The three smooth, young female bodies writhed together in a straining, undulating dance, forming a tableau of madness incarnate. Now a chain rattled here, then rusty steel rasped on rusty steel there. A woman's voice pleaded, and the plea was answered by strident, raucous laughter.

The two female guards stood back from the three lovely captives and surveyed their handiwork with both satisfaction and a deep, bloodthirsty hunger. Their latest charge, a beautiful young blonde who looked to be about twenty years old, hung from her fettered arms. Cruel gyves encircled the soft whiteness of her wrists.

Her strained position against the dank, uneven stone wall was designed by her captors to show off her feminine loveliness to the greatest avail. The light of orange-red flames from the fire-pit in the center of the chamber tinted her flesh, casting an eerie glow over the tattered dress she wore.

Her first scream of terror had come as her wrists were spread wide and secured by sturdy chains attached to her manacles. Now, as she stared down in disbelief, her wantonly beautiful wardresses busied themselves fettering her slim ankles to a system of chains and locks. The realization of her total helplessness and vulnerability threatened to overwhelm her terror-stricken mind, and she began to sob. She also tugged mightily - but vainly - at the bonds which held her, setting the chain links rattling.

"Why?" she cried desperately. "In Heaven's name, why?"

There was no verbal answer, but an answer of sorts was made as fingers tipped by talon-sharp nails slipped into the bodice of her dress and ripped downward, splitting the torn garment to her womanly hips, exposing the fullness of her brassiere-clad breasts.

"Scream!" one of the wardresses hissed. "Scream to your heart's content! That's what they come to hear!" She pointed over the bed of flames set in the raised stone stage, and the half-nude captive heard the conversation of many men and women for the first time. She looked closer and was able to discern a crowd of well-dressed people in comfortable couches and chairs in the semi-darkness. It seemed all the lights in this terrifying chamber were pointed toward her and her two companions.

An audience, she thought in frightened confusion. What is an audience doing watching us being tied up in this frightening, medieval place? And what do all those heavy drapes conceal? Nothing good...

Now her attention was drawn to the iron door at the back of the chamber, the door through which she had been dragged as it once again opened with a squeal of rusty hinges. To add to the already terrifying tableau, a shrieking young woman was half-dragged, half-carried through its forbidding aperture.

In horror, the helplessly secured blonde could only watch as the newcomer was chained to the wall like an animal, just as she had been. Dull recognition spread through her mind as she remembered having seen the newly fettered captive's face in the Vienna employment agency. Further, as she looked around, she recalled having seen one of the other women on the Dolsach bus.

Another thought suddenly struck her, as she realized the newest arrival had blonde hair, as did all of the captives, though there were slight differences. Her own hair was a champagne blonde, long and lustrous, and she knew she had an inordinate pride in it. The new girl was an ash blonde, while the other two were the more usual golden blondes. What it meant, she could not discern, but it really didn't matter. An inner sense told her that the similarity of all four captives being young and beautiful women was much more meaningful, and the coldness that gripped her heart made her certain that the menace of the situation was as extreme as was possible.

It's madness! she thought. Some sort of nightmare! This can't be happening! This is Austria, and the year is 1946. The war's been over for six months. This isn't some medieval torture chamber - it can't be!. I'll wake up soon and laugh long and hard at this terrifying dream. It's a dream, all a dream, thrown up by my subconscious mind after drinking too much of that delicious wine and eating that wonderful food....

It had been a long time, longer than she could remember, since Sophia Bruck had tasted anything as sumptuous as the food placed before her by the man called Hoerst Rascher. It had been a longer time since she had felt the luxury of silken underwear clinging to her lovely body. It had been exciting and exhilarating, almost as exciting as Frau Mirau.

Sophia Bruck had reveled in her good fortune and thought that it might prove the turning point of her life. Little did she know that a turning point had indeed been reached, but it was not a turning point to good fortune. Instead, she had unwittingly chosen a path leading to screaming horror and lingering death.

