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1:36

You are now listening to True Murder, the

1:39

most shocking killers in true crime history

1:42

and the authors that have written about them. Gacy,

1:45

Bundy, Dahmer, The Night

1:47

Stalker, BTK. Every

1:50

week another fascinating author talking about

1:52

the most shocking and infamous killers

1:54

in true crime history. True

1:57

murder with your host journalist and

1:59

author. Good

2:11

evening. By the time of her

2:13

execution at 36, Maria

2:15

Mandel had achieved the highest rank

2:17

possible for a woman in the

2:20

Third Reich. As head overseer of

2:22

the women's camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she

2:24

was personally responsible for the murders

2:27

of thousands and for the torture

2:29

and suffering of countless more. In

2:32

this riveting biography, Susan

2:34

J. Eishai explores how Maria Mandel,

2:36

regarded locally as a nice girl

2:38

from a good family, came to

2:41

embody the very worst of humanity.

2:43

Born in 1912 in the

2:45

scenic Austrian village of Müntzkirchen, Maria

2:48

enjoyed a happy childhood with loving

2:50

parents, who later watched in anguish

2:52

as their grown daughter rose through

2:55

the Nazi system. Mandel's

2:57

life mirrors the period in

2:59

which she lived, turbulent, violent,

3:01

and suffused with paradoxes. At

3:04

Auschwitz-Birkenau, she founded a notable

3:06

women's orchestra and adopted several

3:08

children from the transports, only to

3:10

lead them to the gas

3:12

chambers when her interest waned.

3:15

After the war, Maria was arrested

3:17

for crimes against humanity. Following

3:19

a public trial attended by the international press,

3:21

she was hanged in 1948. For

3:25

two decades, Eishai has excavated

3:27

the details of Mandel's life story,

3:30

drawing on archival testimonies, speaking to

3:32

dozens of witnesses, and spending time

3:34

with Mandel's community of friends and

3:37

neighbors who shared their memories as

3:39

well as those handed down in

3:41

their families. The result is a

3:44

chilling and complex exploration of how

3:46

easily an ordinary citizen chose the

3:48

path of evil in a climate

3:51

of hate and fear. The book

3:53

that we're featuring this evening is

3:55

Mistress of Life and Death, the

3:58

dark journey of Maria Mandel. the

4:00

head overseer of Auschwitz-Birkenau with

4:03

my special guest musician and

4:06

author Susan J. Eishide. Welcome to the

4:08

program and thank you very much for

4:10

this interview, Susan Eishide. Thank you very

4:13

much for having me. I'm happy

4:15

to be here. Thank you so much

4:17

and congratulations on this very

4:19

impressive and extraordinary book. Thank you.

4:22

I really appreciate that. Now by

4:24

training and your credentials you are

4:26

a musician and a classical oboist

4:28

and you had a strong interest

4:31

you write in music and musicians

4:33

of the Holocaust. Tell us how

4:35

you became involved with writing this

4:38

book about Maria Mandel and the

4:40

connection to your primary interest which

4:42

is music. Tell us about that.

4:45

Sure. I've been a performer and

4:48

performing musician for many years now

4:51

and early on in my career

4:53

in addition to playing in orchestras

4:55

and teaching at a university I

4:57

began to perform music that was

4:59

written in the Holocaust and doing

5:01

a lot of research into the

5:03

topic and as part of my

5:06

research and discovery of this amazing

5:08

material about music I also discovered

5:10

the many musical activities

5:12

that existed in Hitler's camps

5:14

and ghettos. Somewhat extraordinarily

5:16

most of the concentration and

5:18

death camps had artistic activities

5:21

including musical activities and

5:23

I became very interested in

5:25

an orchestra that was formed

5:27

in the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This

5:30

orchestra was unique in that it

5:32

was the only women's orchestra in

5:35

the entire Nazi camp system and

5:37

as I learned more about the

5:39

orchestra and began to interview survivors

5:42

of that orchestra I became acquainted

5:44

with the story of Maria Mandel

5:47

and she was the highest-ranking SS

5:49

female auxiliary in the camps. She

5:51

was the head overseer at Auschwitz-Birkenau

5:54

during a lot of the story

5:56

that I tell and so I

5:58

became interested in in her, like how

6:01

did this person responsible for

6:03

so many deaths and atrocities

6:05

also have this side where

6:07

she found great comfort in

6:09

solace and music. And however,

6:11

inadvertently, she did create the

6:14

orchestra, which in turn, say

6:16

helped save the lives of the women in

6:18

that orchestra. That certainly

6:20

wasn't her primary intent. And so

6:23

as I dug more and more

6:25

into Mandel's story and learned more

6:27

about her, I discovered that she

6:29

wasn't sort of intrinsically

6:31

evil, natural, born killer, taken

6:34

born into a very warm,

6:36

supportive, loving family. She was always known

6:39

as a very nice girl from a

6:41

good family. And for me,

6:43

the greatest question which then emerged was

6:45

this idea of how

6:48

this otherwise normal, compassionate,

6:50

nice person turned into

6:52

an extraordinarily evil perpetrator

6:54

in the Holocaust. And

6:56

sort of what factors led to that

6:58

transformation and sort of the things we

7:01

could learn from that in a broader

7:03

sense. So that's sort of how I

7:05

got into the topic. Incredible.

7:07

Let's talk about that upbringing

7:10

and what you learned from it. Talk about she

7:12

was born in 1912 in

7:14

a beautiful Austrian village of, and I'll

7:17

get you to pronounce this properly, Munskirchen.

7:19

Tell us about her early life

7:22

and her parents. Sure.

7:24

The village is Munskirchen. And

7:26

if you're familiar at all with

7:29

German and Austrian geography, probably

7:31

the largest town is Pasau in Germany. It's

7:33

on a conjunction of three rivers and Munskirchen

7:36

is across one of the rivers in a

7:38

more rural part of Austria. Her

7:41

parents, her father's name was Franz Mandel.

7:44

And he was a master shoemaker. He

7:46

had sort of a big business in

7:48

town. With like most of the people

7:50

who lived in Munskirchen, then there was

7:52

also an accompanying farm where they grew all

7:54

their own food. And Maria's mother

7:56

was named Anna, and she was also

7:58

from a nearby village. Together,

8:00

they had four children of which Maria

8:03

was the baby. So she was the

8:05

youngest child and she was

8:07

raised in this very nurturing household.

8:10

Again, that was in the 1920s in Austria. So

8:15

the norms were somewhat different than we're

8:17

used to. Women were very much second-class

8:19

citizens. So usually her goal growing up

8:21

and most of the young women was

8:23

they aim to get married and have

8:25

a family and that was sort

8:27

of the considered an expected thing.

8:29

Maria's mother suffered from depression throughout her

8:31

lifetime so she had a lot of

8:34

challenges. But ultimately, Maria grew up in

8:36

this family and until the Anschluss, which

8:38

is when Austria was annexed by Germany,

8:40

her life was really on a good

8:42

trajectory. She had gotten a job in

8:45

the local post office. She

8:47

was engaged to be married to a young man

8:49

in the community and so everything

8:52

was going pretty well for her until

8:54

that point. Tell us about her

8:56

father's political leanings and how that

8:58

got her fired from the post

9:01

office and what was the

9:03

climate at that time

9:05

regarding people that didn't sign

9:07

up for the National Socialist

9:09

Party? Sure. Well, Munchkirchen, especially in

9:11

the years leading up to the Anschluss,

9:14

had a couple of different political parties.

9:16

There were the sort of the Nazi

9:18

party coming up, or Faupe, my

9:20

German accent is not great, which

9:22

was a Christian Social Democrat kind

9:24

of party. So Franz Mondel

9:27

was sort of a leader in

9:29

that party and in the community.

