germany, and they needed to recruit personnel
Speaker 6: to be guards in the camp. Most of the young
Speaker 6: men were either being recruited into the army or working
Speaker 6: at other camps for men. So they decided to embark
Speaker 6: on a kind of classified ad campaign where they were
Speaker 6: trying to attract women to apply for these positions. So
Speaker 6: they actually put ads in the paper overseers saught. I
Speaker 6: think the phrase they used was a camp for asocial women,
Speaker 6: something like that, not really stating explicitly that it was
Speaker 6: a concentration camp and that all signified And I believe
Speaker 6: Ye's uncle saw the ad in the paper, said why
Speaker 6: don't you apply for this? And so she literally was
Speaker 6: just looking for a job and went ahead and applied
Speaker 6: for one of those guard positions at Lichtenberg. And ironically
Speaker 6: she said at that time, if I hadn't gotten this job,
Speaker 6: I would have trained to become a nurse. And I
Speaker 6: always sort of thinking of how she transformed later shut
Speaker 6: her at the thought. But that might have been the
Speaker 6: saving of her as well. So you know, it's hard
Speaker 6: to say in hindsight. So she ended up being hired,
Speaker 6: and that's how she began her camp service.
Speaker 5: Tell us, as you write in the book about some
Speaker 5: of the training and the indoctrination used to prepare these
Speaker 5: women board the overseers at these concentration camps, this one
Speaker 5: in particulate.
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 6: At Lichtenburg they were just beginning to standardize the training
Speaker 6: for the young overseers, but Grant usually they would apprentice
Speaker 6: to someone who'd been there and follow them around for
Speaker 6: a couple of months until they were able to assume
Speaker 6: their own responsibilities. Later on, it became pretty sophistic good
Speaker 6: way of training. It was like you were desensitizing the
Speaker 6: guards to the humanity of the prisoners. You were creating
Speaker 6: what later came to be called a cultural of cruelty,
Speaker 6: where you would be rewarded. The crueler you were, the
Speaker 6: more praise you would get, the more they normalized the behavior.
Speaker 6: And after a while, although some women, you know, just
Speaker 6: once they realized what was happening, left, most of them
Speaker 6: stayed and became sort of indoctrinated in that system and
Speaker 6: accepted that as their new reality and as a way
Speaker 6: to move forward with a good job and benefits on
Speaker 6: a place to live and all of those things. And
Speaker 6: certainly Maria did that. She assimilated much very quickly. That's
Speaker 6: one of the interesting things about her story. It's almost
Speaker 6: like one day she was this sweet, beautiful, young, innocent woman,
Speaker 6: and some of the early prisoners they remember her that way,
Speaker 6: and then almost overnight she transformed into one of the
Speaker 6: most brutal guards there in term got a lot of
Speaker 6: praise for that, and then that allowed her to race
Speaker 6: through that ranks down the road when she had moved
Speaker 6: to other camps. So I'm sure we'll talk about Robinsbrook
Speaker 6: in the minute. She became sort of the overseer for
Speaker 6: all of the training of young women in that camp,
Speaker 6: and by the end of the where they had trained
Speaker 6: I think between three and four thousand young women in
Speaker 6: these roles. So it wasn't just a few women. There
Speaker 6: were a lot women, a lot of women who decided
Speaker 6: to follow this path as well.
Speaker 5: What were the living quarters like for the prisoners at
Speaker 5: e Lichtenberg and what were the living accommodations for the
Speaker 5: staff like Maria?
Speaker 6: The living quarters for the prisoners were pretty brutal. That's
Speaker 6: Lichtenburg is like an old castle. I think it dates
Speaker 6: from the medieval period or the Renaissance period. So it's
Speaker 6: this big stone, dark, dank edifice with these huge, sort
Speaker 6: of lofty kinds of rooms, and for the prisoners, they
Speaker 6: literally crammed, you know, hundreds of prisoners in a room,
Speaker 6: very little means of sanitation. They might have like one
Speaker 6: bucket that everybody would use as the bathroom. And most
Speaker 6: of the women were engaged in heart labor out during
Speaker 6: the day, their outdoor labor or inside labor, creating things
Speaker 6: that could be sold or textiles or things like that.
Speaker 6: For the where the guards lived at Liechtenberg, I don't
Speaker 6: know a lot about that. There's not a lot of documentation.
Speaker 6: Most of them. I believe either had separate quarters in
Speaker 6: the castle that were considerably nicer, or lived out in
Speaker 6: the community very close to the campsite, and then came
Speaker 6: into work.
Speaker 5: You say at that time Maria began to beat people.
Speaker 6: Certainly, yes, that's correct.
Speaker 5: What was the event that inspired her more than anything
Speaker 5: to succeed, I guess in this new environment.
Speaker 6: I think it was a combination. I think she really,
Speaker 6: to my mind, had a kind of breakdown after being
Speaker 6: dumped by her fiance. There was really a great stigma
Speaker 6: in Germany and in Austria at that time for a woman.
Speaker 6: She was in her mid twenties. Now, she wasn't married.
Speaker 6: She had always wanted children, So the fact that she
Speaker 6: had no man in sight and had lost her job,
Speaker 6: I think this was a way where she could get respect,
Speaker 6: she could get she had power, she could sort of
Speaker 6: fight back against this perception that she wasn't worthy because
Speaker 6: you know, he had dumped her. So I think she
Speaker 6: got all of those things through this job, and gradually
Speaker 6: she just did what she needed to do to be
Speaker 6: successful in the job and climbed the ranks very quickly.
Speaker 5: Now there was talk of a new camp being built
Speaker 5: and by Robinsbrook, and so tell us about Maria being
Speaker 5: assigned to this new facility.
Speaker 6: Sure, eventually, as the war kicked off and more and
Speaker 6: more women were being arrested, Himmler made the decision to
Speaker 6: build a new concentration camp just for women. Was located
Speaker 6: located north of Berlin, near a little town called Furstenburg.
Speaker 6: And this new camp was called the Robinsbrook And so
Speaker 6: most of the personnel from Liechtenburg they essentially closed down
Speaker 6: Lichtenberg is a women's camp and transported all of the
Speaker 6: guards and then a lot of the prisoners up to Robinsbrook.
Speaker 6: By this point, Maria was one of the more experienced guards,
Speaker 6: and she had gotten a lot of responsibility because she
Speaker 6: was so willing to take those next steps into brutality.
Speaker 6: So she would be in charge of beatings and things
Speaker 6: like that at Rischenberg. So when she got to Robinsbrooke,
Speaker 6: she was immediately one of the higher ranking overseers. She
Speaker 6: wasn't yet the highest ranking, but she certainly got a
Speaker 6: lot of responsibility right out of the gates, and like
Speaker 6: all those women, began to oversee work details and again
Speaker 6: climb her ladder again at that camp.
