00:00:00
Speaker 1: G'day everyone, welcome to Conversations. My guest today is Nancy Koster. Now Nancy is a historian and an author and she's written this book. I'm trying to think of a word to describe. Compelling is one word because it's not always pleasant reading but it's one of those books you can't put down. It's called Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. talking about the ladies who were the guards at the death camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, some of those terrible camps during World War II, during the Holocaust. And we're going to Amsterdam to speak to Nancy Costa. Nancy, thank you for your time. How are you?
00:00:35
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, and I'm great. And how are you?
00:00:40
Speaker 1: Pretty good. A bit cold out here in Adelaide, although we don't get snow, so we should not complain. Okay. Nancy, you said... For years, I hesitated to publish this book. Yes. Why did you hesitate?
00:00:58
Speaker 2: I first wrote this book in Dutch and I felt it was during my studies. I studied history at the University of Amsterdam and I wasn't ready for it. And also I got multiple offers actually back then, publishing offers, and I didn't like it so much. I didn't like the contracts. And I wasn't ready as a person. And two years ago, I thought, OK, we're living in a wartime. So let's rebuild this book, expand it, make it better and write it in English and offer it to the world so that the world can read it. And then I got, again, multiple publisher offers and I signed up at a very great publishing company.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: You talk about your journey. Can I quote? My personal journey into the complex and highly painful history of the Holocaust began in 1993 during a formative trip to Israel.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: What were you doing in Israel?
00:02:01
Speaker 2: I was playing at Maccabiah games. I don't know if you know what that is.
00:02:06
Speaker 1: I think that's the Jewish games. The Jewish Olympics.
00:02:10
Speaker 2: It's even running right now, by the way. a small version because of October 7th. So it's not very big right now, but normally it's amazing. It's like the Olympics for Jewish people. I played tennis over there when I was younger. And then I visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum. And it really struck to me. Then I saw all these pictures of children and A few years later, I studied history at the university and I digged in Holocaust studies and so on. But it really started in Israel.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: What was compelling to you? I mean, the history is there. We know the history. Did you feel as though you had to pursue that?
00:03:02
Speaker 2: That it was such an organized crime and a real genocide that the intention was so obvious because with a genocide, genocide is really unique. It's not something that happens every day. And this was a full intentional killing machine and a real organization. So it was huge and the suffering of the people. And I thought it was, it was a horror story.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: What piqued your interest in the female guards? There must have been a moment.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: Yes, I went to the library. I love libraries. And I was also at the university. And then I saw this picture of this woman. Her name is Irma Grese. She's the first woman I discuss in the book. And she looked honestly beautiful. She looked like a movie star. And the victims, her victims... also described her as very, very beautiful, her appearance. And then I did more and I studied this and I thought, whoa, she's a killer. She was part of the Nazi regime and she was not the wife of and so on. So I noticed that there were way more women responsible for this.
00:04:34
Speaker 1: You do give the numbers. There was so many male guards and about 3,000 female guards. Did I read that correctly? Correct. And from where did they come? Everywhere.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: Germany, Austria, Netherlands, but mostly I would say Germany, a little bit Austria, but mostly Germany.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: Okay. You're from Holland, but did... Did the Holocaust touch you and your family, your forebears? Yes. Can you tell us about that?
00:05:11
Speaker 2: Most of my family members died during the Holocaust. So died in Sobibor, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen. So my great-great-grandmothers, fathers, all died. And some of them lived. And my grandparents, they survived. my grandfather, he escaped a camp and became a spy actually. So that's a beautiful story too. And yeah, I have a really personal connection with the Holocaust.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: You have to tell me about your grandfather. That's, that's intriguing. Yeah.
00:05:54
Speaker 2: My grandfather.
00:05:55
Speaker 1: Did you, did you know him? Did you sit with him?
00:05:58
Speaker 2: I know him really, really well. And he, he, went to a camp called Mechelen. And then one evening, actually a guard, a good guard, told him, look, you are about to go to Auschwitz. And they made a deal. And then he escaped. And after that, he changed his name into an American name and he became a spy. And beautiful story.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: Did he talk to you about the war when you were a little girl?
00:06:36
Speaker 2: My grandparents, both of them, didn't talk about the war. It was too painful. You have to understand that my grandmother, she had so many brothers and sisters and they all died. They perished in the gas chambers. So they were so touched by this. No, they didn't speak about this so much.
00:06:59
Speaker 1: And this is your father's... Parents?
00:07:03
Speaker 2: And my mother's parents too.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: So did your mom and dad talk to you about these issues?
00:07:11
Speaker 2: Yes, I speak a lot with them still about this and about their childhood and how it touched them because you have multiple, you know, you have generations of pain because of this. It changed so many lives.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: It intrigues me, though, that there's this terrible outrage and this tragedy and travesty through World War II, and then all of a sudden the Germans are conquered and these atrocities are revealed. How did they go about resuming their normal life, your grandparents? And then obviously your mum and dad were born not long after the war, I would imagine. So how did they resume their normal life?
00:07:57
Speaker 2: Work. Rebuild. Make something out of your life. That's what we do. We succeed and go for it.
00:08:06
Speaker 1: What did your grandfather do? Did he have a profession?
00:08:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a wonderful clothing business, wonderful shop, and he worked so hard. And it's beautiful that I'm not only talking now about my grandparents, but I've seen this happening with many, many families. They, you know, they carried their pain in their souls, but they moved on and they rebuilt and fought. But of course, it's a scarf that never leaves you.
00:08:40
Speaker 1: My guest today is Nancy Costa. She's written a book called The Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. And the subtitle probably gives you more of an indication. When Ordinary Women Became Architects of Brutality. Back after the break, folks. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. We're speaking to Nancy Costa. Now, Nancy's in Amsterdam, would you believe? And we're talking about her book called The Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. It's about the female guards who were overseeing the prisoners of war who were destined for the gas chamber and extermination, for want of a better word. Nancy's a historian and took a little while to write this book. You were in Israel at the, I hope I can say it correctly, Maccabiah Games?
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Maccabiah Games.
00:09:30
Speaker 1: Maccabiah, where you won a medal for your tennis.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: How good are you at tennis?
00:09:36
Speaker 2: I was actually really good. At one point, I was second of Amsterdam, first of another city. I played tennis daily during my teenage years. So the first few years of my teenage years, I played tennis daily. It was really a professional thing for me.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: Well, not a bad career if you can make it. Anyway, you go to this museum, this memorial for the victims of the Holocaust, and you're taken by a photograph of a young lady who looks like a film star. So what did you do? How did you research this? Can I say her name? Irma Gries?