9:31

And so her family was definitely

9:33

not Nazi, they did not support

9:35

the Nazis. Franz was actually pretty

9:37

outspoken against the Nazis. And

9:40

then of course when the Nazis came to power,

9:43

that was the big reason. Her then-fiance

9:45

was a member of the Nazi party

9:47

was coming up in the ranks and

9:50

he essentially dumped her. He said,

9:52

I can't have a fiancé

9:54

or my future wife cannot be someone

9:56

who does not support the Nazi party.

10:00

irony of Maria's life and the

10:02

great tragedy for all of her victims

10:04

down the road is that had

10:07

she not been fired for not being

10:09

a Nazi from this job, she probably

10:11

would not have followed this path in

10:14

the evil that she ended up pursuing. Interesting.

10:17

Now what does she do in response

10:19

to this heartbreak of the fiance? Where

10:21

does she travel to and what does

10:23

she try to get a job doing

10:25

and what does she end up working?

10:28

Sure. Well after she lost her job

10:30

I think she was just looking for a

10:32

new start, a new beginning. So she traveled

10:34

to Munich where she had some family, I

10:36

believe her uncle was living there and at

10:39

the time began

10:41

to see the establishment of some of

10:43

the early concentration camps and at

10:45

that point there was only one concentration

10:48

camp specifically designated for women and that

10:50

was Liechtenberg which was in Germany and

10:53

they needed to recruit personnel to be

10:55

guards in the camp. Most of the

10:57

young men were either being recruited into

10:59

the army or working at other camps

11:01

for men. So they decided

11:03

to embark on a kind of

11:06

classified ad campaign where they were

11:08

trying to attract women to apply

11:10

for these positions. So they actually

11:12

got ads in the paper, overseers sought,

11:14

I think the phrase they used was

11:16

a camp for a-social women or something

11:19

like that. Not really stating explicitly that

11:21

it was a concentration camp and what

11:23

that all signified and I believe

11:25

Maria's uncle saw the ad in the paper and said

11:27

why don't you apply for this and

11:29

so she literally was just looking for

11:31

a job and went ahead and

11:33

applied for one of those guard positions at

11:36

least in bird and ironically she said at

11:38

that time if I hadn't gotten

11:40

this job I would have trained to become a

11:42

nurse and I always sort of thinking of how

11:44

she transformed later, shut her at the thought but

11:47

that might have been the saving of her as

11:49

well so you know it's hard to say in

11:51

hindsight. So she ended up being hired and that's

11:53

how she began her camp service. Tell us

11:55

as you write in the book about

11:57

some of the training and the indoctrination

12:00

to prepare these women for the training

12:04

camps, this one in particular. So,

12:34

the first thing I would say is that women are

12:36

the most vulnerable of cruelty, where you would be rewarded,

12:38

the cooler you were, the more praise you would get,

12:40

the more they normalize the behavior. And

12:43

after a while, although some women, you

12:46

know, just once they realized what

12:48

was happening left, most of them stayed and

12:50

became sort of indoctrinated in

12:52

that system and accepted that as

12:55

their new reality and as a way to, you

12:57

know, move forward with a good job and benefits

13:00

and a place to help and

13:02

all of those things. And

13:04

certainly Maria did that. She

13:06

assimilated much very quickly. That's

13:08

one of the interesting things about her

13:10

story. It's almost like one day she

13:12

was this sweet, beautiful, young, innocent woman

13:14

and some of the early prisoners

13:17

there remember her that way. And then almost

13:19

overnight, she transformed into one of the most

13:21

brutal guards there. In turn, got a lot

13:23

of praise for that. And then that allowed

13:25

her to race through the ranks. Down the

13:27

road when she had moved to other camps,

13:29

I'm sure we'll talk about Ravensbruck in a

13:31

minute, she became sort of the overseer for

13:33

all of the training

13:36

of young women in that camp. And by the end of the

13:38

war, they had trained, I think, between

13:40

three and four thousand young women in these roles. So

13:43

it wasn't just a few women. There were a

13:45

lot of women who decided to

13:47

follow this path as well. What were the

13:49

living quarters like for the

13:51

prisoners at Lictonburg and

13:54

what were the living accommodations for the

13:56

staff like Maria? The living quarters for

13:58

the prisoners were pretty

14:00

brutal. That's, Lechtenberg is like an

14:03

old castle, I think

14:05

it dates from the medieval period

14:07

or the Renaissance period. So it's

14:09

this big, stone, dark, dank edifice

14:11

with these huge sort of lofty

14:14

kinds of rooms. And for

14:16

the prisoners, they literally crammed, you know,

14:18

hundreds of prisoners in a room, very

14:20

little means of sanitation. They

14:22

might have like one bucket that everybody

14:24

would use as the bathroom. And most

14:27

of the women were engaged in hard

14:29

labor during the day. They're outdoor labor

14:31

or inside labor, creating things that could

14:33

be sold or textiles or things like

14:35

that. Where the guards

14:37

lived at Lechtenberg, I don't know a lot

14:39

about that. There's not a lot of documentation.

14:42

Most of them, I believe, either had

14:44

separate quarters in the castle that were

14:46

considerably nicer or lived out in the

14:48

community very close to the campsite and then

14:51

came into work. You say

14:53

at that time, Maria began to

14:55

be people, certainly. Yes, that's correct.

14:57

What was the event that inspired

14:59

her more than anything

15:01

to succeed, I guess, in this

15:04

new environment? I think it was

15:06

a combination. I think she really, to

15:08

my mind, had a kind of breakdown

15:10

after being dumped by her fiancé. There

15:12

was really a great stigma in Germany

15:15

and in Austria at that time for

15:17

a woman. She was in her mid-20s

15:19

now. She wasn't married. She had

15:21

always wanted children. The fact

15:23

that she had no man in sight

15:25

and had lost her

15:27

job, I think this was a

15:30

way where she could get respect,

15:32

she had power, she could sort of

15:35

fight back against this perception that she

15:37

wasn't worthy because he had dumped her.

15:39

I think she got all of those things through

15:42

this job and gradually she

15:44

just did what she needed to do

15:46

to be successful in the job and

15:48

climbed the ranks very quickly. Now there was

15:50

talk of a new camp being built

15:52

by Rabensbrooke.

15:54

Tell us about Maria being

15:57

assigned to this new facility.

16:00

Eventually, as the war kicked off

16:02

and more and more women were

16:04

being arrested, Himmler made the decision

16:06

to build a new concentration camp

16:08

just for women. It was located

16:11

north of Berlin near a little

16:13

town called Furstenberg. This new

16:15

camp was called Ravensbruck. Most

16:18

of the personnel from Lichtenberg, they essentially

16:20

closed down Lichtenberg as a women's camp

16:23

and transported all of the guards and then

16:25

a lot of the prisoners up to Ravensbruck.