Speaker 5: You talk about that even though they were. She wasn't
Speaker 5: officially in the SS. She had these responsibilities foisted on
Speaker 5: her which she ascribed to, which she volunteered for, but
Speaker 5: she was still a subordinate of the SS men, wasn't she.
Speaker 6: Yes, the function of the women in the camps was
Speaker 6: a little different. They weren't considered full blown SS. They
Speaker 6: were considered the SS women's auxiliary, So they were like
Speaker 6: an auxiliary to the SS. So you know, they couldn't
Speaker 6: have like the military ranks like people of the SS had,
Speaker 6: but within their own purview within a women's camp, they
Speaker 6: certainly were responsible for the disciplining of the prisoners, the
Speaker 6: running of the camp. So in most aspects they were
Speaker 6: doing what the men did. They just didn't get sort
Speaker 6: of that official designation. So the other's women function is
Speaker 6: like an SS a auxiliary. I guess it's the best way
Speaker 6: to put it. In these camps.
Speaker 5: You say, by September one, nineteen thirty nine, when the
Speaker 5: Third Reich invaded Poland and the Second World War began,
Speaker 5: the work routines and procedures at Revensbrook were well established.
Speaker 5: And you say that in January fourth, nineteen forty Heinrich
Speaker 5: Himmler came to inspect the camp. Tell us about that
Speaker 5: a little as you write this inspection by this elite
Speaker 5: SS official.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was a really big day for the overseers
Speaker 6: in the camp. It was a bitterly cold winter day.
Speaker 6: It's we have some photographs that exist from that visit,
Speaker 6: like you can see them through the Robinsburg Archive and
Speaker 6: things like that. And essentially he came to inspect the
Speaker 6: women guards. So there's this one photo of them all
Speaker 6: lined up in this row, in a double row, and
Speaker 6: then he's sort of striding in front of them, you know,
Speaker 6: sort of inspecting the ranks. And then he had a
Speaker 6: series of meetings during the day with different personnel to
Speaker 6: sort of strategize about different policies in the camp. Maria's
Speaker 6: immediate supervisor was a woman named Johanna Longenfeldt, and so
Speaker 6: she's also seen in this picture sort of walking subserviently
Speaker 6: behind him because of course she was female. But that
Speaker 6: was sort of a very big event for all of
Speaker 6: the female overseers that he had come to this camp
Speaker 6: and was sort of establishing the camp as this really
Speaker 6: important entity, I guess in the camp system, so that
Speaker 6: those pictures are really pretty extraordinary. If you can find
Speaker 6: them online. They're very easy to find, so anyway, it's
Speaker 6: worth taking a look.
Speaker 5: You talk about people that were comprised and the transport
Speaker 5: of new prisoners, and the early capacity of this or
Speaker 5: the early population of the camp, and then the soon
Speaker 5: rising population of that camp.
Speaker 6: Yes, I mean the camp exponentially got bigger. At first,
Speaker 6: when Maria first got there, the population was still under control,
Speaker 6: the barracks were new, they planted flowers, they had a
Speaker 6: little zoo. I mean, it was sort of crazy. And then,
Speaker 6: of course, as more and more women were arrested through
Speaker 6: the war through political dissension for whatever reason and sent
Speaker 6: to the camp, things got crowded and more and more crowded,
Speaker 6: conditions got worse and worse and worse, And during the
Speaker 6: couple of years that Maria worked in that camp, the
Speaker 6: population increased exponentially five or six times, and so then
Speaker 6: by the end it was just horrible conditions of extreme overcrowding,
Speaker 6: difficult sanitation, insufficient food, and again all of those conditions
Speaker 6: that we're familiar with when we study the camps became
Speaker 6: very apparent over her tenure there.
Speaker 5: You talk about some of the punishments that were enacted
Speaker 5: whipping table. Some of the weapons that they were given
Speaker 5: the guards were canes. They each had pistols, They had
Speaker 5: big high boots that they could use to kick and
Speaker 5: beat these prisoners. This was all encouraged, as by witness accounts.
Speaker 6: Oh absolutely were considered necessary things to keep order. Most
Speaker 6: of the women guards also worked with dogs, so they
Speaker 6: would have a couple of dogs that were trained to attack.
Speaker 6: And again the more brutal, the better, so all the
Speaker 6: prisoners remember just vividly these horrible punishments. A lot of
Speaker 6: times they said one of the worst things was you
Speaker 6: could be punished for anything, and eventually everything was against
Speaker 6: the rules, so you would just accept that you would
Speaker 6: have a risk of being attacked at any time. There
Speaker 6: was a large building called the Bunker, which became a
Speaker 6: kind of cell block where they sent prisoners for extra special,
Speaker 6: extra harsh punishments, and Mandel was eventually appointed as sort
Speaker 6: of co overseer of the whole bunker, so that was
Speaker 6: like a big promotion for her, and that's some of
Speaker 6: the most brutal stories of punishments come out of her
Speaker 6: time in the bunker, as well as just overseeing things
Speaker 6: like roll calls, which were a complete nightmare for the women.
Speaker 6: They'd have to stand out there and out for hours
Speaker 6: and freezing cold or extreme heat. You know, I think Maria,
Speaker 6: I don't know if it had something to do with
Speaker 6: her father's being a shoemaker, but she seemed obsessed with
Speaker 6: creating problems for the women's feet, Like there was this
Speaker 6: really sharp kind of stone roadway, and so she would
Speaker 6: force the women to be in their bare feet and
Speaker 6: sort of march over and over these stones. To their
Speaker 6: feet were bleeding and infected, and even in winter, they
Speaker 6: weren't allowed to have shoes or any kind of protection,
Speaker 6: and so you can imagine the horrible injuries, many of
Speaker 6: which resulted in death. So the brutalities and the conditions
Speaker 6: that the prisoners endoor were really almost beyond description.
Speaker 5: You say that Maria became known as the Mistress of
Speaker 5: life and death and nicknamed the Tigris. You also talk
Speaker 5: about that it seemed to be a sexual element to
Speaker 5: the punishments that Maria inflicted on these prisoners, also that
Speaker 5: prisoners were also used for as prostitutes for German soldiers
Speaker 5: as well. Tell us about some of this seemingly sexual
Speaker 5: deviancy on Maria's.