00:10:22
Speaker 2: Irma Gries. You can pronounce it the way you want because you're in Australia, so you can say it the way you like. But her real name is Irma Gries.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: Irma Gries. Yeah. Well, tell us about Irma. How did she... become this oh you i think you use the word monster i think the word monster has been used to describe it doesn't seem appropriate for someone who looks so movie star like.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: She um wanted to become by the way a movie star too so she told her victims in the camps i want to become famous and she even treated auschwitz like a red carpet she walked around in her red high heels sometimes even and um She read lipstick on and she showed everybody that she what her real goal was. She wanted to gain power. But, you know, she was very young, beginning 20s, a very simple girl living in a farm with her dad. Her mom committed suicide and didn't succeed in much. And then suddenly she thought, OK, let's go to Ravensbrück so that I can become a female guard. And this is my chance to make it. And I guess she was one of the most notorious killers during the Holocaust. Male, female. She was really, really, really cruel. After the war, she was the youngest to be executed. So very, very complex person.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: It's hard for us to imagine what it was like in Nazi Germany before the war when there's this this outpouring of national pride where all of a sudden after World War I, pride in the country is restored and young people were converted to the cause, so to speak. Can you give us some idea of what the environment was like pre-war, particularly for young people who are impressionable?
00:12:33
Speaker 2: I can only say that... what was really important for all these, I mean, most of these girls that I described in my book, they were hairdressers, nurses. She was also a pretty simple girl and she wanted, they all wanted to gain power and they felt like this life isn't enough. So it was a little bit, a dark time. I feel, um, this whole, a Nazi, um, career was a real career for them so for them it was like this way we can make it in life and we can change our lives into something beautiful because there was not so much for them to do so.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: She she it's a bit like um the ss is it not although they didn't have the status that the men did as i'm reading your book.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: No But they did have a status. They had a salary. They had, some of them even were over, means that you can, you were the leader of the team. And, well, they did have a status in a female camp, but they didn't have the status. For the male, of course, they didn't have a status. They were like, okay, these are female guards, not so important as us.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: You do describe some of the things that they did, some of the atrocities they committed on the prisoners. And it's a whole range of, you know, from murder to sexual assault. I mean, it's horrific reading, really. It is.
00:14:19
Speaker 2: But it's needed. Because my evidence, a lot of my evidence actually come from survivors, from court transcripts, documents. And this is... what they have told us. I'm telling something what they have told us, the survivors.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: Irma Grese, she had nicknames, the Hyena of Auschwitz, the Blonde Angel of Death, the Blonde Angel from Hell. Sounds like she reveled in those labels. Did she enjoy those tags?
00:14:55
Speaker 2: She loved it. She loved Auschwitz. She loved her career. She walked around with a smile. It's unbelievable. I know. But this was something that she believed in. And she even put makeup on for the show. So, yes, she loved selections. So to select whether someone goes to the guest chambers or not. She loved it. All of it.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: So what happens when the Allies are closing in and the Germans are retreating? Can you gauge a sense of what's going through their minds when all of a sudden this life is coming to an end and they may be held accountable? What did Irma do there? Did she run away?
00:15:45
Speaker 2: She didn't run away. She just kept on going. So some of these Nazi female guards, they ran away. They went to USA and they were, you know, fleeting. But Irma, she stayed. And a lot of female guards, they really believed in what they were doing. They were totally brainwashed. And she stayed. And until the end, she thought she was right.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: And she was the first one tried. Yes. And the first one executed. Yes. Am I right? Did she show any remorse at the end?
00:16:25
Speaker 2: No, she was singing German songs in her prison cell. So no, she wasn't. And in the end, when it was about time, her moment came, she was just asking Albert Pierpont, who was the big ham man. It was her time. And then she just said, go for it. Schnell. Do it now.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: Hurry up.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, hurry up.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: No sorry? No. No blindfold? No hood?
00:17:01
Speaker 2: No.
00:17:03
Speaker 1: You mentioned Pierpoint. He carried out many of the executions. And they were mainly hanging executions, weren't they?
00:17:12
Speaker 2: True.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Could you investigate his role at all, his personality? I mean, it's He's not part of the Nazi regime.
00:17:22
Speaker 2: I read a great book about this man. This man was a professional hangman, and he didn't want to be emotionally involved because otherwise he couldn't do his job right. He only wanted to know the physics of someone, you know, how tall is someone, and that's all.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: How heavy?
00:17:44
Speaker 2: How heavy? Just not... He didn't want to be emotionally involved. And he was absolutely one of the most professional hangmans. I mean, it's a certain career, right? He was totally focused and actually very good in his job.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: I wonder if he had nightmares later in life.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: He did write a memoir about his experiences. A very beautiful one. So he did carry it with him, of course, but... He could separate it.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: We're speaking to Nancy Costa. Nancy's written a book. It's compelling reading, as I keep saying, Female Guards of Nazi Brutality, how people can degenerate to that level. Back after the break. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. If you just tuned in, it's a fascinating chat because we're speaking to Nancy Costa. Nancy's in Amsterdam, in Holland, and we're talking about her book, which took quite a few years to write. It's called The Female Guards of Nazi Brutality, about the female guards in the terrible concentration camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. We've spoken about one of them, Irma Grace.
00:18:58
Speaker 2: Did I say that correctly? Irma Grace. Difficult for you to pronounce, I know.
00:19:06
Speaker 1: Can't be that hard. The other one that, I mean, there's a whole lot of stories about the different ladies in your book. There's... There's one lady that intrigued me, Hermione, I probably said it incorrectly, Hermione Braunsteiner. So the war ends and she manages to slip away and infiltrate back into the community. Yes. She meets an American soldier.
00:19:29
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: And marries the American soldier and goes to live in New York. You'd think she would get away and sort of slip quietly back into society and no one would remember her, but. That wasn't the case. Can you tell us a bit more about Hermione?
00:19:47
Speaker 2: She did something that, according to Simon, Simon Biesenthal, happened a lot. She moved on with her life like nothing had happened in her past, like she was never a guard. She never killed someone, and she was the perfect, perfect housewife for her neighbours.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: This is in New York when she's moved to New York with her husband.