16:28

At this point, Maria was one of

16:30

the more experienced guards and

16:32

she had gotten a lot of

16:34

responsibility because she was so willing

16:36

to take those next steps into

16:38

brutality so she would be in

16:40

charge of beatings and things like

16:42

that at Lichtenberg. So when she

16:44

got to Ravensbruck, she was immediately

16:46

one of the higher-ranking overseers. She

16:48

wasn't yet the highest-ranking, but she

16:50

certainly got a lot of responsibility

16:52

right out of the gates. All

16:55

those women began to oversee work details

16:57

and again climb her ladder again at

17:00

that camp. You talk about

17:02

that even though she wasn't

17:04

officially in the SS, she

17:06

had these responsibilities foisted on

17:08

her, which she ascribed to,

17:11

which she volunteered for, but

17:13

she was still a subordinate

17:15

of the SS men, wasn't

17:17

she? Yes. The function of

17:19

the women in the camps was a little different. They

17:22

weren't considered full-blown SS. They were

17:24

considered the SS women's auxiliary, so

17:27

they were like an auxiliary to

17:29

the SS. They

17:32

couldn't have the military ranks like

17:34

people of the SS had, but

17:36

within their own purview within a

17:38

woman's camp, they certainly were responsible

17:40

for the disciplining of the prisoners,

17:42

the running of the camp. In

17:45

most aspects, they were doing what the

17:47

men did. They just didn't get

17:49

that official designation. So,

17:52

are these women's functions like an SS

17:54

auxiliary? I guess it's the best way

17:56

to put it in these camps. You

17:59

say bye. September 1st, 1939, when

18:02

the Third Reich invaded Poland and the

18:04

Second World War began, the work

18:07

routines and procedures at Revensbruck

18:09

were well-established. And you say

18:11

that on January 4th, 1940,

18:13

Heinrich Himmler came to inspect

18:15

the camp. Tell us about that

18:18

as you write this inspection by

18:21

this elite SS official. Yeah,

18:23

that was a really big day for the overseers

18:25

in the camp. It

18:28

was this bitterly cold winter day.

18:31

We have some photographs that exist from

18:33

that visit. You can see them through

18:35

the Revensbruck archive and things like that.

18:38

And essentially, he came to inspect

18:41

the women guards. So there's this one photo of

18:43

them all lined up in this row, in a

18:45

double row, and then he's sort of striding in

18:47

front of them, sort of

18:49

inspecting the ranks. And then he had a

18:51

series of meetings during the day with different

18:53

personnel to sort of strategize

18:55

about different policies in the camp.

18:58

Maria's immediate supervisor was a woman

19:00

named Johanna Longenfeld. And so

19:02

she's also seen in this picture sort of

19:04

walking subserviently behind him because of course she

19:07

was female. But that was

19:09

sort of a very big event for

19:11

all of the female overseers that he

19:13

had come to this camp and what

19:15

sort of establishing the camp is this

19:17

really important entity, I guess, in the

19:20

camp system. So those pictures

19:22

are really pretty extraordinary. You can

19:24

find them online. They're very easy to find.

19:26

So anyway, it's worth taking a look. You

19:28

talk about people that were

19:30

comprised and the transport of

19:32

new prisoners and the early

19:35

capacity of this or the

19:37

early population of the camp

19:39

and then the soon rising

19:41

population of that camp. Yes,

19:43

I mean the camp exponentially got

19:46

bigger. At first when Maria

19:48

first got there, the population was still

19:50

under control. The barracks were new. They

19:52

planted flowers. They had a little zoo.

19:54

I mean it was sort of crazy.

19:57

And then of course as more and

19:59

more. women were arrested through

20:01

the war, through political dissension, for

20:03

whatever reason. I'm sent to the

20:06

camp that things got crowded and

20:08

more and more crowded, conditions got

20:10

worse and worse and worse. And

20:13

during the couple of years that Maria

20:15

worked in that camp, the population increased

20:17

exponentially, like five or six times. And

20:19

so then by the end,

20:22

it was just horrible conditions

20:24

of extreme overcrowding, difficult sanitation,

20:26

insufficient food. And again, all

20:29

of those conditions that we're familiar with

20:31

when we studied the camps became very

20:33

apparent over her tenure there.

20:35

You talk about some of the

20:37

punishments that were enacted, whipping table,

20:39

some of the weapons that were

20:41

given, the guards were canes. They

20:43

each had pistols, they had big

20:45

high boots that they could use

20:47

to kick and beat these

20:49

prisoners. This was all encouraged

20:52

by witness accounts?

20:55

Oh, absolutely. They were

20:58

considered necessary things to keep order. Most of

21:00

the women guards also worked with dogs. So

21:02

they would have, you know, a couple of

21:04

dogs that were trained to attack. And

21:07

again, the more brutal, the better. So

21:09

all the prisoners remember just vis-a-vis

21:11

these horrible punishments. A lot of times they

21:13

said one of the worst things was you

21:15

could be punished for anything. And eventually everything

21:18

was against the rules. So you would just

21:20

accept that you would have a risk of

21:22

being attacked at any time. There was

21:25

a large building called the Bunker, which

21:27

became a kind of cell block where

21:29

they sent prisoners for extra special, extra

21:31

harsh punishments. And Mandel was eventually appointed

21:34

as sort of co-overseer of the whole

21:36

bunker. So that was like a big

21:38

promotion for her. And that's some

21:41

of the most brutal stories of punishments come out

21:43

of her time in the bunker, as well as

21:47

just overseeing things like roll calls, which

21:49

were a complete nightmare for the women.

21:51

They'd have to stand out there and

21:53

out for hours and freezing cold or

21:55

extreme heat. You know, I think Maria, I don't

21:57

know if it had something to do with her father's.

22:00

being a shoemaker, but she seemed obsessed

22:02

with creating problems for the women's feet.

22:04

Like there was this really sharp kind

22:06

of stone roadway. And so she would

22:08

force the women to be in their

22:10

bare feet and sort of march over

22:12

and over these stones so their feet

22:14

were bleeding and infected. And even in

22:16

winter, they weren't allowed to have shoes

22:18

or any kind of protection. And so

22:20

you can imagine the horrible injuries, many

22:22

of which resulted in death. So

22:24

the brutalities and the conditions that

22:27

the prisoners endured were really almost

22:29

beyond description. You say that

22:32

Maria became known as the mistress

22:34

of life and death and nicknamed

22:36

the Tigris. You also talk about

22:38

that it seemed to be a

22:40

sexual element to the punishments that

22:42

Maria inflicted on these prisoners.

22:45

Also that prisoners were also used

22:47

for as prostitutes for German soldiers

22:50

as well. Tell us about some

22:52

of this seemingly sexual deviancy on

22:54

Maria's part. Well, in her case,

22:56

I think it was more about power

22:58

than about sexuality. Like for example, sometimes she

23:00

would order if a woman was being beaten

23:02

in front of the whole camp or whipped,

23:04

that she would be stripped so she would

23:06

be naked when that happened. And

23:09

there was another guard there, Dorothea Bins,

23:11

who definitely had more of a sexual

23:13

overtone. She would literally go into sexual

23:15

frenzy when she was beating prisoners. And

23:17

sometimes when you read accounts, people get

23:19

the two of them mixed up. And

23:22

I think in Maria's case, it was

23:24

more that she reveled in the power

23:26

she had over the women rather

23:28

than getting direct sexual gratification from that

23:30

per se, at least that's the way

23:32

I read it for her. As

23:35

regards the prostitutes and forcing

23:37

women, she was sort of

23:39

interested that, for example, a few

23:42

years later in Auschwitz, if a German prisoner

23:44

came in and they wanted to assign her

23:46

to the brothel for the SS men, and

23:48

Mandel would try and talk them out of

23:50

it. Like it's a good German woman, this

23:52

is not something you wanted to do. Whereas

23:55

on the other hand, at places like Ravensbruck

23:57

and also at Auschwitz and other camps.

24:00

part of her undesirable population, maybe

24:02

someone who's being targeted, someone who

24:04

was Jewish, someone who was a

24:06

Jehovah's Witness, then she certainly would

24:08

have had no compunction about sending

24:10

them to service at brothel. But

24:12

it was always a sort of

24:14

weird, I don't know, paradoxical view

24:16

towards sexuality that she evidenced in

24:18

different ways throughout her camp service.