Speaker 6: Park well in her case, I think it was more
Speaker 6: about power than about sexuality, Like for example, sometimes she
Speaker 6: would order if a woman was being beaten in front
Speaker 6: of the whole camper whip, that she would be stripped
Speaker 6: so she would be naked when that happened, and there
Speaker 6: was another guard there, Dorotea Binns, who definitely had more
Speaker 6: of a sexual overtone. She would literally go into sexual
Speaker 6: frenzies when she was beating prisoners. And sometimes when you
Speaker 6: read accounts, people get the two of them mixed up,
Speaker 6: and I think in Maria's case, it was more that
Speaker 6: she reveled in the power she had over the women
Speaker 6: rather than getting through at sexual gratification from that per se.
Speaker 6: At least that's the way I read it. For her,
Speaker 6: as regards the prostitutes and forcing women, she was sort
Speaker 6: of interested that. For example, a few years later in Auschwitz,
Speaker 6: if a German prisoner came in and they wanted to
Speaker 6: assign her to the brothel for the SS men, and
Speaker 6: Mandel would try and talk them out of it, like
Speaker 6: it's a good German woman, this is not something you
Speaker 6: wanted to do. Whereas on the other hand, at places
Speaker 6: like Robinsbrook and also at Auschwitz and other plants. It
Speaker 6: was part of her undesirable population. Maybe someone who's being targeted,
Speaker 6: someone who was Jewish, someone who was at Jehovah's witness
Speaker 6: then she certainly would have had no compunction about sending
Speaker 6: them to service at brothel. But it was always a
Speaker 6: sort of weird, I don't know, paradoxical view towards sexuality
Speaker 6: that she evidenced in different ways throughout her camp service.
Speaker 5: You say that she was especially cruel to Jehovah witnesses,
Speaker 5: and also you write about this extraordinary people were selected.
Speaker 5: Maria selected people for something you call a lab rabbits.
Speaker 5: Tell us about this experimentation and the selection of it.
Speaker 6: Oh, yes, this is one of the I don't know,
Speaker 6: really devastating chapters of the Holocaust, if you can dare
Speaker 6: to consider one chapter more devastating than another. Yes, the
Speaker 6: lab Ravt program at robins Brook sprang out of the
Speaker 6: assassination of Earnhard Hydrich, and in retaliation they anyway, you
Speaker 6: can read the whole story of the retaliation against that,
Speaker 6: But there was this big influx of women into robins
Speaker 6: Brook as sort of a result of that, and Himmler
Speaker 6: was also at the same time Hydrich was blown up.
Speaker 6: At this point, the German soldiers were fighting on all
Speaker 6: these fronts, so they were experiencing these really horrific injuries,
Speaker 6: blast injuries, that kind of stuff. So he charged the
Speaker 6: robins Brook doctors with this kind of faux medical program
Speaker 6: where they were going to do a series of experiments
Speaker 6: on the women to try to figure out the best
Speaker 6: ways of treating like last injuries or this kind of
Speaker 6: stuff that they could then transfer that expertise out into
Speaker 6: the field for the German soldiers. So they put Mandal
Speaker 6: in charge of selecting a bunch of young women for
Speaker 6: this program. And so at this point there had been
Speaker 6: a couple of recent transports from Lublin, Poland of young teenagers,
Speaker 6: like sixteen to twenty year old young women, perfect health,
Speaker 6: and so she chose a lot of them to be
Speaker 6: part of this experimental program. And so what the doctors
Speaker 6: did is they took these women into like a separate
Speaker 6: wing in the infirmary and they inflicted all of these
Speaker 6: horrible wounds on their legs. Sometimes they shot their legs.
Speaker 6: Sometimes they would operate and insert things like dirt or
Speaker 6: metal or something. Then they'd slap a cast over it,
Speaker 6: and then they just watched to see what would happen,
Speaker 6: and as you can imagine, the just the incredible suffering,
Speaker 6: the pain. Many women died from these experimentations. People who survived,
Speaker 6: they were just horrible injuries. They were crippled for life.
Speaker 6: And there are we do have photographs of some of
Speaker 6: those victims who survived and ultimately became known in the
Speaker 6: camp as the lab rabbits or sort of these experimental
Speaker 6: subjects for these horrific set of the medical experiments that
Speaker 6: took place at Robinsbrook. So it was pretty overwhelming. I
Speaker 6: did get to interview one of those lab rabbits several
Speaker 6: years later, of course, and she still, you know, literally
Speaker 6: was only able to work a year or two and
Speaker 6: then her body couldn't take it. Still had this huge
Speaker 6: one of her legs was permanently crippled, and just hearing
Speaker 6: her talk about the agony and they would be crying
Speaker 6: and sobbing for help, and you know, they would just
Speaker 6: be locked in these words with these separating wounds, and
Speaker 6: you know, many women went delirious, they had no water.
Speaker 6: It just really brought home the suffering in a very
Speaker 6: personal way to me being able to talk with her
Speaker 6: and for her having the courage to share that story
Speaker 6: with me.
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Speaker 5: You're right about that. After only four months, as had
Speaker 5: overseer in Auschwitz, Johannah Langfeld was struggling and fell in
Speaker 5: a disagreement with the commandant Rudolf Haas, and so she
Speaker 5: was transferred back to Rabinsbrook and tell Us, where Maria
Speaker 5: was transferred to as a result.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, that's a really interesting story. Johanna Longefel again
Speaker 6: had been Mondel's Mandel supervisor at Robinsbrook. When Auschwitz was
Speaker 6: formed and then got to be big and had a
Speaker 6: women's camp. Rudolf Hurst, who was the commandant was seeking
Speaker 6: an experienced head overseer there, so they sent longefeld to Poland,
Speaker 6: and that's why Maria Mendel was promoted to being head
Speaker 6: overseer at Robinsbrook. Longefeldt didn't prove to be successful at Auschwitz.
Speaker 6: As you said. She always was known among the prisoners
Speaker 6: as being a little not quite as harsh, and she
Speaker 6: struggled to control the women overseers there. In the camp
Speaker 6: itself was just a sort of nightmarish cesspool of disease
Speaker 6: and filth, and she just couldn't handle handle the job.
Speaker 6: So that made the decision to transfer her back to Robinsbrook.
Speaker 6: And at that point Mariamandel was transferred to Auschwitz against
Speaker 6: your will, to become the head overseer there, And so
Speaker 6: that's how she ended up at the next stage of
Speaker 6: her career in Poland, which wasn't Auschwitz. You're right.
Speaker 5: There was three main camps, Auschwitz one, which was built
Speaker 5: in nineteen forty, Auschwitz two Berkenhaw, and Aschwitz three, which
Speaker 5: was the Monowitz Bruna, a subsidiary of the ig Farben company.
Speaker 5: You say that the very first thing that Maria noticed
Speaker 5: at Ashwitz was the horrible smell and reminiscent of her
Speaker 5: father's shoemaking business, where he would often have hides that
Speaker 5: were overripe and used in the making of shoes. So
Speaker 5: she was familiar somewhat with the smell of the dead.
