Change of Venue

"Children," said the prisoner in sneering condescension to the news photographers who had gathered to see her leave the Landsberg Prison gates, "you must be very poor to be making a living taking my picture." Fat, fortyish and seamy-faced, but pertly dressed in a smart green suit and loud beret, depraved Use Koch, wife of Buchenwald's commandant and renowned as a lampshade collector (human skins preferred), then proceeded to pose for the cameras while 40 black-uniformed guards watched in apathy.

Redheaded Use, also known as the Bitch of Buchenwald, whose life sentence for participating in the management of the concentration camp had been reduced to four years "for lack of evidence" by a U.S. Army board of review (TIME, Oct. 4, 1948), had reached the end of her prison term at Landsberg. She had, it seemed, managed to keep busy during her stay in stir. She declined to discuss the bastard child to whom she gave birth two years ago in prison, but showing off her fairly fluent English, she told reporters that she had been writing her memoirs and would have "quite a bit to say about the Americans and the Germans." Reflecting on these lines, Use grew shrill during her interview and accused the press in general of "making money by telling a pack of lies" about her. "Go away," she finally snapped at her questioners.

Use Koch, though freed by the Americans, remained a free woman only for a few minutes. While she was still talking to newsmen, German police rearrested her and shipped her off to Aichach Prison, 25 miles away, to await a new war crimes trial before a German court. By the time she got to Aichach, she had recovered her good humor, gladly posed for another battery of photographers.

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