24:20

You say that she was especially

24:23

cruel to Jehovah Witnesses. And also

24:25

you write about this extraordinary people

24:28

were selected, Maria selected people for

24:30

something you call a lab rabbits.

24:33

Tell us about this experimentation and

24:35

the selection of it. Oh, yes, this

24:37

is one of the, I don't know,

24:39

really devastating chapters of the Holocaust,

24:41

if you can dare to consider

24:44

one chapter more devastating than another.

24:46

Yes, the lab rabbit program at

24:48

Robin's group sprang out of the

24:50

assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. And in

24:52

retaliation they anyway, anyway, you

24:55

can read the whole story of the

24:57

retaliation against that. But this there was

24:59

this big influx of women into Robin's

25:01

Brook is sort of a result of

25:03

that. And Hitler was also at the

25:05

same time Heydrich was blown up at

25:08

this point, the German soldiers were fighting

25:10

on all these fronts. So they were

25:12

experiencing these really horrific injuries, blast injuries,

25:14

that kind of stuff. So he charged

25:16

the Robin's Brook doctors with this kind

25:18

of full medical program, where they were

25:21

going to do a series of experiments

25:23

on the women to try to figure

25:25

out the best ways of treating like

25:27

blast injuries or this kind of stuff

25:29

that they could then transfer that expertise

25:31

out into the field for the German

25:34

soldiers. So they put mandolin

25:36

charge of selecting a bunch of young

25:38

women for this program. And so at

25:40

this point, there had been a couple

25:42

of recent transports from Lublin, Poland of

25:45

young teenagers, like 16 to 20 year

25:47

old young women, perfect health. And so

25:49

she chose a lot of

25:51

them to be part of this this

25:53

experimental program. And so what the doctors

25:55

did is they took these women into

25:57

like a separate wing in the infirmary.

26:00

And they inflicted all of these

26:02

horrible wound on her leg some fancy

26:04

shutter lag. Sometimes they would operate and

26:07

insert things like dirt or metal or

26:09

something and like slap a cast over

26:11

it and then they just watch to

26:14

see what would happen and as you

26:16

can imagine the just incredible suffering the

26:18

pain many women died from these experimentation

26:21

people who survived that was just a

26:23

horrible injuries a are crippled for life

26:25

in there are we do have

26:27

photographs of some of those victims who

26:30

survived. And ultimately became known became

26:32

known in the camp is a lab

26:34

Rabbits are sort of these experimental subjects

26:36

for these horrific said have a medical

26:38

experiments. They took place at Robin's Broke

26:40

so it was pretty overwhelming. I did

26:42

get to interview one of those lab

26:44

rabbits several years later of course and

26:47

us to still You know that literally

26:49

was only able to work a year

26:51

or two and then her body can

26:53

take is still had this huge are

26:55

a one of her legs was permanently

26:57

crippled and and just hearing her talk

26:59

about. The agony and they would be

27:01

crying and sobbing for help and Italy would

27:03

just be lost in these words would be

27:06

separated wounds and you know many women with

27:08

delirious we had no water it just really

27:10

brought home the suffering and a very personal

27:12

way to me Been able to talk with

27:15

her and for her having the courage to

27:17

share that story. With me diseases as

27:19

an opportunity to you these messages. She

27:22

I am on a mission

27:24

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27:26

of black Americans don't have enough

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how to invest stream paper right

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now and helpful. For gas. I

27:51

read about that. after only

27:53

four months his head overseer

27:55

in auschwitz johannes lang cel

27:58

was struggling and salinity agreement

28:00

with the commandant, Rudolf Haas. And

28:02

so she was transferred back to

28:04

Ravensbruck and tell us where Maria

28:06

was transferred to as a result.

28:09

Okay, yeah, that's a really interesting

28:11

story. Johanna Longafel, again, had been

28:13

Mandel's supervisor at Ravensbruck when Auschwitz

28:15

was formed and then got to

28:18

be big and had a women's

28:20

camp. Rudolf Hirsch, who was the

28:22

commandant, was seeking an

28:24

experienced head overseer there. So they

28:26

sent Longafel to Poland and that's

28:28

when Maria Mandel was promoted to

28:30

being head overseer at Ravensbruck. Longafel

28:33

didn't prove to be successful at

28:35

Auschwitz, as you said. She always

28:38

was known among the prisoners as being

28:40

a little, not quite as harsh. And

28:42

she struggled to control the women overseers

28:44

there and the camp itself was just

28:46

a sort of nightmarish cesspool

28:49

of disease and filth and

28:51

she just couldn't handle the

28:53

job. So they

28:55

made the decision to transfer her back

28:57

to Ravensbruck and at that point, Maria

28:59

Mandel was transferred to Auschwitz against her

29:02

will to become the head overseer there.

29:04

And so that's how she ended up

29:06

at the next stage of her career

29:09

in Poland, which was in Auschwitz. You're

29:11

right, there was three main camps, Auschwitz

29:13

I, which was built in 1940, Auschwitz

29:15

II, Birkenau, and

29:18

Auschwitz III, which was the

29:20

Manowitz-Bruna, a subsidiary of the

29:22

IG Farben company. You say

29:25

that the very first thing

29:27

that Maria noticed at Auschwitz

29:29

was the horrible smell and

29:31

reminiscent of her father's shoemaking

29:33

business where he would often

29:35

have hides that were overripe and used

29:38

in the making of shoes. So she

29:40

was familiar somewhat with the smell of

29:42

the dead, we'll say. Yes, most

29:45

of the people or everyone I

29:47

talk to or when you read

29:49

survivor accounts, Birkenau, Auschwitz Birkenau, especially

29:51

because that became one of the

29:53

main killing centers, always had this

29:55

kind of miasma in the air,

29:57

could be smoky, you know. The

30:00

under current of the smell of

30:02

death in a. Way to

30:04

use your. You can imagine

30:06

the set of the graphic things that

30:08

went into that smell, but it was

30:10

like for a lot of people it

30:12

became almost another entity that this stance

30:15

that you could never escape from. And

30:17

you can never escape the reality of

30:19

what this place was and what was

30:21

happening there. And certainly the smell was

30:23

part of that. You right it's

30:25

things are accelerating. The population

30:27

is growing Tagalog in Nineteen

30:29

forty three. After a general

30:32

rule call. And there was a

30:34

witness to this. There was. Four. Thousand

30:36

were released, were were selected for

30:38

the gas chamber, and Maria ordered

30:40

the kitchen to prepare for thousand

30:42

as a result, less dinners? Yes,

30:44

that's correct Now these roll call's

30:47

had become routine for Maria. And

30:49

tell us about the treatment that

30:51

even though they're the horrible conditions

30:53

for the prisoners, what were the

30:55

conditions like. For. The staff like

30:57

maria. Well the rule cause there

31:00

is one of the truly horrific things

31:02

that the prisoners endured. He on the

31:04

surface you say roll call and say

31:06

oh that doesn't sound so bad but

31:09

the reality was just appalling. Horrible At

31:11

a new out and all hours our

31:13

weather's all hours you had to stand

31:16

still. If the county imagine it never

31:18

matched and you know they they start

31:20

over people would die. It was just

31:22

really really horrible. But our space. Maria

31:25

was more high ranking. She was the

31:27

head overseer. So the lower ranking overseers

31:29

with the ones who you know we're

31:32

out there and sort of doing that,

31:34

the counts and all that kind of

31:36

things. and then she mandolin stroll in

31:38

after a couple hours and received those

31:40

reports of the number, a kid table

31:42

or wherever they had to do the

31:44

truth. So. at auschwitz she didn't

31:46

have to do as much of that kind

31:48

of nitty gritty and in or supervising because

31:50

it overseers were also out there and the

31:53

weather trying to get these towns the she

31:55

didn't she didn't care if people were suffering

31:57

jesus sometimes she would order that is the

31:59

right call extended just for her

32:01

amusement or things like that. But yeah, it

32:03

was a huge part of in

32:06

her case, because she was so high ranking,

32:09

she usually came in near the end of

32:11

the roll calls and then, you know, sort

32:13

of received the reports from the other overseers.