00:20:12
Speaker 2: She was really happy and had a great family life. And she was known in her neighborhood to be the perfect mother and perfect wife. And then Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, he heard where she lived.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Do you know how he found that out? I don't know.
00:20:35
Speaker 2: How he found it out, but he had his ways to find things out really, really professionally. And then he informed a New York Times journalist. And, well, that guy just knocked on our door and said, hello, I know what you have done. And she knew exactly it was game over by then. She knew it. It was done.
00:21:00
Speaker 1: Did she try and deny it?
00:21:03
Speaker 2: She tried to deny her husband, said, no, it's not true because her husband, he actually believed her story. Like it was not really something. I mean, she didn't do a thing. She was just there in that time, but she didn't kill somebody. And it was done deal then.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: So what did she do? What was she accused of? And what was she found guilty of?
00:21:25
Speaker 2: High abuse, killing, kicking, kicking people. She was really, really abusive, mostly, to other women.
00:21:38
Speaker 1: So was she tried in America or was she extradited?
00:21:43
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. She was tried in Germany.
00:21:48
Speaker 1: And what was the verdict?
00:21:51
Speaker 2: She didn't get the death sentence because not everybody got the death sentence. Not every Nazi received that. So she... Received, well, life in prison.
00:22:05
Speaker 1: Did she get out?
00:22:07
Speaker 2: When she was older, yes. But she was old then.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: Did she have children in America?
00:22:14
Speaker 2: Yes, she did.
00:22:16
Speaker 1: What would they think? Horrible. All of a sudden, their mother is revealed as this, well, you used the word monster, I think. Yes. Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker 2: It's horrible for the next generations. Everything is horrible, but it's also for the kids of Himmler and Eichmann. And yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker 1: So did any of them really try and deny their crimes or protest or really mount strong defenses about the charges against the charges?
00:22:46
Speaker 2: They did. They always denied. And there were even neo-Nazi groups who collected money for them. So they had the best, attorneys. So yes, they really defended themselves.
00:23:01
Speaker 1: Did any of them get away with it?
00:23:04
Speaker 2: I think the moment you don't get a death sentence, you kind of get away with it, right? With this. But no, not really. If you were there, I believe justice served really well.
00:23:19
Speaker 1: So how did you choose the women about whom you've written? How did you narrow it down of all those who did serve in that capacity? How were you able to narrow it down?
00:23:32
Speaker 2: I write about 10 women. I wrote 10 biographies in one book and they all have their own specialties to say so. One of them loves music. The other one loved animals. The other one was a hairdresser. And I looked also at the fact that they were a little bit hidden. So some of them never any book written about it. And I never, I didn't like that. And also they were really cruel, really cruel. So I also looked at that, their stories, their personal stories.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: The one thing that really, well, there's lots of things that stand out in the book, but one of the things that stand out in the book is the, is the role and the memories of the survivors, those who were injured. in the camps and who survived and could remember, how did they come forward? Were they encouraged to come forward or can you give us an idea of those people?
00:24:35
Speaker 2: The energy and the strength and the power of the survivors are really amazing and the fact that they could come to court and tell their stories and many of them did. Some of them maybe were afraid but... many of them stood there and say, here I am and you did this to me and I remember you and now this is our time.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: And they remember, obviously they're advocating and being a witness for those people who are no longer able to do that, the people who were killed. I'd imagine that was an important thing. Did the prosecution have to advertise for witnesses or did they just come forward.
00:25:20
Speaker 2: And I think they needed to collect evidence of course, and searching for witnesses, but they were, I'm not saying eager to tell their stories, but they were like, okay, here I am. And I want to say, I want to express what you have done to me. It's also kind of healing.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: Right. And, um, Was it healing or trying to revisit again? It would have been quite traumatic to revisit again.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: Traumatic, but also confronting the abuser, the killer, can be healing too. And I believe that they were willing, from what I have read, I mean, I read so many court documents, transcripts. They were willing to tell their stories and the power of the survivors. It's remarkable. Remarkable.
00:26:16
Speaker 1: Where were the court proceedings held, Nancy?
00:26:19
Speaker 2: In Lüneburg. That's in Germany.
00:26:22
Speaker 1: Yes. That's where all the men were tried as well. Who were the prosecutors? Do you know who the prosecutors were? Well, most of.
00:26:29
Speaker 2: Them were British. And you get Major Merton Neal or Captain Stewart or Colonel Beckhouse. Many of them. Most of them were British.
00:26:47
Speaker 1: And they mostly went for the death penalty. Yes. There were a couple. We might talk to a couple who weren't sentenced to death when we come back after the break. My guest is Nancy Koster. Her book is called Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. It's confronting but also compelling. Back after the break, folks. Welcome back, everybody. We're speaking with Nancy Koster. Nancy's in Amsterdam where it's very hot. We're speaking here in July.
00:27:15
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:27:16
Speaker 1: Here in Adelaide, which is freezing. We're talking about her book, Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. The subtitle is When Ordinary Women Became Architects of Brutality. Talk about the female guards in the concentration camps, places like Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. And Nancy writes biographies about 10 of these ladies. Was there any method to your selection of the ones that you choose to write about? I..
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Looked at personal stories. I thought it was important to look at their jobs before the war, about their education, about how cruel they were. Yeah, it sounds a little bit horrifying, but I only wanted to write about the most cruel women out there.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: Tell us, I don't know how to pronounce it, Hildegard Lackert, because her sentence was Quite lenient compared to the rest. Why was that? Do you know? And firstly, did I say her name correctly? Lockhart? Lockhart?
00:28:24
Speaker 2: Hildegard Lockhart. Yes, because she kicked a lot of prisoners. But she didn't kill many. And there is a difference in that. But she did kill some. And she was known for her, well, bloody kicking. So she could really, she was very abusive. And this is how a court procedure goes. Some of them have a death sentence, even today, and some of them not. And she didn't.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: Did she resume normal life after she served her sentence? Do you know?
00:29:15
Speaker 2: A little bit but um there is not so much known about her after the war um she did had some anti-semitic outbursts in public and um that's all that is known about her and then she was actually well she had a little bit a secret life after it did.
00:29:39
Speaker 1: She can you explain that well she.
00:29:42
Speaker 2: Hide under and she of course they knew what they have done so it was not like you know she knew what she has had done so she was not out there she was not um she was able.