How fortunate it had seemed that she had gone to the employment agency in search of work as a domestic. After all, domestic work might not be the work she wished to do, but there were far more terrible things that the women of Vienna had found themselves doing in order to obtain a cigarette, a crust of bread, or a place to sleep for the night.

Sophia Bruck had somehow managed to avoid the soldiers who patrolled the city - so far. But she knew her luck could not last. And so far she had never been dragged into an alley and raped by any of the conquerors, especially those bestial animals from the Russian Army. She had been just another displaced person, wandering aimlessly, tormented by the cold, hunger and despair after her father's farm was destroyed by a stray bomb, killing all her family. She hadn't put any faith in the employment agency. There were no jobs in Austria in 1946, no money, no homes. Yet she had been agreeably surprised at the interview. The woman who had spoken with her in the small cubicle had been warm and friendly. She had introduced herself as Frau Irma Mirau.

Irma Mirau had been different from what one might have expected of an Austrian housewife. She was young and exquisite, with flowing blonde hair much like her own and an exquisitely lovely figure. Her smile was beautiful, showing even white teeth. Had Sophia Bruck been more discerning, however, she might have detected the coldness in those eyes, the cruel lines around the mouth. She might have been more alert to the almost caressing touch of the other woman's hand on her arm.

But Sophia thought only of the possibilities of employment. So desperate was she that she panted out her qualifications, none of which could be checked. Frau Mirau had listened absently. Her mind had seemed miles away.

Finally she had spoken of the position. "My late husband was a minor government official," Frau Mirau had said. "His legacy included a home on the outskirts of Dolsach. It is quite comfortable, certainly better than the alleys of Vienna. I hope your family has no objections to your working so far from home?"

"I have no family," Sophia Bruck had hastened to inform her prospective mistress. "I have nothing, nobody. I am like so many others."

Frau Mirau had, sighed deeply. "The price of failure," she'd said through clenched teeth. "The victors will see that we all suffer." Then she sighed again and then said briskly, "Then it's decided. You may consider yourself employed, if you wish. Here are directions to my house and a pass for the Dolsach bus."

Sophia Bruck had been quick to agree to the offer and accepted the papers gratefully. The next morning, she almost danced with joy as she had boarded the Dolsach bus. A warm bed, a roof over her head, hot food - it had been too much to hope for.

She must wake from this nightmare, she told herself again. She would find herself in the neat little room which Frau Mirau had assigned her. She would feel the soft, silken underclothing which her mistress had insisted on giving her. Why had she been fool enough to drink so much wine? When you are not used to the heady stuff, it can do horrible things to you. But now she saw Frau Mirau approaching her. The woman's beautiful face was twisted into a gargoyle of hate and bloodlust. She reached out and pinched Sophia's exposed flesh. Then Irma Mirau whirled in a complete circle. Her hands went up to her own hair, running through the golden tresses. Slowly they worked their way downward over the twin circumferences of her arrogant breasts, over the flatness of her belly, down along her plump hips and her firm thighs.

"Comrades of the Deutsch Jugend," the mistress of the chamber cried, "tonight we rededicate ourselves to the glory that was Germany! We anoint ourselves with blood that we may remain steadfastly dedicated to our noble purpose!"

"Achtung!" a man bellowed. There was the scraping chairs and, through the veil of flames, Sophia Bruck saw the assembled guests rise to their feet, arms out-thrust at right angles. Her heart went cold at the implications of that forbidden salute. That nightmare was over! The Nazis were gone! Either fled for South America or in the hands of the victors, being tried for war crimes!

Irma Mirau caught the hem of her dress in her long fingers, worked the glimmering satin over her head, and stood clad in elegant black silk bra and panties. Her voluptuous body glistened in the lights, almost as if it had been rubbed with the lightest coating of luxurious body oil. The other wardresses followed suit, and all of them carefully removed and folded their underwear along with their dresses before putting the expensive clothing away. Then they stood completely naked before their audience and their prisoners, unashamed of their nudity and even reveling in their exposure.

"Blood!" a woman in the audience screeched. "Blood for the Fourth Reich!"