32:15

Can we talk about some of

32:18

the luxuries that the staff enjoyed

32:20

while these other people had no

32:22

heat, water, or sanitation?

32:25

Sure, the SS were housed in

32:27

lovely quarters. They had their own

32:29

stores. They had concerts on

32:31

the weekend. Mandel lived in a sort

32:33

of a communal dwelling at first where

32:36

they had housed all the female overseers,

32:38

but eventually she got her own villa

32:40

where she could live and sort of

32:42

escape to, if you will, when she

32:45

was done with work. Of course, they

32:47

had access to the best foods. And

32:49

don't forget, I mean, the enormous amounts

32:52

of plunder that were coming into Auschwitz,

32:54

every transport that came in, of course,

32:56

everybody tried to bring something with them.

32:58

In most cases, if you were only

33:01

limited, what you could carry, if you

33:03

had any wealth left, maybe you had

33:05

a diamond or something, you would hide

33:07

it on your person as those people

33:10

were filtered to the gas chambers and

33:12

they were forced to disrobe. So all

33:14

of this plunder, money, instruments, jewelry, anything

33:16

you could imagine, there was a huge

33:19

compound called Canada and Birkenau where

33:22

there were just warehouses full of this plunder.

33:25

And so it was fairly easy,

33:27

although officially it was allowed. Certainly

33:29

most of the SS did help

33:31

themselves to a lot of these

33:33

perks and certainly Maria Mandel

33:35

benefited from them as well. Maria

33:37

met a SS officer, Joseph

33:39

Janish, and had an affair

33:41

with him. He was responsible

33:43

mostly or more so for

33:45

construction of the crematorium. Tell

33:48

us about this brief affair

33:50

and what happened. And as

33:52

you write, it seemed to

33:54

soften her behavior during that

33:56

time period. Yeah, Janish was

33:58

a young man from Salzburg. Bird for

34:00

he with a fellow Austrian. tall,

34:03

handsome, Word among the prisoners as

34:05

that he wasn't He just did his

34:07

job with the architectural Commando. He didn't

34:09

in a wasn't gratuitously cruel or anything

34:11

other. She had certainly had other affairs

34:13

over the years. You I think she

34:16

was really great since the big twelve

34:18

inches she had since the fiance who

34:20

dumped her and so I'm sure she

34:22

was probably envisioning a after the war

34:24

and maybe this would be her chance

34:26

for a marriage. may be for children

34:28

and they would be seen. Like it

34:31

it on or after in the evenings

34:33

when they had these horses and she

34:35

would always atlanta white shirt with a

34:38

red rose in it and they

34:40

would gallup across the camp and spend

34:42

on this time together. Eventually he was

34:44

transferred and then their relationship seem to

34:47

are unable to keep it going. Long

34:49

distance himself once he left the she

34:51

reverted to been again once. that

34:53

sort of this very cool overseer that

34:56

she had become you write. About

34:58

the executions, the selection for

35:00

these executions in an afternoon

35:02

What was termed good executions

35:05

I guess There were reported

35:07

ranking orgies among the officers

35:09

and staff overseers. Sure,

35:12

That was pretty. That was pretty

35:14

normal. tell us of about the

35:16

some of the minions that Maria

35:19

had under her that were under

35:21

her of charge. For sure she

35:23

was in charge of all the

35:25

other in Overseers Air and. There

35:28

were some very colorful personalities and

35:30

brutal personalities. One of the ones

35:32

that she ended up having a

35:34

lot of contact down the road

35:36

was a woman in Teresa Brendel.

35:38

yeah, sort of quieter, not not

35:40

quite as brutal that ultimately was

35:42

arrested and then executed with Randall

35:45

the same day. Probably the most

35:47

notorious was a young woman in

35:49

the air Migration, and she was

35:51

sort of the the stereotype of

35:53

the young, beautiful blonde she was

35:55

in early twenties. incredibly brutal, incredibly

35:57

cruel. She. does maria crazy

35:59

because she was always doing things like stealing

36:02

resources like turpentine, which the, all the women

36:04

used to clean their boots. And so she

36:06

would hog it and sort of hoard it.

36:08

And then Vandal would always have to reprimand

36:11

her for that. So she was another one

36:13

of the sort of minions under her. There

36:15

was a large woman named Alice Hurlofsky, who

36:17

was enormously cruel. I could go

36:20

on and on. I mean, there were

36:22

many, many women who were worked under

36:24

her. And again, she was sort of

36:26

oversaw all of their actions. And that

36:28

was one of her big responsibilities, which

36:31

also drove her crazy quite a lot,

36:33

I think. You're right. Also, we didn't

36:35

mention that there's the notorious Dr. Mengele

36:37

working with her, closely with her at

36:39

this camp as well. Yes.

36:42

I'm sure a lot of people

36:44

know about Joseph Mengele. He was

36:46

the notorious SS physician, also engaged

36:48

in horrific experiments on children, on

36:50

twins. He was also

36:52

a great lover of music. And

36:54

I think that was primarily Mengele's

36:56

contact with him because when she

36:59

formed the Women's Orchestra, Mengele became

37:01

a regular attendee at their Sunday

37:03

concerts. And so I think for

37:06

Mengele, it was this way, she

37:08

was sort of seeking credibility and

37:10

maybe some more respect from the

37:12

male SS, which really the women rarely

37:14

got. So for her, it would serve

37:17

the purpose of both. She loved music,

37:19

but also it gave her like this,

37:21

this in with officers like Mengele who

37:24

were quite important in the camp. Now,

37:26

let's get to what's a very important

37:28

part of this story. And you titled

37:30

the orchestra. You say

37:33

that Maria had an idea of

37:35

forming a women's orchestra. The both

37:37

men's camps had orchestras and music

37:39

ensembles, and they entertained the SS

37:41

on regular Sunday concerts and special

37:43

functions. Tell us why it was

37:46

important. Do you feel that Maria

37:48

had organized this orchestra and tell

37:50

us about the formation of this

37:52

group and Alma Rose? Sure.

37:55

So again, for a lot of the same

37:57

reasons, she saw that the other part. of

38:00

Ashford's camp had men's orchestras. She

38:02

saw that that got status and

38:04

respect for those officers that supported

38:06

that. And so because she was

38:08

the head of the women's camp,

38:10

she got the idea of founding

38:12

a women's orchestra. So because women

38:14

couldn't do anything on their own,

38:16

she enlisted the aid of a

38:18

male SS officer and personal and

38:20

sort of together they sponsored the

38:22

formation of this orchestra. It took

38:24

a while to get successful. At

38:26

first they recruited musicians from incoming

38:28

transports and population. Orchestra did not

38:31

sound very good. They were mostly

38:33

young female musicians without a lot

38:35

of training, very inexperienced. And

38:37

so it was really sort of up in

38:40

the air whether the orchestra would survive because

38:42

they weren't performing at a high enough level.

38:44

And then someone noticed that in one of

38:46

the incoming transports there was a musician named

38:49

Alma Rosé. And she

38:51

was a very well-known virtuoso

38:53

violinist, conductor, musician, and was

38:56

well known in Europe. Her uncle was

38:58

the famous composer Gustav Mahler is

39:00

for the musicians out there. And

39:02

so once Mandel heard that Alma

39:05

Rosé had been brought into the

39:07

camp, she assigned her to be

39:09

the conductor of the women's orchestra. And

39:11

because Alma was such a wonderful

39:14

talented musician, a great

39:16

leader, she single-handedly

39:18

really turned this orchestra into

39:21

something that was very viable.