00:29:56
Speaker 1: To hide it obviously yeah I've read before about Maria Mandel and the orchestra. She was at Auschwitz, was she not? Yes. Okay. So she assembled this orchestra and I'd always thought that that was a positive for her, a benevolent thing. But hidden behind that is the atrocities that she committed. What did you know about her, Maria Mandel and her orchestra?
00:30:27
Speaker 2: Maria Mandel was one of the worst of the worst because she's exactly what my book is all about. She loved music. So how can you love music and love selections too? How can you do that?
00:30:42
Speaker 1: Selections being who you're sending to the gas chamber.
00:30:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, children. She loved it when there were children involved and she loved it when there were women involved. She loved it when music was played, when people... walked towards the gas chambers was also her idea to do that for the women but she was also to her musicians she was very kind of respectful so that was you know such a such a contradiction um a very very complex a woman with a high iq and she's one of the most horrible nazi guards.
00:31:27
Speaker 1: Ever And she was ultimately executed?
00:31:30
Speaker 2: Yes, she was.
00:31:33
Speaker 1: Now, this might seem a terrible question, but there's such a thing as a Stockholm Syndrome. As you're researching any of these ladies who you describe as architects of brutality, did you like any of them? Did any of them get inside your heart? Did you have any empathy at all for them?
00:31:57
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I did look at their childhood. I mean, I did look sometimes what they have dealt with during their lives. So, for instance, Irma Grese, her mother committed suicide. But still, it's not a reason to kill multiple women and children. So, no. You know, I'm really firm in this. Didn't like any of them.
00:32:26
Speaker 1: You didn't like any of them?
00:32:27
Speaker 2: No.
00:32:29
Speaker 1: No.
00:32:30
Speaker 2: They were too cruel.
00:32:32
Speaker 1: So you couldn't forgive? No.
00:32:35
Speaker 2: I cannot forgive.
00:32:37
Speaker 1: Did you examine any of the children that any of them might have had? Several of them had children by the time they were tried and executed. Any comment at all from the children?
00:32:49
Speaker 2: I didn't examine the children. Also because I want to leave them out of this story a little bit. You know, I mean, they're not responsible for the deeds of their mother. I know.
00:33:06
Speaker 1: You ask a very pertinent question which examines us, which forces us to examine our conscience at the end. You say, what would I have done? What would I have done in a similar situation like that? I mean, are you examining your own conscience there?
00:33:27
Speaker 2: Well, I'm saying, actually, what would you have done? So I'm talking also to the reader.
00:33:36
Speaker 1: I understand that. And I saw it as that. What would I have done in that environment?
00:33:46
Speaker 2: You know, the line between being a hairdresser and becoming a killer is very thin.
00:33:52
Speaker 1: So..
00:33:54
Speaker 2: You have to understand that in this war time that we're living in right now, that you need to be very aware. I didn't write a fantasy book. This really happened. Normal women, girls that love doing makeup, loved animals. One of them was a nurse, a great nurse, became a notorious killer. And so I did ask myself the question, and I'm sure I wouldn't have done it.
00:34:30
Speaker 1: Why did they?
00:34:32
Speaker 2: Some of them had really low IQs, but not all of them. If we look at Ilse Koch, for instance, that's also a chapter. She had a high IQ, and she was one of the most horrifying Nazi women that I describe in my book. Maria Mandl also had a high IQ, very smart. some of them were not smart. Some of them were. Some of them were born with this. Some of them not. There's not one answer, according to historians. There's not.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: How is your book being received?
00:35:09
Speaker 2: Very, very well.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: So we're speaking to you in Amsterdam. We're in Australia in Amsterdam. Is it getting global attention? Are you doing interviews?
00:35:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's getting global attention. I get reviews online. all over the planet, even from India, Canada, Italy, South Africa, because a lot of people know who Himmler, Eichmann, Mengele were, but they didn't know exactly about these Nazi female guards. Little was known, but not so much, not in depth. So they were really, really like, whoa, you know, I never knew this. This is a hidden history of the Holocaust. and I get a lot of positive.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: Reviews yes what about the opposite the negative any negative feedback there or many do you fear you might have upset the neo-nazi groups did you have any concern about.
00:36:10
Speaker 2: That no I don't have concern about that but what I do I mean you just mentioned it too it's a heavy book it's filled with gruesome details so you need to be ready if you want to read my book it's easy written it reads like a thriller and um but there are some details in it that can upset you there's.
00:36:34
Speaker 1: No doubt about that yeah because you find yourself putting yourself in the position of the some of the women all of a sudden you're given this power you your country is thriving basically you're You know, your dictator is dominating world politics and you're winning the war until you're not losing the war. So, you know, you talk about the Nazi youth and you can imagine why they would be seduced by that sort of nationalism, I guess.
00:37:10
Speaker 2: Some of them, some of them refused. Not all of them were falling in that trap. But I can understand, yeah, it's brainwashing.
00:37:22
Speaker 1: Indeed it is. So what's next for you, Nancy Koster? What's your next project?
00:37:29
Speaker 2: Well, 2027 is going to be very exciting. I am working on two new book projects. I will be always focused on hidden history. I wrote two new non-fiction books and I After that, I'm going to focus more on fiction books. But I love it. I love history. I will always love history. And I will always love to expose hidden facts that people are not so aware about.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: So you were very vague. That answer was very vague. You didn't tell me.
00:38:12
Speaker 2: Well, you can invite me. For another interview next year.
00:38:19
Speaker 1: Give us a clue as to which historical occasion you're thinking about writing.
00:38:26
Speaker 2: I'm not thinking about writing. I already wrote two books and I'm now planning this with my publisher. So I cannot say so much about it. Only that one book is also about the Holocaust. Some facts that a lot of people don't know about. And the other one is more about current wars, to say so.
00:38:52
Speaker 1: Well, it's a terrible dilemma we have there. There's no doubt about that. Nancy, it's been delightful speaking to you. Thank you for the book. It's sort of awakened our awareness to something we might have either forgotten or chose not to remember. I hope it goes well for you because it's certainly, as I said before, it's compelling. It's one of those books you pick up and you keep flicking through and you wonder how on earth people can get to that stage. So good luck with it. And thank you so much for joining us from Amsterdam.
00:39:26
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. And it was a pleasure.