Speaker 6: We'll see, yes, most of the people or everyone I
Speaker 6: talked to her when you read survivor accounts ber Ca
Speaker 6: now Auschwitz ber canaw especially because that became one of
Speaker 6: the main killing centers, always had this kind of miasma
Speaker 6: in the air, could be smoky, you know, the undercurrent
Speaker 6: of the smell of death of you know, I'll let
Speaker 6: you use your you can imagine the sort of the
Speaker 6: graphic things that went into that smell. But it was
Speaker 6: like for a lot of people it became almost another
Speaker 6: entity that this this stench that you could never escape from,
Speaker 6: and you could never escape the reality of what this
Speaker 6: place was and what was happening there, and certainly the
Speaker 6: smell was part of that.
Speaker 5: You're right that things are accelerating, the population is growing.
Speaker 5: Talk about in nineteen forty three, after a general roll
Speaker 5: call and there was a witness to this. There was
Speaker 5: four thousand were released or were selected for the gas chamber,
Speaker 5: and Maria ordered the kitchen to prepare four thousand as
Speaker 5: a result, less dinners.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 5: Now, these roll calls had become routine for Maria, and
Speaker 5: tell us about the treatment that even though the horrible
Speaker 5: conditions for the prisoners, what were the conditions like for
Speaker 5: the staff, Like Maria.
Speaker 6: Well, the roll calls are just one of the truly
Speaker 6: horrific things that the prisoners endured. You know, on the surface,
Speaker 6: you say roll call and you say, oh, that doesn't
Speaker 6: sound so bad, but the reality was just appallingly horrible. Again,
Speaker 6: out there in all hours, all weathers, all hours, you
Speaker 6: had to stand still. If the count didn't match, and
Speaker 6: it never matched, then you know, they would start over,
Speaker 6: people would die. It was just really, really horrible. But
Speaker 6: alsch Fitz Maria was more high ranking. She was the
Speaker 6: head overseer, so the lower ranking overseers were the ones
Speaker 6: who you know, were out there and sort of doing
Speaker 6: the counts and all that kind of things. And then
Speaker 6: she Mandel would stroll in after a couple hours and
Speaker 6: received those reports at the numbers at the head table
Speaker 6: or wherever they had set up to do the counts.
Speaker 6: So at Auschwitz she didn't have to do as much
Speaker 6: of that kind of nitty gritty standing there supervising because
Speaker 6: the overseers were also out there in the weather trying
Speaker 6: to get these counts. She didn't she didn't care if
Speaker 6: people were suffering. She just sometimes she would order the
Speaker 6: role call extended just for her amusement, for things like that.
Speaker 6: But yeah, it was a huge, huge part in her
Speaker 6: case because she was so high ranking. She usually came
Speaker 6: in near the end of the roll calls and then
Speaker 6: you know, sort of received the ports reports from the
Speaker 6: other overseers.
Speaker 5: Can we talk about some of the luxuries that the
Speaker 5: staff enjoyed while these other people had no heat, water,
Speaker 5: or sanitation.
Speaker 6: Sure, the ss were housed and lovely quarters. They had
Speaker 6: their own stores, They had concerts on the weekend. Mandel
Speaker 6: lived in a it was sort of a communal dwelling
Speaker 6: at first, where they had housed all the female overseers,
Speaker 6: but eventually she got her own villa where she could
Speaker 6: live and sort of escape to, if you will, when
Speaker 6: she was done with work. Of course, they had access
Speaker 6: to the best foods and don't forget I mean, the
Speaker 6: enormous amounts of plunder that were coming into Auschwitz every
Speaker 6: transport that came in. Of course, everybody tried to bring
Speaker 6: something with them. In most cases if you were only limited,
Speaker 6: but you could carry if you had any wealth left,
Speaker 6: maybe you had a diamond or something, you would hide
Speaker 6: it on your person. As those people were filtered to
Speaker 6: the gas chambers and you know, they were forced to disrobe.
Speaker 6: So all of this plunder, money, instruments, jewelry, anything you
Speaker 6: could imagine. There was just there was a huge compound
Speaker 6: called Canada and Beer Canal where there were just warehouses
Speaker 6: full of this plunder. And so it was fairly easy,
Speaker 6: although officially it wasn't allowed. Certainly most of the SS
Speaker 6: did help themselves to a lot of these perks, and
Speaker 6: certainly Maria Mandel benefited from them as well.
Speaker 5: Maria met a SS officer, Joseph Janish, and had an
Speaker 5: affair with him. He was responsible mostly or more so
Speaker 5: for construction of the crematorium. Tell us about this brief
Speaker 5: affair and what happened, and as you write, it seemed
Speaker 5: to soften her behavior during that time period.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yanish was a young man from Salzburg, so he
Speaker 6: was a fellow Austrian, tall, handsome. Word among the prisoners
Speaker 6: is that he wasn't He just did his job with
Speaker 6: the architectural Commando, wasn't gratuitously cruel or anything. Although she
Speaker 6: had certainly had other affairs over the years, I think
Speaker 6: she was really her great the big love interest she
Speaker 6: had since the fiancee who dumped her, and so I'm
Speaker 6: sure she was probably envisioning a life after the war,
Speaker 6: and maybe this would be her chance for a marriage,
Speaker 6: maybe for children, and they would be seen like a
Speaker 6: dawn or after in the evenings. They had these horses,
Speaker 6: and she would always have on a white shirt with
Speaker 6: a red rose in it, and they would gallop across
Speaker 6: the camp and spend all this time together. Eventually he
Speaker 6: was transferred, and then their relationship seemed to weren't able
Speaker 6: to keep it going long distance, and so once he left,
Speaker 6: she reverted to being again once the sort of this
Speaker 6: very cool overseer that she had become.
Speaker 5: You write about the executions, the selection for these executions,
Speaker 5: and then after what was termed good executions. I guess
Speaker 5: there were reported drunken orgies among the officers and the
Speaker 5: staff overseers.
Speaker 6: Sure that was pretty that was pretty normal.
Speaker 5: Tell us about the some of the minions that Maria
Speaker 5: had under her that were under her of charge.
Speaker 6: Well, sure, she was in charge of all the other
Speaker 6: female overseers, and there were some very colorful personalities and
Speaker 6: brutal personalities. One of the ones that she had ended
Speaker 6: up having a lot of contact down the road was
Speaker 6: a woman named Teresa Brandle, sort of quieter, not quite
Speaker 6: as brutal, but ultimately was arrested and then executed with
Speaker 6: mandal the same day. Probably the most notorious was a
Speaker 6: young woman named Irma Graza, and she was sort of
Speaker 6: the stereotype of the young beautiful blonde. She was in
Speaker 6: her early twenties, incredibly brutal, incredibly cruel. She drove Maria
Speaker 6: crazy because she was always doing things like stealing resources
Speaker 6: like turpentine, which all the women used to clean their boots,
Speaker 6: and so she would hog it and sort of hoard it,
Speaker 6: and then vandall would always have to reprimand her for that.