39:24

I mean they rehearsed all day.

39:26

Rosé was able to arrange music.

39:28

They had sort of a weird

39:31

eclectic instrumentation depending on what was

39:33

available. And so she knew

39:35

how to arrange programs that would

39:37

please the SS. And she

39:40

figured out a way to work with

39:42

Maria Mandel. And there was actually a

39:44

huge cure in the camp because

39:46

one time Mandel summoned her to her office

39:48

to talk about the orchestra and

39:51

asked her to sit while they were talking.

39:53

And someone saw that and that was never

39:55

done. You know, a prisoner would never sit

39:57

with an SS officer. And so that was

39:59

just that was all over the camp

40:01

in like the next 10 seconds because people were so

40:03

shocked. So I think Mandel had

40:05

a great deal of respect for Alma

40:08

Rosé. Alma Rosé, I

40:10

can't imagine how she stood up to

40:12

the stress. She was trying to walk

40:14

this horrible tightrope of keeping the musicians

40:16

alive, keeping the orchestra playing at a

40:18

high enough standard, and sadly Alma Rosé

40:21

did not survive the war. She died

40:23

in the next year, we think probably

40:25

of botulism poisoning, but

40:27

in her heyday she certainly,

40:30

the women in the orchestra were very proud

40:32

of what they achieved. And I think sometimes

40:34

like if you watch some of the movies

40:36

that have been made about the women's orchestra,

40:38

the orchestra is presented as not playing very

40:41

well or things, but I trust the opinion

40:43

of the musicians I talked to and they

40:45

said they always knew they were playing well

40:47

when Alma said I would like for my

40:50

father could have heard that he would have liked

40:52

that. And for them that was the highest praise

40:54

and that meant that they were performing at a

40:56

very high standard. Weirdly the orchestra

40:58

was used for nefarious purposes as

41:00

well, for transports you write that

41:02

would come into a camp and

41:05

they would be lulled into some

41:07

kind of passivity or try to,

41:09

the orchestra would have that purpose.

41:11

But also you write about something

41:13

called the gate and also that

41:16

the orchestra would play particular marches

41:18

and the prisoners on these roll

41:20

calls would have to be in

41:22

step or else. Yeah that was one

41:25

of their big responsibilities apart from these weekly

41:27

concerts every morning and every evening

41:29

they had to go set up by the

41:31

gate to the camp, Auschwitz and

41:33

Birkenau in addition to being a death

41:36

camp was also a slave labor camp.

41:38

And so every day these large commandos

41:40

thousands of women would have to march in

41:42

and out of the camp and so to keep

41:44

them moving and keep some kind of order the

41:47

orchestra would play these marches on the sidelines and

41:49

sort of the prisoners were forced to keep

41:51

in step coming and going outside of the

41:54

camp. Sometimes they would have them play outside

41:56

on the ramp but when the transports were

41:58

coming again just to those

42:00

transports into a false sense of security. You

42:02

know, if you heard music, surely this can

42:04

be a bad place. And so they

42:07

were used for a lot of,

42:09

again, I have to mention that

42:11

these responsibilities were just an enormous

42:13

toll on the musicians. They, years

42:15

later, the women that survived just

42:17

had this horrible emotional trauma, great

42:19

moral conflict. They were, of course,

42:21

playing because they wanted to live

42:23

like everybody else wanted to live,

42:25

but they witnessed firsthand so much

42:27

brutality towards the other prisoners. It

42:29

just was a real moral, created

42:31

a lot of moral suffering for

42:34

those musicians. They were very conflicted

42:36

as well because they knew that

42:38

their position as musicians under Alma

42:40

Rosé was the way that they

42:42

had somewhat of a privileged conditions

42:44

to live in. And

42:47

you include some of those little privileges

42:49

that they really took to heart, but

42:51

they were treated differently because they were

42:53

in that orchestra. That is correct. And

42:55

I think it's still important to caution

42:58

that although their conditions were better,

43:00

a lot better than a lot

43:02

of the other prison population, the

43:05

conditions were still enormously difficult for

43:07

them. And there was

43:09

also resentment, of course, from the other

43:11

prisoners who didn't have those sort of,

43:14

I don't know, I don't want to

43:16

call them perks because they weren't perks,

43:18

but slightly better conditions. So again, that

43:20

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43:22

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44:30

summer of 1944, large Hungarian

44:32

transports arrived and the entire

44:34

camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was mobilized

44:37

for mass slaughter. And

44:39

then, Maria's mother died as well

44:41

to compound this anger. Yes, that's

44:43

correct. You also write about her

44:46

returning to her hometown and how

44:48

she did that. Just tell us

44:50

about that appearance in her

44:52

hometown. Sure. And during

44:54

her camp service, Maria went back

44:57

to Minskirchen periodically. As she

44:59

rose and ran, it became more and more

45:01

important in the Nazi hierarchy. I think she

45:03

wanted to sort of rub her, rub the

45:05

noses of the people in the community who

45:07

maybe had looked down on her because she

45:09

was a woman or because she lost her

45:11

fiancé or for whatever reason. So she would

45:13

usually come dressed in full dress uniforms, sometimes

45:15

in an SS car, usually with

45:18

a, you know, a male SS officer accompanying

45:20

her. And so she very much

45:22

wanted to make an impact when she

45:24

came back home and into the community. And

45:27

so we know of several documented visits where

45:29

she came home. She did come home the

45:32

summer after her mother died for the funeral.

45:34

She came home later that year. And this

45:36

was late 1944. So

45:38

again, the war would end in 1945. So

45:41

this was near the end for her

45:43

of her camp service. But those visits

45:45

were remembered very vividly by the town's

45:47

people. And so I was able to

45:49

talk to a lot of people who

45:51

remembered very specific accounts of those

45:54

visits home. Tell us when

45:56

the Allies finally, it

45:58

looks like, in certain defeat,

46:00

you say Maria leaves the camp within

46:02

just a few days being able to

46:04

escape. Tell us about what happens after

46:07

the Allies liberate the camps.

46:09

Sure. Well, Auschwitz was sort of winding out

46:12

out of existence at the end of 1944.

46:15

The Nazis were beginning to flee ship.

46:17

The Russians were getting close to the

46:19

camp. Maria had been transferred before the

46:21

end of the year to a camp called

46:23

Mueldorf, which is outside of, again, the vicinity

46:26

of Munich and Germany. And so Auschwitz was

46:28

liberated by the Russians in January of 1945.

46:30

Maria, by this point, was

46:33

stationed at Mueldorf where she remained for the rest

46:35

of the war. We don't have a lot of

46:37

accounts of her there. She was sort of in

46:39

a... She was still the head overseer, but I

46:42

think she was keeping a lower profile. A lot

46:44

of the Nazis were sensing that they were gonna

46:46

lose the world, though they weren't allowed to say

46:48

that. And then, of course, the Allied forces came

46:50

into Europe after D-Day, and so that

46:52

part of Germany was liberated by the

46:55

Americans. We know that at Mueldorf that

46:57

the American army was getting very, very

46:59

close. She literally bugged out with the

47:01

camp commandant just a couple hours before

47:04

the Americans got to the camp. Glad

47:06

first to once carry him and then

47:08

on to her sister's house in this

47:10

little hamlet called Luke. And she remained

47:13

there for the next couple of

47:15

months. Ultimately, someone informed on her

47:17

and she was arrested at her

47:20

sister's house and then was taken

47:22

into custody in August of 1945. And since

47:24

who? The

47:27

POW enclosure for German prisoners of

47:29

war that they set up at

47:31

the former concentration camp of Dachau.