00:39:30
Speaker 1: Nancy Costa was my guest, folks. The book is called Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. When Ordinary Women Became Architects of Brutality. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: G'day everyone, welcome to Conversations. My guest today is Nancy Koster. Now Nancy is a historian and an author and she's written this book. I'm trying to think of a word to describe. Compelling is one word because it's not always pleasant reading but it's one of those books you can't put down. It's called Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. talking about the ladies who were the guards at the death camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, some of those terrible camps during World War II, during the Holocaust. And we're going to Amsterdam to speak to Nancy Costa. Nancy, thank you for your time. How are you?
00:00:35
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, and I'm great. And how are you?
00:00:40
Speaker 1: Pretty good. A bit cold out here in Adelaide, although we don't get snow, so we should not complain. Okay. Nancy, you said... For years, I hesitated to publish this book. Yes. Why did you hesitate?
00:00:58
Speaker 2: I first wrote this book in Dutch and I felt it was during my studies. I studied history at the University of Amsterdam and I wasn't ready for it. And also I got multiple offers actually back then, publishing offers, and I didn't like it so much. I didn't like the contracts. And I wasn't ready as a person. And two years ago, I thought, OK, we're living in a wartime. So let's rebuild this book, expand it, make it better and write it in English and offer it to the world so that the world can read it. And then I got, again, multiple publisher offers and I signed up at a very great publishing company.
00:01:46
Speaker 1: You talk about your journey. Can I quote? My personal journey into the complex and highly painful history of the Holocaust began in 1993 during a formative trip to Israel.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: What were you doing in Israel?
00:02:01
Speaker 2: I was playing at Maccabiah games. I don't know if you know what that is.
00:02:06
Speaker 1: I think that's the Jewish games. The Jewish Olympics.
00:02:10
Speaker 2: It's even running right now, by the way. a small version because of October 7th. So it's not very big right now, but normally it's amazing. It's like the Olympics for Jewish people. I played tennis over there when I was younger. And then I visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum. And it really struck to me. Then I saw all these pictures of children and A few years later, I studied history at the university and I digged in Holocaust studies and so on. But it really started in Israel.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: What was compelling to you? I mean, the history is there. We know the history. Did you feel as though you had to pursue that?
00:03:02
Speaker 2: That it was such an organized crime and a real genocide that the intention was so obvious because with a genocide, genocide is really unique. It's not something that happens every day. And this was a full intentional killing machine and a real organization. So it was huge and the suffering of the people. And I thought it was, it was a horror story.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: What piqued your interest in the female guards? There must have been a moment.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: Yes, I went to the library. I love libraries. And I was also at the university. And then I saw this picture of this woman. Her name is Irma Grese. She's the first woman I discuss in the book. And she looked honestly beautiful. She looked like a movie star. And the victims, her victims... also described her as very, very beautiful, her appearance. And then I did more and I studied this and I thought, whoa, she's a killer. She was part of the Nazi regime and she was not the wife of and so on. So I noticed that there were way more women responsible for this.
00:04:34
Speaker 1: You do give the numbers. There was so many male guards and about 3,000 female guards. Did I read that correctly? Correct. And from where did they come? Everywhere.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: Germany, Austria, Netherlands, but mostly I would say Germany, a little bit Austria, but mostly Germany.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: Okay. You're from Holland, but did... Did the Holocaust touch you and your family, your forebears? Yes. Can you tell us about that?
00:05:11
Speaker 2: Most of my family members died during the Holocaust. So died in Sobibor, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen. So my great-great-grandmothers, fathers, all died. And some of them lived. And my grandparents, they survived. my grandfather, he escaped a camp and became a spy actually. So that's a beautiful story too. And yeah, I have a really personal connection with the Holocaust.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: You have to tell me about your grandfather. That's, that's intriguing. Yeah.
00:05:54
Speaker 2: My grandfather.
00:05:55
Speaker 1: Did you, did you know him? Did you sit with him?
00:05:58
Speaker 2: I know him really, really well. And he, he, went to a camp called Mechelen. And then one evening, actually a guard, a good guard, told him, look, you are about to go to Auschwitz. And they made a deal. And then he escaped. And after that, he changed his name into an American name and he became a spy. And beautiful story.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: Did he talk to you about the war when you were a little girl?
00:06:36
Speaker 2: My grandparents, both of them, didn't talk about the war. It was too painful. You have to understand that my grandmother, she had so many brothers and sisters and they all died. They perished in the gas chambers. So they were so touched by this. No, they didn't speak about this so much.
00:06:59
Speaker 1: And this is your father's... Parents?
00:07:03
Speaker 2: And my mother's parents too.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: So did your mom and dad talk to you about these issues?
00:07:11
Speaker 2: Yes, I speak a lot with them still about this and about their childhood and how it touched them because you have multiple, you know, you have generations of pain because of this. It changed so many lives.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: It intrigues me, though, that there's this terrible outrage and this tragedy and travesty through World War II, and then all of a sudden the Germans are conquered and these atrocities are revealed. How did they go about resuming their normal life, your grandparents? And then obviously your mum and dad were born not long after the war, I would imagine. So how did they resume their normal life?
00:07:57
Speaker 2: Work. Rebuild. Make something out of your life. That's what we do. We succeed and go for it.
00:08:06
Speaker 1: What did your grandfather do? Did he have a profession?
00:08:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a wonderful clothing business, wonderful shop, and he worked so hard. And it's beautiful that I'm not only talking now about my grandparents, but I've seen this happening with many, many families. They, you know, they carried their pain in their souls, but they moved on and they rebuilt and fought. But of course, it's a scarf that never leaves you.
00:08:40
Speaker 1: My guest today is Nancy Costa. She's written a book called The Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. And the subtitle probably gives you more of an indication. When Ordinary Women Became Architects of Brutality. Back after the break, folks. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. We're speaking to Nancy Costa. Now, Nancy's in Amsterdam, would you believe? And we're talking about her book called The Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. It's about the female guards who were overseeing the prisoners of war who were destined for the gas chamber and extermination, for want of a better word. Nancy's a historian and took a little while to write this book. You were in Israel at the, I hope I can say it correctly, Maccabiah Games?
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Maccabiah Games.
00:09:30
Speaker 1: Maccabiah, where you won a medal for your tennis.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: How good are you at tennis?
00:09:36
Speaker 2: I was actually really good. At one point, I was second of Amsterdam, first of another city. I played tennis daily during my teenage years. So the first few years of my teenage years, I played tennis daily. It was really a professional thing for me.
00:10:00
Speaker 1: Well, not a bad career if you can make it. Anyway, you go to this museum, this memorial for the victims of the Holocaust, and you're taken by a photograph of a young lady who looks like a film star. So what did you do? How did you research this? Can I say her name? Irma Gries?