Speaker 6: So she was another one of the sort of minions
Speaker 6: under her. There was a large woman named allas Orlowski,
Speaker 6: who was enormously cruel. I could go on and on.
Speaker 6: I mean, there were many many women who were worked
Speaker 6: under her, and again she was sort of over all
Speaker 6: of their actions, and that was one of her big responsibilities,
Speaker 6: which also drove her crazy quite a lot. I think
Speaker 6: you're right.
Speaker 5: Also, we did mention that there's the notorious doctor Mengela
Speaker 5: working with her close closely with her at this camp
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm sure a lot of people know about Joseph Mangela.
Speaker 6: He was the notorious SS physician, also engaged in horrific
Speaker 6: experiments on children on twins. He was also a great
Speaker 6: lover of music, and I think that was primarily Mandal's
Speaker 6: contact with him, because when she formed the Women's Orchestra,
Speaker 6: Manglo became a regular attendee at their Sunday concerts, and
Speaker 6: so I think for Mandel it was this way. She
Speaker 6: was sort of seeking credibility and maybe some more respect
Speaker 6: from the male ass which really the women rarely got,
Speaker 6: so for her it served the purpose most she loved music,
Speaker 6: but also it gave her like this in with officers
Speaker 6: like Mangola, who were here quite important in the camp.
Speaker 5: Now let's get to what's a very important part of
Speaker 5: this story. And you titled the Orchestra. You say that
Speaker 5: Maria had an idea of forming a women's orchestra. Both
Speaker 5: men's camps had orchestras and music ensembles, and they entertained
Speaker 5: the SS on regular Sunday concerts and special functions. Tell
Speaker 5: us why it was important you feel that Maria had
Speaker 5: organized this orchestra, and tell us about the formation of
Speaker 5: this group.
Speaker 6: And Alma rose, sure so again for a lot of
Speaker 6: the same reasons. She saw that the other out parts
Speaker 6: of the Ashwitz camp had men's orchestras, she saw that
Speaker 6: they got status in respect for those officers that supported that,
Speaker 6: and so because she was the head of the women's camp,
Speaker 6: she got the idea of founding a women's orchestra. So,
Speaker 6: because women couldn't do anything on their own, she enlisted
Speaker 6: the aid of Maless Officer and Pursler, and sort of
Speaker 6: together they sponsored the formation of this orchestra. It took
Speaker 6: a while to get successful. At first, they recruited musicians
Speaker 6: from incoming transports, and population orchestra did not sound very good.
Speaker 6: They were mostly young female musicians without a lot of training,
Speaker 6: very inexperienced, and so it was really sort of up
Speaker 6: in the air where or the orchestra would survive. Because
Speaker 6: they weren't performing at a high enough level. And then
Speaker 6: someone noticed that in one of the incoming transports there
Speaker 6: was a musician named Alma Rose, and she was a
Speaker 6: very well known virtuoso violinist, conductor, musician, and was well
Speaker 6: known in Europe. Her uncle was the famous composer who
Speaker 6: stuffed mahler If for the musicians out there. And so
Speaker 6: once Mandel heard that Alma Rose had been brought into
Speaker 6: the camp, she assigned her to be the conductor of
Speaker 6: the women's orchestra. And because Alma was such a wonderful
Speaker 6: talented musician a great leader, she single handedly really turned
Speaker 6: this orchestra into something that was very viable. She I
Speaker 6: mean they did they rehearsed all day. Rose was able
Speaker 6: to arrange music. They had sort of a weird collective
Speaker 6: instrumentation depending on what was available, and so she knew
Speaker 6: how to arrange programs that would please the SS and
Speaker 6: she figured out a way to work with Maria Mandel.
Speaker 6: And there was actually a huge furor in the camp
Speaker 6: because one time Mandel summoned her to her office to
Speaker 6: talk about the orchestra and asked her to sit while
Speaker 6: they were talking. And someone saw that and that was
Speaker 6: never done. You know, a prisoner would never sit with
Speaker 6: an SS officer. And so that was just that was
Speaker 6: all over the camp in like the next ten seconds
Speaker 6: because people were so shocked. So I think Mandel had
Speaker 6: a great deal of respect for Alma Rose. Alma Rose,
Speaker 6: I can't imagine how she stood up to the stress.
Speaker 6: She was trying to walk this horrible tightrope of keeping
Speaker 6: the musicians alive, keeping the orchestra playing at a high
Speaker 6: enough standard. And sadly Alma Rose did not survive the war.
Speaker 6: She died in the next year. We think probably of
Speaker 6: bachulism poisoning. In her heyday, she certainly the women in
Speaker 6: the orchestra were very proud of what they achieved. And
Speaker 6: I think sometimes like if you watch some of the
Speaker 6: movies that have been made about the women's orchestra, that
Speaker 6: orchestra is presented is not playing very well or things.
Speaker 6: But I trust the opinion of the musicians I talked to,
Speaker 6: and they said I always knew they were playing well.
Speaker 6: When Alma said I would like for I wish my
Speaker 6: father could have heard that. He would have liked that.
Speaker 6: And for them that was the highest praise, and that
Speaker 6: meant that they were performing at a very high standard.
Speaker 5: Weirdly, the orchestra was used for nefarious purposes as well.
Speaker 5: For transports. You write that would come into a camp
Speaker 5: and they would be lulled into some kind of passivity
Speaker 5: or try to The orchestra would have that purpose. But
Speaker 5: also you write about something called the gate, and also
Speaker 5: that the orchestra would play particular marches and the prisoners
Speaker 5: on these roll calls would have to be in step
Speaker 5: or else.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was one of their big responsibilities. Apart from
Speaker 6: these weekly concerts, every morning and every evening they had
Speaker 6: to go set up by the gate to the camp
Speaker 6: Aschwitz and byr can. Now, in addition to being a
Speaker 6: death camp, was also a slave labor camp, and so
Speaker 6: every day these large commandos thousands of women would have
Speaker 6: to march in and out of the camp. And so
Speaker 6: to keep them moving and keep some kind of order,
Speaker 6: the orchestra would play these marches on the sidelines and
Speaker 6: sort of the prisoners were forced to keep in step
Speaker 6: coming and going outside of the camp. Sometimes they would
Speaker 6: have them play outside on the ramp when the transports
Speaker 6: were coming again, just to low those transports into a
Speaker 6: false sense of security. You know, if you heard music
Speaker 6: surely this can be a bad place, and so they
Speaker 6: were used for a lot of Again, I have to
Speaker 6: mention that these responsibilities were just took an enormous toll
Speaker 6: on the musicians. They years later, the women that survived
Speaker 6: just had this horrible emotional trauma, great moral conflict. They were,
Speaker 6: of course playing because they wanted to live like everybody
Speaker 6: else wanted to live, but they witnessed firsthands much brutality
Speaker 6: towards the other prisoners just was a real moral created
Speaker 6: a lot of moral suffering for those musicians.