47:33

Now you talk about that this

47:35

now is a prison for these

47:37

Nazi criminals and that the

47:39

Red Cross was monitoring the conditions and

47:42

people were enlisted to make sure that

47:44

these people were in good health for

47:46

these upcoming trials, weren't they? Yes, they

47:48

were very concerned with keeping them in

47:50

good shape. They wanted to have very

47:52

public war crimes trials. Of course, the

47:54

Nuremberg trials were going on about this

47:56

time. So everybody was sort of looking

47:58

ahead to the next. next wave

48:00

of prosecution of these war

48:02

criminals. So that was sort

48:04

of Maria was Dachau

48:06

at that point, sort of in waiting

48:09

for extradition. They had decided

48:11

that a lot of them would be tried

48:13

in places where their greatest atrocities

48:15

happened, I guess. And so because

48:18

Maria was so influential at

48:20

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the decision was made

48:22

to put her on an extradition train

48:24

back to Poland where she would stand

48:26

trial with a bunch of leading members

48:28

of the Auschwitz camp staff. So they

48:30

were sort of preparing them for that

48:32

extradition. She would be part of

48:34

this second Auschwitz trial as it

48:37

was coined, but the first Auschwitz

48:39

trial resulted in, as you say,

48:41

a public hanging. And so the

48:44

second trial had its problems was

48:46

succeeding shortly after that. And they

48:48

didn't want to have a public

48:51

hanging in the second trial, did

48:53

they? Well, the first Auschwitz trial was just for

48:55

one man. That was Rudolf Hirsch. He was

48:57

the commandant of Auschwitz. And

48:59

so the second trial, which is, they referred to

49:02

it as the second because this had happened first,

49:04

then tried 40 members of the Auschwitz

49:06

staff, sort of as part of

49:08

that. In the interim, there were

49:10

other trials going on. There was one in

49:13

Instutov, near Gdańsk in Stutov was one of

49:15

the camps in the northern part of Poland.

49:17

And that happened before Maria's trial.

49:21

And the public move was still

49:23

very much revenge, that

49:25

people wanted to see them hang publicly. So

49:27

there was a huge public hanging

49:30

up there for the Stutov personnel, but

49:32

it had sort of adverse effects in

49:34

that. A lot of people went with

49:36

their kids, but then kids didn't really

49:38

understand what was happening. So some of

49:41

the children began playing hanging games and

49:43

some children died from that. And so

49:45

there was this really very sad fallout

49:47

as a result of that public spectacle.

49:50

And by the time they gathered all

49:52

the people together and got all the

49:54

depositions and things in preparation for Mandel's

49:57

trial, public sentiment had calmed down

49:59

a little bit. bit. They definitely wanted to

50:01

see these people executed if they were guilty.

50:03

But the trend was now away

50:05

from holding public execution. You

50:07

introduce an important character at

50:10

this time, a Margaret Berda.

50:12

So she becomes a prisoner

50:15

when Russia came into power. And

50:17

she was sent to Dachau as

50:20

well and became Maria's cellmate. Yes.

50:22

I think if I can claim

50:24

any kind of research triumph in

50:27

such a sad story, it was

50:29

finding Margaret Berda. She was Maria's

50:31

best friend during the war, or

50:33

not during the war, but after

50:35

the war. She was held in

50:37

Dachau, was transported with Maria to

50:39

Poland, and was with Maria the

50:41

whole time she was in prison

50:43

until shortly before her execution. Margaret

50:45

was, she was just a wonderful

50:47

spirit. She really had done nothing

50:50

wrong. She was just working as

50:52

a secretary at an office in Krakow.

50:54

And so it sort of rounded up with

50:56

these others. She ultimately was totally acquitted of

50:58

any kind of crimes and was sent back

51:00

to Germany. But she

51:02

only knew Maria Mandel as

51:04

this wonderful, kind, supportive friend.

51:07

And so with this view,

51:09

I had all these testimonies and talked

51:12

to survivors who just knew the brutal

51:14

Mandel. And then I talked to Margaret

51:16

Berda, who just sort of showed this

51:19

other side of Maria's personality. And so

51:21

it was really earthshaking to get

51:23

to know her and to speak with

51:25

her many times. We began a long

51:27

correspondence and did several visits with her.

51:30

And so she really shared

51:32

this other side of Maria's personality, which

51:34

was revelatory in a lot of ways.

51:36

And when you talk about this dichotomy

51:39

that every person has good and evil

51:41

in them, I think as

51:44

horrific as Mandel's actions were, and

51:46

I would never dream of

51:49

negating the huge suffering that

51:51

she caused. She also has

51:53

this other side and perhaps

51:56

inconvenient to acknowledge that. But

51:59

it was so... certainly there. You talk

52:01

about that they looked, they

52:03

fanned across Poland to look

52:05

for testimonies for potential witnesses

52:08

against these Nazis and Maria

52:10

as well. And they took

52:12

photos from their mugshots and

52:14

enlarged them and put them

52:16

up in important and major

52:18

cities in the town squares.

52:21

And you write that many, many

52:23

people came forward, many more

52:25

people than the other perpetrators

52:27

came forward to speak

52:30

out against Maria. Yes,

52:32

by the time the trial got underway, she

52:34

had more testimonies against her

52:36

than any other defendant in the

52:38

trial. You take us

52:40

to the trial that happens eventually

52:42

and the witnesses that testify and

52:45

the things that they testify to.

52:48

We've mentioned some of the horrors that

52:50

she inflicted upon these prisoners, but what

52:52

was some of the most damning evidence

52:55

that was against her at this trial?

52:57

And tell us about her own testimony. Well,

53:00

I think certainly the most damning piece of

53:02

evidence that came up is that a lot

53:04

of that testimony concerned the

53:06

selections, the selections being when these transports

53:09

came into the camp. Yes. People

53:11

were selected for death in the gas chambers or to

53:14

be a part of the slave labor, but of course,

53:16

sadly, most people were selected for death. Mandel

53:18

always maintained that the male SS

53:20

officers made the decisions of who would be

53:22

selected for death in the gas chambers. She

53:25

wasn't involved, but a list surfaced of a

53:27

list of almost 500 Greek

53:29

women, which was a transport list

53:31

to be sent directly to the gas chamber.

53:33

And she had signed that. And so this

53:35

signed death list had

53:38

been smuggled out to the resistance. And of course,

53:40

it was entered as evidence into her trial. And

53:43

so there was no way she could deny

53:46

that reality. That was very concrete

53:48

evidence. And then of course, there

53:50

were just dozens of very graphic

53:52

testimonies of women who suffered under

53:54

her punishment, saw other people killed,

53:56

observed her choosing people to go

53:58

to the chambers.

54:00

So again, there was no doubt

54:02

of her guilt or of her

54:05

culpability in these really horrific

54:07

actions. Tell us a little bit

54:09

more about the trial and the

54:12

press response, the public response, and

54:14

the greater public's response internationally.