00:10:22
Speaker 2: Irma Gries. You can pronounce it the way you want because you're in Australia, so you can say it the way you like. But her real name is Irma Gries.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: Irma Gries. Yeah. Well, tell us about Irma. How did she... become this oh you i think you use the word monster i think the word monster has been used to describe it doesn't seem appropriate for someone who looks so movie star like.
00:10:51
Speaker 2: She um wanted to become by the way a movie star too so she told her victims in the camps i want to become famous and she even treated auschwitz like a red carpet she walked around in her red high heels sometimes even and um She read lipstick on and she showed everybody that she what her real goal was. She wanted to gain power. But, you know, she was very young, beginning 20s, a very simple girl living in a farm with her dad. Her mom committed suicide and didn't succeed in much. And then suddenly she thought, OK, let's go to Ravensbrück so that I can become a female guard. And this is my chance to make it. And I guess she was one of the most notorious killers during the Holocaust. Male, female. She was really, really, really cruel. After the war, she was the youngest to be executed. So very, very complex person.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: It's hard for us to imagine what it was like in Nazi Germany before the war when there's this this outpouring of national pride where all of a sudden after World War I, pride in the country is restored and young people were converted to the cause, so to speak. Can you give us some idea of what the environment was like pre-war, particularly for young people who are impressionable?
00:12:33
Speaker 2: I can only say that... what was really important for all these, I mean, most of these girls that I described in my book, they were hairdressers, nurses. She was also a pretty simple girl and she wanted, they all wanted to gain power and they felt like this life isn't enough. So it was a little bit, a dark time. I feel, um, this whole, a Nazi, um, career was a real career for them so for them it was like this way we can make it in life and we can change our lives into something beautiful because there was not so much for them to do so.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: She she it's a bit like um the ss is it not although they didn't have the status that the men did as i'm reading your book.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: No But they did have a status. They had a salary. They had, some of them even were over, means that you can, you were the leader of the team. And, well, they did have a status in a female camp, but they didn't have the status. For the male, of course, they didn't have a status. They were like, okay, these are female guards, not so important as us.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: You do describe some of the things that they did, some of the atrocities they committed on the prisoners. And it's a whole range of, you know, from murder to sexual assault. I mean, it's horrific reading, really. It is.
00:14:19
Speaker 2: But it's needed. Because my evidence, a lot of my evidence actually come from survivors, from court transcripts, documents. And this is... what they have told us. I'm telling something what they have told us, the survivors.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: Irma Grese, she had nicknames, the Hyena of Auschwitz, the Blonde Angel of Death, the Blonde Angel from Hell. Sounds like she reveled in those labels. Did she enjoy those tags?
00:14:55
Speaker 2: She loved it. She loved Auschwitz. She loved her career. She walked around with a smile. It's unbelievable. I know. But this was something that she believed in. And she even put makeup on for the show. So, yes, she loved selections. So to select whether someone goes to the guest chambers or not. She loved it. All of it.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: So what happens when the Allies are closing in and the Germans are retreating? Can you gauge a sense of what's going through their minds when all of a sudden this life is coming to an end and they may be held accountable? What did Irma do there? Did she run away?
00:15:45
Speaker 2: She didn't run away. She just kept on going. So some of these Nazi female guards, they ran away. They went to USA and they were, you know, fleeting. But Irma, she stayed. And a lot of female guards, they really believed in what they were doing. They were totally brainwashed. And she stayed. And until the end, she thought she was right.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: And she was the first one tried. Yes. And the first one executed. Yes. Am I right? Did she show any remorse at the end?
00:16:25
Speaker 2: No, she was singing German songs in her prison cell. So no, she wasn't. And in the end, when it was about time, her moment came, she was just asking Albert Pierpont, who was the big ham man. It was her time. And then she just said, go for it. Schnell. Do it now.
00:16:55
Speaker 1: Hurry up.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, hurry up.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: No sorry? No. No blindfold? No hood?
00:17:01
Speaker 2: No.
00:17:03
Speaker 1: You mentioned Pierpoint. He carried out many of the executions. And they were mainly hanging executions, weren't they?
00:17:12
Speaker 2: True.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Could you investigate his role at all, his personality? I mean, it's He's not part of the Nazi regime.
00:17:22
Speaker 2: I read a great book about this man. This man was a professional hangman, and he didn't want to be emotionally involved because otherwise he couldn't do his job right. He only wanted to know the physics of someone, you know, how tall is someone, and that's all.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: How heavy?
00:17:44
Speaker 2: How heavy? Just not... He didn't want to be emotionally involved. And he was absolutely one of the most professional hangmans. I mean, it's a certain career, right? He was totally focused and actually very good in his job.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: I wonder if he had nightmares later in life.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: He did write a memoir about his experiences. A very beautiful one. So he did carry it with him, of course, but... He could separate it.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: We're speaking to Nancy Costa. Nancy's written a book. It's compelling reading, as I keep saying, Female Guards of Nazi Brutality, how people can degenerate to that level. Back after the break. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. If you just tuned in, it's a fascinating chat because we're speaking to Nancy Costa. Nancy's in Amsterdam, in Holland, and we're talking about her book, which took quite a few years to write. It's called The Female Guards of Nazi Brutality, about the female guards in the terrible concentration camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. We've spoken about one of them, Irma Grace.
00:18:58
Speaker 2: Did I say that correctly? Irma Grace. Difficult for you to pronounce, I know.
00:19:06
Speaker 1: Can't be that hard. The other one that, I mean, there's a whole lot of stories about the different ladies in your book. There's... There's one lady that intrigued me, Hermione, I probably said it incorrectly, Hermione Braunsteiner. So the war ends and she manages to slip away and infiltrate back into the community. Yes. She meets an American soldier.
00:19:29
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: And marries the American soldier and goes to live in New York. You'd think she would get away and sort of slip quietly back into society and no one would remember her, but. That wasn't the case. Can you tell us a bit more about Hermione?
00:19:47
Speaker 2: She did something that, according to Simon, Simon Biesenthal, happened a lot. She moved on with her life like nothing had happened in her past, like she was never a guard. She never killed someone, and she was the perfect, perfect housewife for her neighbours.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: This is in New York when she's moved to New York with her husband.
00:20:12
Speaker 2: She was really happy and had a great family life. And she was known in her neighborhood to be the perfect mother and perfect wife. And then Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, he heard where she lived.