The mob rose from their seats and moved forward toward the captives as one great loathsome beast, their eyes glazed with anticipation as they drew near the fettered young women.

Sophia Bruck could not believe the detachment with which she watched the preparations for the orgy, but perhaps that was due more to the dazed, frozen terror that gripped her mind. She could not concentrate, was not able to consider just what form the coming revelries would take. In fact, she could not make herself even contemplate the subject.

All four young women chained to the wall were still wearing the tattered remnants of their clothing, which was a stark contrast to the complete nakedness of Irma Mirau and her four wardresses. The pitiful rags seemed to lend a sense of menace to the fearful scene rather than affording the four captives any kind of protection from the leering gaze of the audience. The audience wandered about the chamber, viewing the four young, utterly desirable, but terrified young lovelies at close hand. They discussed their attributes casually, not caring whether the captives heard them. But Sophia and her three companions had to wonder and worry at the nature of the rather menacing comments.

"This one is lovely, but she also looks quite sturdy."

"Yes, she does - she should hold up quite well."

"But this one does not look as strong - she should have been given more time to recover."

"Possibly, but tonight's gathering has been planned for two months. Irma had to go with what she had."

"I think you should think more positively, Gerda. The lovely creature may be a little thinner than I prefer but she otherwise appears quite healthy. I believe she'll do fine," one elegant lady commented, then moved to stand in front of Sophia Bruck. "But this one is the most beautiful of them all. Look at that figure! And her face! All the innocence of a youthful Madonna!"

"I hope she has the fortitude and endurance to go the full distance," said an elegantly dressed man whose cruel smile sent shudders through Sophia's body. "I know Irma has special plans for her."

A number of the members of the audience drew Irma Mirau aside and engaged in whispered conversation. Then, as the audience returned to their seats, Irma Mirau walked among the four, a short handled whip dangling from her slim hand. Her eye came to rest on the golden blonde whom Sophia had seen on the bus, the one about whose strength doubt had been mentioned. The whip whistled in a short arc, and the sound of leather against soft, feminine flesh sounded through the chamber. The rattling of chains and the captive's torture-strangled cry answered its obscene crack. What had remained of her dress had been ripped from her shoulders by the expert blow. Reflexively, she tried to move her hands to cover her body, to protect it from the lascivious gloating stares of her tormentors, but the chains held her hands fast above her head. She was helpless to stop whatever was going to happen to her.

"Unchain Fraulein Hentzel!" Irma Mirau ordered. "Tie her firmly to the stone table - I don't want her moving while I introduce her to the delights of hot irons applied to her velvet skin!"

The blonde, whose first name was Erika, was twenty-three years old and had been widowed after her husband died at Stalingrad, screamed mightily as strong hands loosened the shackles from her limbs while the audience applauded loudly at hearing her doom pronounced. With her small fists and feet, she buffeted and kicked at the wardresses who held her, but those women only laughed and twisted her arms behind her. Strong hands lost no time in leading her to the center of the chamber. The captive planted her bare heels on the stone floor, fighting with all her remaining strength against being dragged in front of the audience. Red and yellow glints from the malignant fire in the center of the chamber glinted off her flesh, which wore a slight sheen of sweat from her fear as well as her efforts to resist the wardresses.

One of the wardresses cackled in insane glee as she loosened the pink bra, sliding it off the captive's shoulders and displaying her firm, heavy breasts to the avid onlookers. Erika wanted so badly to cover her bare bosom from these beasts, but the wardress was already bending her arms behind her and binding them with stout cord. Then the wardress turned to her matching pink panties of the sheerest silk, sliding the sheer underwear over her swelling hips and down her long legs. The wardress was careful to avoid soiling the underthings, for they were worth far more than the cheap dress which had already been torn away from the helpless captive. After all, there would be other "guests" who could use the expensive items, however briefly, when they took employment at the house before they were, in their turn, escorted down to this dungeon to confront nightmares beyond their darkest imagination. The Fourth Reich should not misuse its resources, whether in material or in the human assets destined to merely provide entertainment for their betters, no matter how ample such resources might appear to be.

