Lady Death. The Story of Maria Mandel, the Most Cruel Overseer of Auschwitz

The biography of the most cruel overseer of Auschwitz-Birkenau — Maria Mandel, based on more than twenty years of research, as well as dozens of unique testimonies from surviving camp inmates.

By the time of her execution in 1948, Maria Mandel had reached the highest rank a woman could achieve in the Third Reich. As the chief overseer of the women's camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she bore personal responsibility for the torture, suffering, and mass murders of tens of thousands of people.

In Auschwitz, Maria, dubbed the " Mistress of Life and Death," founded the famous women's orchestra and "adopted" several children who ended up in the camp — only to later send them to the gas chambers when she grew tired of them. At every camp roll call, she tormented the inmates for hours until they collapsed dead, as well as whipped them for the slightest offense. Even after 70 years, the surviving female prisoners have not recovered from her torture — and the members of the women's orchestra know that they owe their lives to her.

For two decades, historian Susan Aysheyd recreated the biography of Maria Mandel, exploring archives and speaking with surviving female prisoners, her relatives, and close ones. The result is a unique and chilling book about how easily an ordinary person, endowed with unlimited power, can turn into a sadist and monster.

"Engaging and ruthless, Susan Aysheyd's book is based on valuable sources and unique research into the complex fate of the infamous Nazi criminal. An important addition to the growing body of work on female criminals in the Third Reich." — Lucy Edlington, author of the book "The Seamstresses of Auschwitz. The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive"

"Based on the accounts of survivors, Aysheyd describes in detail the brutal reality of the camps and the inhumanity of their guards. The researcher's book is a vivid and bitter testimony to the horrors of the Holocaust." — Kirkus Review