00:20:33
Speaker 1: Do you know how he found that out? I don't know.
00:20:35
Speaker 2: How he found it out, but he had his ways to find things out really, really professionally. And then he informed a New York Times journalist. And, well, that guy just knocked on our door and said, hello, I know what you have done. And she knew exactly it was game over by then. She knew it. It was done.
00:21:00
Speaker 1: Did she try and deny it?
00:21:03
Speaker 2: She tried to deny her husband, said, no, it's not true because her husband, he actually believed her story. Like it was not really something. I mean, she didn't do a thing. She was just there in that time, but she didn't kill somebody. And it was done deal then.
00:21:21
Speaker 1: So what did she do? What was she accused of? And what was she found guilty of?
00:21:25
Speaker 2: High abuse, killing, kicking, kicking people. She was really, really abusive, mostly, to other women.
00:21:38
Speaker 1: So was she tried in America or was she extradited?
00:21:43
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. She was tried in Germany.
00:21:48
Speaker 1: And what was the verdict?
00:21:51
Speaker 2: She didn't get the death sentence because not everybody got the death sentence. Not every Nazi received that. So she... Received, well, life in prison.
00:22:05
Speaker 1: Did she get out?
00:22:07
Speaker 2: When she was older, yes. But she was old then.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: Did she have children in America?
00:22:14
Speaker 2: Yes, she did.
00:22:16
Speaker 1: What would they think? Horrible. All of a sudden, their mother is revealed as this, well, you used the word monster, I think. Yes. Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker 2: It's horrible for the next generations. Everything is horrible, but it's also for the kids of Himmler and Eichmann. And yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker 1: So did any of them really try and deny their crimes or protest or really mount strong defenses about the charges against the charges?
00:22:46
Speaker 2: They did. They always denied. And there were even neo-Nazi groups who collected money for them. So they had the best, attorneys. So yes, they really defended themselves.
00:23:01
Speaker 1: Did any of them get away with it?
00:23:04
Speaker 2: I think the moment you don't get a death sentence, you kind of get away with it, right? With this. But no, not really. If you were there, I believe justice served really well.
00:23:19
Speaker 1: So how did you choose the women about whom you've written? How did you narrow it down of all those who did serve in that capacity? How were you able to narrow it down?
00:23:32
Speaker 2: I write about 10 women. I wrote 10 biographies in one book and they all have their own specialties to say so. One of them loves music. The other one loved animals. The other one was a hairdresser. And I looked also at the fact that they were a little bit hidden. So some of them never any book written about it. And I never, I didn't like that. And also they were really cruel, really cruel. So I also looked at that, their stories, their personal stories.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: The one thing that really, well, there's lots of things that stand out in the book, but one of the things that stand out in the book is the, is the role and the memories of the survivors, those who were injured. in the camps and who survived and could remember, how did they come forward? Were they encouraged to come forward or can you give us an idea of those people?
00:24:35
Speaker 2: The energy and the strength and the power of the survivors are really amazing and the fact that they could come to court and tell their stories and many of them did. Some of them maybe were afraid but... many of them stood there and say, here I am and you did this to me and I remember you and now this is our time.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: And they remember, obviously they're advocating and being a witness for those people who are no longer able to do that, the people who were killed. I'd imagine that was an important thing. Did the prosecution have to advertise for witnesses or did they just come forward.
00:25:20
Speaker 2: And I think they needed to collect evidence of course, and searching for witnesses, but they were, I'm not saying eager to tell their stories, but they were like, okay, here I am. And I want to say, I want to express what you have done to me. It's also kind of healing.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: Right. And, um, Was it healing or trying to revisit again? It would have been quite traumatic to revisit again.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: Traumatic, but also confronting the abuser, the killer, can be healing too. And I believe that they were willing, from what I have read, I mean, I read so many court documents, transcripts. They were willing to tell their stories and the power of the survivors. It's remarkable. Remarkable.
00:26:16
Speaker 1: Where were the court proceedings held, Nancy?
00:26:19
Speaker 2: In Lüneburg. That's in Germany.
00:26:22
Speaker 1: Yes. That's where all the men were tried as well. Who were the prosecutors? Do you know who the prosecutors were? Well, most of.
00:26:29
Speaker 2: Them were British. And you get Major Merton Neal or Captain Stewart or Colonel Beckhouse. Many of them. Most of them were British.
00:26:47
Speaker 1: And they mostly went for the death penalty. Yes. There were a couple. We might talk to a couple who weren't sentenced to death when we come back after the break. My guest is Nancy Koster. Her book is called Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. It's confronting but also compelling. Back after the break, folks. Welcome back, everybody. We're speaking with Nancy Koster. Nancy's in Amsterdam where it's very hot. We're speaking here in July.
00:27:15
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:27:16
Speaker 1: Here in Adelaide, which is freezing. We're talking about her book, Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. The subtitle is When Ordinary Women Became Architects of Brutality. Talk about the female guards in the concentration camps, places like Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. And Nancy writes biographies about 10 of these ladies. Was there any method to your selection of the ones that you choose to write about? I..
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Looked at personal stories. I thought it was important to look at their jobs before the war, about their education, about how cruel they were. Yeah, it sounds a little bit horrifying, but I only wanted to write about the most cruel women out there.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: Tell us, I don't know how to pronounce it, Hildegard Lackert, because her sentence was Quite lenient compared to the rest. Why was that? Do you know? And firstly, did I say her name correctly? Lockhart? Lockhart?
00:28:24
Speaker 2: Hildegard Lockhart. Yes, because she kicked a lot of prisoners. But she didn't kill many. And there is a difference in that. But she did kill some. And she was known for her, well, bloody kicking. So she could really, she was very abusive. And this is how a court procedure goes. Some of them have a death sentence, even today, and some of them not. And she didn't.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: Did she resume normal life after she served her sentence? Do you know?
00:29:15
Speaker 2: A little bit but um there is not so much known about her after the war um she did had some anti-semitic outbursts in public and um that's all that is known about her and then she was actually well she had a little bit a secret life after it did.
00:29:39
Speaker 1: She can you explain that well she.
00:29:42
Speaker 2: Hide under and she of course they knew what they have done so it was not like you know she knew what she has had done so she was not out there she was not um she was able.