Speaker 5: They were very conflicted as well because they knew that
Speaker 5: their position as musicians under almeh Rose was the way
Speaker 5: that they had somewhat of a privileged conditions to live in,
Speaker 5: and you include some of those little privileges that they
Speaker 5: really took to heart. But they were treated differently because
Speaker 5: they were in that orchestra.
Speaker 6: That is correct, I mean, I think it's still important
Speaker 6: to caution that although their conditions were better, a lot
Speaker 6: better than a lot of the other prison population, the
Speaker 6: conditions were still enormously difficult for them, and there was
Speaker 6: also resentment, of course from the other prisoners who didn't
Speaker 6: have those sort of I don't want to call them
Speaker 6: perks because they weren't perks but slightly better conditions. So
Speaker 6: again that also contributed to the moral dilemma and suffering
Speaker 6: of the musicians.
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Speaker 5: You write In summer of nineteen forty four, large Hungarian
Speaker 5: transports arrive and the entire camp of Auschwitz Birkenal was
Speaker 5: mobilized for mass slaughter, and then Maria's mother died as well.
Speaker 6: To compound this anger, Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 5: You also write about her returning to her hometown and
Speaker 5: how she did that. Just tell us about that appearance
Speaker 5: in her hometown.
Speaker 6: Sure, I mean during her camp service, Maria went back
Speaker 6: to my sec periodically as she rose in rank and
Speaker 6: became more and more important in the Nazi hierarchy. I
Speaker 6: think she wanted to sort of rub her rub than
Speaker 6: noses of the people in the community who maybe had
Speaker 6: looked down on her because she was a woman, or
Speaker 6: because she lost her fiance, or for whatever reason. So
Speaker 6: she would usually come dressed in full dress uniforms, sometimes
Speaker 6: in an SS car, usually with a MALSS officer accompanying her,
Speaker 6: And so she very much wanted to make an impact
Speaker 6: when she came back home and into the community, and
Speaker 6: so we know of several documented visits where she came home.
Speaker 6: She did come home the summer after her mother died
Speaker 6: for the funeral. She came home later that year, and
Speaker 6: this was late nineteen forty four, so again, the war
Speaker 6: would end in nineteen forty five, so this was near
Speaker 6: the end offer her over camp service. But those visits
Speaker 6: were remembered very vividly by the townspeople, and so I
Speaker 6: was able to talk to a lot of people who
Speaker 6: remembered very specific accounts of those visits home.
Speaker 5: Tell us when the Allies finally it looks like it
Speaker 5: certain defeat, you say, Maria leaves the camp within just
Speaker 5: a few days, being able to escape. Tell us about
Speaker 5: what happens after the Allies liberate the camps.
Speaker 6: Sure well, Auschwitz was sort of winding out out of existence.
Speaker 6: At the end of nineteen forty four, the Nazis were
Speaker 6: beginning to flee ship the Russians were getting close to
Speaker 6: the camp. Maria had been transferred before the end of
Speaker 6: the year to a camp called Muldorf, which is outside
Speaker 6: of again vicinity of Munich in Germany, and so Alschwitz
Speaker 6: was liberated by the Russians in January of nineteen forty five.
Speaker 6: Maria by this point was stationed at Mueldorf for she
Speaker 6: remained for the rest of the war. We don't have
Speaker 6: a lot of accounts of her there. She was sort
Speaker 6: of in She was still the head overseer, but I
Speaker 6: think she was keeping a lower profile. A lot of
Speaker 6: the Nazis were sensing that they were going to lose
Speaker 6: the world, though they weren't allowed to say that. And then,
Speaker 6: of course the Allied forces came into Europe after d day,
Speaker 6: and so that part of Germany was liberated by the Americans.
Speaker 6: We know that at Mueldorf that the American Army was
Speaker 6: getting very very close. She literally bugged out with the
Speaker 6: camp commandant just a couple hours before the Americans got
Speaker 6: to the camp. Led first two months Kirhin and then
Speaker 6: onto her sister's house in this little hamlet called Luke,
Speaker 6: and she remained there for the next couple of months. Ultimately,
Speaker 6: someone informed on her and she was arrested at her
Speaker 6: sister's house and then was taken into custody in August
Speaker 6: of nineteen forty five and sent to a pow enclosure
Speaker 6: for German prisoners of war that they set up at
Speaker 6: the former concentration camp of Dochouse.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about that this now is a prison
Speaker 5: for these Nazi criminals, and that the Red Cross was
Speaker 5: monitoring the condition and people were enlisted to make sure
Speaker 5: that these people were in good health for these upcoming trials,
Speaker 5: weren't they.
Speaker 6: Yes, they were very concerned with keeping them in good shape.
Speaker 6: They wanted to have very public war crimes trials. Of course,
Speaker 6: the Nuremberg trials were going on about this time, so
Speaker 6: everybody was sort of looking ahead to the next wave
Speaker 6: of prosecution of these war criminals. So that was sort
Speaker 6: of Maria was Dachau at that point, sort of in
Speaker 6: waiting for extradition. They had decided that a lot of
Speaker 6: them would be tried in places where their greatest atrocities happened,
Speaker 6: I guess. And so because Maria was so influential at
Speaker 6: Auschwitz ber Canal, the decision was made to put her
Speaker 6: on an extradition train back to Poland where she would
Speaker 6: stand trial with a bunch of leading members of the
Speaker 6: Auschwitz camp staff, so that they were sort of preparing
Speaker 6: them for that extradition.
Speaker 5: She would be part of this second Ashwitz trial, as
Speaker 5: it was coined. But the first Ashwitz trial resulted in,
Speaker 5: as you say, a public hanging, and so the second
Speaker 5: trial had its problems, was succeeding shortly after that, and
Speaker 5: they didn't want to have a public hanging in the
Speaker 5: second trial, did they.
Speaker 6: Well, the first Aschwitz trial was just for one man,
Speaker 6: that was Rudolph Hurst. He was the commandant of Auschwitz.
