Evil History

During the war period, an estimated 5,000 females served as guards in concentration camps. These Nazi wardresses would often times be more brutal than their male counterparts. The graphic violence that occurred under the watch of these women would go on to shock and terrify the public. Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, the movie that essentially spawned the cult subgenre that is now known as Naziploitation, or Nazi Exploitation, was based on Ilse Koch, an overseer at several concentration camps run by her husband, Karl-Otto Koch.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

Captured in the 1930s before the words psychopath and pedophile were part of common vernacular, notorious serial killer Arnold Sodeman murdered four young girls with little thought of remorse. Without guilt, the evil serial killer strangled them to death with their own clothing and left their small bodies alone in the Australian brush, earning himself a chilling position in the annals of Australian crime.