00:29:56
Speaker 1: To hide it obviously yeah I've read before about Maria Mandel and the orchestra. She was at Auschwitz, was she not? Yes. Okay. So she assembled this orchestra and I'd always thought that that was a positive for her, a benevolent thing. But hidden behind that is the atrocities that she committed. What did you know about her, Maria Mandel and her orchestra?
00:30:27
Speaker 2: Maria Mandel was one of the worst of the worst because she's exactly what my book is all about. She loved music. So how can you love music and love selections too? How can you do that?
00:30:42
Speaker 1: Selections being who you're sending to the gas chamber.
00:30:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, children. She loved it when there were children involved and she loved it when there were women involved. She loved it when music was played, when people... walked towards the gas chambers was also her idea to do that for the women but she was also to her musicians she was very kind of respectful so that was you know such a such a contradiction um a very very complex a woman with a high iq and she's one of the most horrible nazi guards.
00:31:27
Speaker 1: Ever And she was ultimately executed?
00:31:30
Speaker 2: Yes, she was.
00:31:33
Speaker 1: Now, this might seem a terrible question, but there's such a thing as a Stockholm Syndrome. As you're researching any of these ladies who you describe as architects of brutality, did you like any of them? Did any of them get inside your heart? Did you have any empathy at all for them?
00:31:57
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I did look at their childhood. I mean, I did look sometimes what they have dealt with during their lives. So, for instance, Irma Grese, her mother committed suicide. But still, it's not a reason to kill multiple women and children. So, no. You know, I'm really firm in this. Didn't like any of them.
00:32:26
Speaker 1: You didn't like any of them?
00:32:27
Speaker 2: No.
00:32:29
Speaker 1: No.
00:32:30
Speaker 2: They were too cruel.
00:32:32
Speaker 1: So you couldn't forgive? No.
00:32:35
Speaker 2: I cannot forgive.
00:32:37
Speaker 1: Did you examine any of the children that any of them might have had? Several of them had children by the time they were tried and executed. Any comment at all from the children?
00:32:49
Speaker 2: I didn't examine the children. Also because I want to leave them out of this story a little bit. You know, I mean, they're not responsible for the deeds of their mother. I know.
00:33:06
Speaker 1: You ask a very pertinent question which examines us, which forces us to examine our conscience at the end. You say, what would I have done? What would I have done in a similar situation like that? I mean, are you examining your own conscience there?
00:33:27
Speaker 2: Well, I'm saying, actually, what would you have done? So I'm talking also to the reader.
00:33:36
Speaker 1: I understand that. And I saw it as that. What would I have done in that environment?
00:33:46
Speaker 2: You know, the line between being a hairdresser and becoming a killer is very thin.
00:33:52
Speaker 1: So..
00:33:54
Speaker 2: You have to understand that in this war time that we're living in right now, that you need to be very aware. I didn't write a fantasy book. This really happened. Normal women, girls that love doing makeup, loved animals. One of them was a nurse, a great nurse, became a notorious killer. And so I did ask myself the question, and I'm sure I wouldn't have done it.
00:34:30
Speaker 1: Why did they?
00:34:32
Speaker 2: Some of them had really low IQs, but not all of them. If we look at Ilse Koch, for instance, that's also a chapter. She had a high IQ, and she was one of the most horrifying Nazi women that I describe in my book. Maria Mandl also had a high IQ, very smart. some of them were not smart. Some of them were. Some of them were born with this. Some of them not. There's not one answer, according to historians. There's not.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: How is your book being received?
00:35:09
Speaker 2: Very, very well.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: So we're speaking to you in Amsterdam. We're in Australia in Amsterdam. Is it getting global attention? Are you doing interviews?
00:35:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's getting global attention. I get reviews online. all over the planet, even from India, Canada, Italy, South Africa, because a lot of people know who Himmler, Eichmann, Mengele were, but they didn't know exactly about these Nazi female guards. Little was known, but not so much, not in depth. So they were really, really like, whoa, you know, I never knew this. This is a hidden history of the Holocaust. and I get a lot of positive.
00:35:56
Speaker 1: Reviews yes what about the opposite the negative any negative feedback there or many do you fear you might have upset the neo-nazi groups did you have any concern about.
00:36:10
Speaker 2: That no I don't have concern about that but what I do I mean you just mentioned it too it's a heavy book it's filled with gruesome details so you need to be ready if you want to read my book it's easy written it reads like a thriller and um but there are some details in it that can upset you there's.
00:36:34
Speaker 1: No doubt about that yeah because you find yourself putting yourself in the position of the some of the women all of a sudden you're given this power you your country is thriving basically you're You know, your dictator is dominating world politics and you're winning the war until you're not losing the war. So, you know, you talk about the Nazi youth and you can imagine why they would be seduced by that sort of nationalism, I guess.
00:37:10
Speaker 2: Some of them, some of them refused. Not all of them were falling in that trap. But I can understand, yeah, it's brainwashing.
00:37:22
Speaker 1: Indeed it is. So what's next for you, Nancy Koster? What's your next project?
00:37:29
Speaker 2: Well, 2027 is going to be very exciting. I am working on two new book projects. I will be always focused on hidden history. I wrote two new non-fiction books and I After that, I'm going to focus more on fiction books. But I love it. I love history. I will always love history. And I will always love to expose hidden facts that people are not so aware about.
00:38:08
Speaker 1: So you were very vague. That answer was very vague. You didn't tell me.
00:38:12
Speaker 2: Well, you can invite me. For another interview next year.
00:38:19
Speaker 1: Give us a clue as to which historical occasion you're thinking about writing.
00:38:26
Speaker 2: I'm not thinking about writing. I already wrote two books and I'm now planning this with my publisher. So I cannot say so much about it. Only that one book is also about the Holocaust. Some facts that a lot of people don't know about. And the other one is more about current wars, to say so.
00:38:52
Speaker 1: Well, it's a terrible dilemma we have there. There's no doubt about that. Nancy, it's been delightful speaking to you. Thank you for the book. It's sort of awakened our awareness to something we might have either forgotten or chose not to remember. I hope it goes well for you because it's certainly, as I said before, it's compelling. It's one of those books you pick up and you keep flicking through and you wonder how on earth people can get to that stage. So good luck with it. And thank you so much for joining us from Amsterdam.
00:39:26
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. And it was a pleasure.
00:39:30
Speaker 1: Nancy Costa was my guest, folks. The book is called Female Guards of Nazi Brutality. When Ordinary Women Became Architects of Brutality. Thank you so much for joining us.