Speaker 6: And so the second trial, which is they referred to
Speaker 6: it as the second because as it happened first, then
Speaker 6: tried forty members of the Auschwitz staff sort of as
Speaker 6: part of that. In the interim, there were other trials
Speaker 6: going on. There was one inta near Goadinsk and Stuttav
Speaker 6: was one of the camps in the northern part of Poland,
Speaker 6: and that was that happened before Maria's trial, and the
Speaker 6: public moved was still very much revenge, you know, that
Speaker 6: people wanted to see them hang publicly. So there was
Speaker 6: a huge public hanging up there for the stup Hof
Speaker 6: stuot Off personnel. But it had sort of adverse effects
Speaker 6: in that, you know, a lot of people went with
Speaker 6: their kids, but then kids didn't really understand what was happening,
Speaker 6: so some of the children began playing hanging games and
Speaker 6: some children died from that, and so there was this
Speaker 6: really very sad fallout as a result of that public spectacle.
Speaker 6: And by the time they gathered all the people together
Speaker 6: and got all the depositions and things in preparation for
Speaker 6: Mandel's trial, what sentiment had calmed down a little bit.
Speaker 6: They definitely wanted to see these people executed if they
Speaker 6: were guilty, but the trend was now away from holding
Speaker 6: a public execution.
Speaker 5: You introduce an important character at this time, a Margaret Burda,
Speaker 5: so she becomes a prisoner when Russia came into power,
Speaker 5: and she was sent to Dacau as well and became
Speaker 5: Maria's sell me.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think if I can claim any kind of
Speaker 6: research triumph in such a sad story, it was finding
Speaker 6: Margaret Burda. She was Maria's best friend during the war
Speaker 6: or not during the war, but after the war she
Speaker 6: was held in Dachau, was transported with Maria to Poland,
Speaker 6: and was with Maria the whole time she was in
Speaker 6: prison till shortly before her execution. Margaret was she was
Speaker 6: just a wonderful spirit. She really had done nothing wrong.
Speaker 6: She was just working as a secretary at an office
Speaker 6: and crackoff and so was sort of rounded up with
Speaker 6: these others. Ultimately was totally acquitted of any kind of
Speaker 6: crimes and was sent back to Germany. But she only
Speaker 6: knew Maria Mandel is this wonderful, kind, supportive brand. And
Speaker 6: so it was like this view, you know, I had
Speaker 6: all these testimonies and talk to survivors who just knew
Speaker 6: the brutal Mandle and then I talked to Margaret Burda,
Speaker 6: who just sort of showed this other side of Maria's
Speaker 6: personality and so it was really earthshaking to get to
Speaker 6: know her and to speak with her many times. We
Speaker 6: began a long correspondence and did several visits with her,
Speaker 6: and so she really shared this other side of Maria's personality,
Speaker 6: which was revelatory in a lot of ways. And when
Speaker 6: you talk about this dichotomy that every person has good
Speaker 6: and evil in them, I think, as horrific as Mandel's
Speaker 6: actions were, and I would never dream of negating the
Speaker 6: huge suffering that she caused, she also had this other side,
Speaker 6: and perhaps in convenient to acknowledge that, but it was
Speaker 6: certainly there.
Speaker 5: You talk about that they looked they found across Poland
Speaker 5: to look for testimonies for potential witnesses against these Nazis
Speaker 5: and Maria as well, and they took photos from their
Speaker 5: mugshots and enlarged them and put them up in important
Speaker 5: and major cities in the town squares. And you write
Speaker 5: that many many people came forward, many more people than
Speaker 5: the other perpetrators came forward to speak out against Maria.
Speaker 6: Yes, by the time the trial got underway, she had
Speaker 6: more testimonies against her than any other defendant in their trial.
Speaker 5: You take us to the trial that happens eventually, and
Speaker 5: the witnesses that testify and the things that they testify too.
Speaker 5: We've mentioned some of the horrors that she inflicted upon
Speaker 5: these prisoners, But what was some of the most damning
Speaker 5: evidence that was against her at this and tell us
Speaker 5: about her own testimony.
Speaker 6: Well, I think certainly the most damning piece of evidence
Speaker 6: that came up is that, you know, a lot of
Speaker 6: the testimony concerned the selections, selections being when these transports
Speaker 6: came into the camp, people were selected for death in
Speaker 6: the gas chambers or to be a part of the
Speaker 6: slave labor. But of course, sadly most people were selected
Speaker 6: for death, and I'll always maintain that, you know, the
Speaker 6: maless officers made the decisions of who would be selected
Speaker 6: for death and the gas chamber. She wasn't involved. But
Speaker 6: a list surfaced of a list of almost five hundred
Speaker 6: Greek women, which was a transport list to be sent
Speaker 6: directly to the gas chamber, and she signed that. And
Speaker 6: so the signed death list had been smuggled out to
Speaker 6: the resistance, and of course it was entered as evidence
Speaker 6: into her trial, and so there was no way she
Speaker 6: could deny that reality. That was very concrete evidence and then,
Speaker 6: of course, there were just dozens of very graphic testimonies
Speaker 6: of women who suffered under her punishment, saw other people killed,
Speaker 6: observed her choosing people to go to the gas chambers.
Speaker 6: So again there was no doubt of her guilt or
Speaker 6: of her culpability in these really horrific actions.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit more about the trial and
Speaker 5: the press response, the public response, and the greater public's
Speaker 5: response internationally.
Speaker 6: Sure, I mean, this was a huge, high profile trial.
Speaker 6: International press came, you know, so there were delegates from
Speaker 6: all over the world. There was standing room only, Like
Speaker 6: people so many survivors had suffered in Poland, they wanted
Speaker 6: to come to the trial. They wanted to see these
Speaker 6: people on trial for their lives. They eventually there were
Speaker 6: so many people who wanted to attend that they put
Speaker 6: loud speakers up outside of the trial venue, and huge
Speaker 6: crowds would gather every day under these loud speakers to
Speaker 6: listen to the testimony of these trials. And again the press,
Speaker 6: as you might imagine, coverage ranged from level headed coverage
Speaker 6: to very salacious coverage. Sometimes, you know, the more solation
Speaker 6: just the coverage, or the more horrific the story. Of course,
Speaker 6: those are the things that I got a lot of attention.
Speaker 6: At the same time, you know, if a survivor wasn't
Speaker 6: asked to testify, or they didn't agree with the testify,
Speaker 6: they would undergo all this other trauma. So it was
Speaker 6: very emotional atmosphere when the prisoners were brought to the trial.
Speaker 6: Every day they were unloaded at the back and there
Speaker 6: would be these huge, cheering crowds that would spit at
Speaker 6: them and you n scream at them as they were
Speaker 6: being escorted inside. So it was a very dramatic and
Speaker 6: emotional and really riveting, if I can use that word trial.
Speaker 6: And I think people finally felt that these at least
Speaker 6: there wasn't justice.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 6: There was one quote I read the paper said we
Speaker 6: don't want revenge, we want justice. But I think certainly
Speaker 6: a lot of people wanted revenge as well.