54:17

Sure. I mean, this was a huge

54:20

high-profile trial. International press came, you know,

54:22

so there were delegates from all over

54:24

the world. There was standing room only,

54:26

like people, and so many survivors had suffered

54:29

in Poland. They wanted to come to the

54:31

trial. They wanted to see these people on

54:33

trial for their lives. Eventually, there were so

54:35

many people who wanted to attend that they

54:37

put loud speakers up outside of the trial

54:40

venue, and huge crowds would gather every day

54:42

under these loudspeakers to listen to the testimony

54:45

of these trials. And

54:47

again, the press, as

54:49

you might imagine, coverage ranged

54:52

from level-headed coverage to very

54:54

salacious coverage. Sometimes, you

54:56

know, the more salacious coverage

54:58

or the more horrific the story of

55:00

course, those are the things that got

55:02

a lot of attention. At the same

55:04

time, you know, if a survivor wasn't asked

55:06

to testify or they didn't agree with the

55:08

testify, they would undergo all this other trauma.

55:10

So it was very emotional

55:13

atmosphere. When the prisoners

55:15

were brought to the trial every day, they

55:17

were unmoted at the back and there would

55:19

be these huge cheering crowds that would spit

55:21

at them and yell and scream at them

55:24

as they were being escorted inside. So it

55:26

was a very dramatic and emotional

55:29

and really riveting, if

55:32

I can use that word, trial. And I

55:34

think people finally felt that these, at least

55:37

there was wasn't justice. No,

55:39

there was one quote I read. The paper

55:41

said, we don't want revenge, we want justice.

55:43

But I think certainly a lot of people

55:45

wanted revenge as well. She was to

55:47

be hanged January 24th, 1948. In the end of

55:52

this book, you write about an interesting

55:55

event, a very, very interesting

55:57

event regarding Maria as

55:59

a prisoner in a shower. Can

56:01

you tell us about this? Yes.

56:04

One of the prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau that had

56:06

a lot of interaction with Mandel

56:08

was named Stanislava Rachvilova. Rachvilova

56:11

was slightly older than a lot of the

56:13

young women in the camp and she became

56:15

the source of great comfort to them. She

56:18

was more mature when they got the

56:20

most depressed and upset. She would tell these

56:22

wonderful stories to try and take them out of where

56:24

they were. Very courageous woman.

56:26

She survived Auschwitz and after the

56:28

war she became involved in a

56:30

lot of anti-communist activities and eventually

56:32

became the center of this huge

56:34

resistance network. She was arrested for

56:36

that and was sent to the same

56:39

prison where the German prisoners of war

56:41

had been taken, Monta Lupice. Both

56:43

Rachvilova and Mandel ended up being

56:45

prisoners in this place.

56:48

Every time Rachvilova saw her in the

56:50

hall she would spit at her or

56:52

curse at her. She just hated her.

56:54

Then the trial happened. Maria received the

56:57

death sentence and a couple

56:59

of days before the sentences were carried out,

57:01

Rachvilova was taken to the prison showers

57:04

and she realized when she got there

57:06

the showers were on and at the

57:08

far end of the shower room was

57:11

Maria Mandel and Teresa Brandel, the other

57:13

overseer. She writes very vividly about this

57:15

moment during the shower, the water that's

57:18

steamed, they're naked. She

57:20

noticed Mandel walking towards her. She

57:22

begins almost a hyperventilate because I

57:24

my god this was her tormentor.

57:26

She just remembered the cruelties and

57:28

Maria came up and knelt before her

57:30

and asked for forgiveness for everything that

57:33

she had done. Rachvilova,

57:36

after the fact somewhat controversially, said I

57:38

forgive you in the name of all

57:40

the prisoners. Then they were taken back

57:42

to their cells and then Mandel was

57:44

executed a few days later. Rachvilova told

57:46

some of the other prisoners right after

57:48

this happened and there was

57:50

a huge, it ultimately became this huge

57:53

debate in the survivor world. They

57:55

felt she really had no right to

57:57

forgive Mandel on everybody's behalf. there's

58:00

felt that Rockfelova was Catholic and they said,

58:02

well, of course you have to forgive. That's

58:04

a doctrine that we believe in. And

58:07

whether people agreed with her

58:09

forgiveness or not, I'm

58:11

very convinced that this incident did

58:13

happen. Some people questioned if Rockfelova

58:15

made it up, but I talked

58:17

to enough people who had talked

58:19

to her right after this happened,

58:21

people who didn't embellish. Later,

58:24

years later, Rockfelova had died, but

58:26

I interviewed her daughter and her

58:28

daughter said her mother never ever

58:30

wanted to talk about any of

58:32

this during her lifetime, that it

58:34

wasn't something she wanted to dramatize

58:36

or anything. It was just this

58:38

sort of extraordinary moment where I

58:40

think maybe at least Maria

58:42

began to take some responsibility for what

58:44

she had done. And I think for

58:46

Rockfelova, it was a way of her

58:48

sort of processing her trauma and trying

58:50

to figure out a way to move

58:52

forward. So it was really an overcoming

58:55

moment and sort of a very

58:58

provoking end to Mandel's life. You

59:01

also include that her friend,

59:03

Margit, also corresponded with

59:06

Franz, Maria's father. And

59:08

it was a very, very interesting

59:11

correspondence again to try to answer

59:13

how on earth she became this

59:15

person. And the father asked

59:17

probably the same question. Yeah, for me,

59:19

you know, the whole journey

59:21

of the book and my journey with Maria

59:24

Mandel sort of comes to that point.

59:26

I think for me, that's the heart of the book

59:28

is like, after the war, Margit

59:30

returned home. She was acquitted. She wrote to

59:32

Franz because Maria had asked her to be

59:34

in touch and neither of them knew at

59:36

this point that Maria had been executed. So

59:38

they were asking each other for if they

59:40

knew if she was okay. And then Margit

59:42

was saying, you know, she was such a

59:44

good friend and I loved her and don't

59:47

believe these things that were said

59:49

about her. And Franz Mandel wrote

59:51

back this letter, which Margit shared

59:54

with me and it's just such

59:56

an anguished letter from loving father.

59:58

He doesn't understand what happened

1:00:00

to her, why she followed this path.

1:00:02

And of course, this was from a

1:00:04

man whose men were raised to be

1:00:06

very reserved in those days. And really

1:00:08

his anguish is palpable on this letter

1:00:10

of sort of what happened to

1:00:13

Maria and to her life and how he

1:00:15

just doesn't understand it and

1:00:17

till his dying day is going to

1:00:19

suffer this anguish of what happened with

1:00:21

her and what she ended up doing

1:00:24

in her life. Yes,

1:00:26

incredible. I wanna thank you so

1:00:28

much, Susan. And

1:00:30

I'm very happy that you're here. I'm very happy to

1:00:33

be here. I'm very happy to be

1:00:35

here. I'm very happy to be here. I'm very happy

1:00:37

to be here. I'm very happy to be here. I'm

1:00:39

very happy to be here. I really appreciate it. And

1:00:41

I'm very happy to be here. Thank you so much

1:00:43

to you, Susan, and

1:00:45

to you for coming on and talking about

1:00:48

your incredible book, Mistress of Life and Death, The

1:00:51

Dark Journey of Maria Mandel, the

1:00:53

head overseer of Auschwitz-Birkenau. For

1:00:56

those that might wanna find out more about this book,

1:01:00

I have a website where you can learn

1:01:02

more about sort of my journey and Maria's

1:01:04

journey. That is just s-e-i-s-c-h-e-i-d.com.

1:01:11

So scishide.com, my first initial and my

1:01:14

last name. And I would welcome any,

1:01:16

if anyone needs to process further, that

1:01:18

you can contact me through the website.

1:01:20

And I would be happy to answer

1:01:22

any questions I can. Thank you

1:01:25

so much, Susan Eishide, for Mistress

1:01:27

of Life and Death, The Dark

1:01:29

Journey of Maria Mandel, the head

1:01:31

overseer of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Thank you so

1:01:33

much for this interview, and you have

1:01:35

a great evening and good night. Thank

1:01:37

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