Speaker 5: She was to be hanged January twenty fourth, nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 5: In the end of this book, do you write about
Speaker 5: an interesting event, a very very interesting event regarding Maria
Speaker 5: as a prisoner in a shower. Can you tell us
Speaker 5: about this?
Speaker 6: Yes, one of the prisoners at Ashwitzperkanal that had a
Speaker 6: lot of interaction with Mandal was named Statislava rock Falova,
Speaker 6: and rock Falova was slightly older than a lot of
Speaker 6: the young women in the camp, and she became the
Speaker 6: source of great comfort to them. She was more mature.
Speaker 6: When they got the most depressed and upset, she would
Speaker 6: tell these wonderful stories to try and take them out
Speaker 6: of where they were. Very courageous women. She survived Aschwitz,
Speaker 6: and after the war she became involved in a lot
Speaker 6: of anti communist activities and eventually became the center of
Speaker 6: this huge resistance network. Was arrested for that and was
Speaker 6: sent to the same prison where the German prisoners of
Speaker 6: war had been taken, Montaloupiche, and so both Rockfalova and
Speaker 6: Mandel ended up being prisoners in this place. Every time
Speaker 6: rock Filova saw her in the hall, she would spit
Speaker 6: at her, curse at her, you know, she just hated her.
Speaker 6: And then the trial happened. Maria received the deaths sentence,
Speaker 6: and a couple of days before the sentences were carried out,
Speaker 6: rock Falova was taken to the prison showers and she
Speaker 6: realized when she got there the showers were on and
Speaker 6: at the far end of the shower room was Maria
Speaker 6: Mandel and Teresa Brandle, the other overseer, and so she
Speaker 6: writes very vividly about this moment during the shower, the
Speaker 6: water you know, that steamed their naked and she noticed
Speaker 6: Mandal walking towards her. You know, she begins almost to
Speaker 6: hyperventilate because, my god, this was her tormentor. She just
Speaker 6: remembered the cruelties, and Maria came up and knelt before
Speaker 6: her and asked for forgiveness for everything that she had done.
Speaker 6: And so rock Falova, after the fact, somewhat controversially said
Speaker 6: I forgive you in the name of all the prisoners,
Speaker 6: and then they were taken back to their cells, and
Speaker 6: then Mandal was executed a few days later. Rock Falova
Speaker 6: told some of the other prisoners right after this happened,
Speaker 6: and there was a huge it ultimately became this huge
Speaker 6: debate in the survivor world. They felt she really had
Speaker 6: no right to forgive Mammal on everybody's behalf. Other prisoners
Speaker 6: felt that rock Falosa was Catholic, and they said, well,
Speaker 6: of course you have to forgive. That's a doctrine that
Speaker 6: we believe in. And whether people agreed with her forgiveness
Speaker 6: or not, I'm very convinced that this incident did happen.
Speaker 6: Some people questioned that Rockvilova made it up, but I
Speaker 6: talked to enough people who had talked to her right
Speaker 6: after this happened, people who didn't embellish. Later years later,
Speaker 6: I Rockflova had died, but I interviewed her daughter, and
Speaker 6: her daughter said her mother never ever wanted to talk
Speaker 6: about any of this during her lifetime, that it wasn't
Speaker 6: something she wanted to dramatize or anything. It was just
Speaker 6: this sort of extraordinary moment where I think maybe at
Speaker 6: least Maria began to take some responsibility for what she
Speaker 6: had done. And I think for rock Falova, it was
Speaker 6: a way of her sort of processing her trauma and
Speaker 6: trying to figure out a way to move forward. So
Speaker 6: it was really an overcoming moment and sort of very
Speaker 6: provoking end to Mendel's life.
Speaker 5: You also include that her friend Margaret also corresponded with
Speaker 5: Franz Maria's father, and it was a very very interesting
Speaker 5: correspondence again to try to answer how on earth she
Speaker 5: became this person, and the father asked probably the same question.
Speaker 6: Yeah for me, you know, the whole journey of the
Speaker 6: book and my journey with Maria Mandel sort of comes
Speaker 6: to that point. I think for me, that's the heart
Speaker 6: of the book. Is like after the war, Margaret returned home,
Speaker 6: she was, you know, acquitted, she wrote to Franz because
Speaker 6: Maria had asked her to be in touch, and neither
Speaker 6: of them knew at this point that Marie had been executed,
Speaker 6: so they were asking each other for if they knew
Speaker 6: if she was okay. And then Margaret was saying, you know,
Speaker 6: she was such a good friend and I loved her,
Speaker 6: and I don't believe these things that were said about her,
Speaker 6: and Bronz Mandel wrote back this letter which Margaret shared
Speaker 6: with me, and it's just such an anguished letter from
Speaker 6: loving father. He doesn't understand what happened to her, why
Speaker 6: she followed this path, and of course this was from
Speaker 6: a man who men were raised to be very reserved
Speaker 6: in those days, and really his anguish is palpable on
Speaker 6: this letter of sort of what happened to Maria and
Speaker 6: to her life and how he just doesn't understand it
Speaker 6: and till his dying day is going to suffer this
Speaker 6: anguish of what happened with her and what she ended
Speaker 6: up doing in her life.
Speaker 5: Yes, incredible. I want to thank you so much, Susan
Speaker 5: Eyescheid for coming on and talking about your incredible book,
Speaker 5: Mistress of Life and Death The Dark Journey of Maria Mandel,
Speaker 5: the Head Overseer of Auschwitz Brukenal. Or those that might
Speaker 5: want to find out more about this book. Do you
Speaker 5: do any social media and tell us when this book
Speaker 5: will be released.
Speaker 6: Please sure the book has been released. It was released
Speaker 6: in the end of December, so it's out and about there.
Speaker 6: You can find it on all major booksellings if you
Speaker 6: just do. Mistress of Life and Death have a website
Speaker 6: where you can learn more about the sort of my
Speaker 6: journey in Maria's journey. That is just s E I
Speaker 6: s C h e I D dot com so sishid
Speaker 6: dot com my first initial in my last name, and
Speaker 6: I would welcome any if anyone needs to process further,
Speaker 6: you know that you can contact me through the website
Speaker 6: and that would be happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 5: I can thank you so much as Susan Eishied for
Speaker 5: Mistress of Life and Death the Dark Journey of Maria Mandel,
Speaker 5: the Head Overseer of Auschwitz Brookenal. Thank you so much
Speaker 5: for this interview and you have a great evening. And
Speaker 5: good night.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I appreciate your time. You have a good
Speaker 6: evening too
Speaker 5: Thank you, good night, good night,