Now Erika was forced to kneel on the floor; her head scant inches from the blistering heat of the flames. One of the wardresses produced a glowing poker and, without showing it to the kneeling blonde, lightly touched it her spine. The touch of the hot iron was both brief and light, but there was still a sizzle of burning flesh and a tendril of smoke that drifted upward as the poor creature convulsed against the hard hands that held her down. Her screech of unutterable torment drowned out all other sounds in the room. Her back stiffened, her legs thrashed, and her red tongue protruded from her mouth as she screamed again and again. But both her screams as well as her struggles were useless, as the well-practiced hands of her torturers held her firmly before pulling her to her feet and forcing her over to a drapery-clad block. One of the wardresses ripped the thick drape from the block, revealing a sturdy stone table. Kicking and squirming, the desperate prisoner was lifted face-up onto the stone surface, which had been worn smooth by the spasming bodies of an unknown number of previous victims.

The touch of cold stone on Erika's naked back was like the touch of the grave, and she heaved herself up with convulsive strength. Unfortunately, her captors were both strong and experienced, and she was unable to keep her arms from being lifted to the top of the stone platform and bound in place. More ropes were wound around her widespread ankles, her waist, and her chest and pulled tight, pinioning her securely to the hard stone surface. A surface which, she suddenly grasped, bore a horrible similarity to a sacrificial altar - with HER as the sacrifice!

Then the wardresses moved away, leaving Irma Mirau standing at the lovely blonde's feet, holding a glowing iron which had just been removed from the fire. It made a surreal tableau, two beautiful, naked women, one the epitome of menace while the other was the personification of helpless innocence. The firmly bound captive's eyes were wide with horrified anticipation as her erstwhile mistress lowered the iron and touched it to the delicate sole of one bare foot. Erika convulsed upward, screaming shrilly and begging for mercy. But there was no mercy in that chamber that night, and the searing iron was applied to the sole of her other foot. Madly, she tried to beat her head against the stone floor in a paroxysm of madness, but one of the wardresses was already placing a well-stuffed pillow under her head. Soft leather straps went over her forehead and her throat to hold her head still, and a rope of braided leather went around her face between her teeth, keeping her from clenching her jaw and possibly breaking a tooth.

It didn't impede the blonde's screams, as she immediately demonstrated as the hot iron began to touch her again and again. The touches were deft, brief, and the iron was replaced every so often as the glow faded. Irma moved slowly up the curvaceous, thrashing form, touching her luscious victim's quivering, sweating skin every few inches. The stench of burning flesh hung over the crypt like a noxious gas as the burn marks moved up her firm thighs before Irma Mirau gently stroked the glowing implement across the bound woman's defenseless sex.

Erika flung herself desperately against her bonds at this latest touch of the hellish instrument on the most private and sensitive part of her body, but she was soon to learn that no parts of her nude body were off-limits to the devil-spawned woman who wielded the iron with such an adroit touch.

Sophia Bruck hung from her own chains, feeling everything her companion in agony felt as she helplessly awaited her own turn before the howling mob, for she now comprehended that these fiends would inevitably turn their torturous attentions to her sooner or later. The terror she felt at the thought of being the object of Irma Mirau's sadistic attentions, of having the hot iron stroke lightly over her own soft flesh, came near to choking her. Yet, somehow that same terror prevented her from looking away from the ordeal of the suffering, sweat-soaked blonde roped to the stone table as the glowing iron roved over her bare torso.

Sophia was sweating copiously herself, since the large fire heated the basement until it was uncomfortable in the extreme, but the victim on the stone table was absolutely dripping with sweat wrung from her by both heat and pain. Again and again, the bound young widow fainted, only to be brought back to screaming awareness as icy cold water was dashed over her face and torso, followed by the iron touching her on her firm breast or being stroked along one straining arm. No part of Erika's straining body was safe from the glowing irons, since Irma Mirau was both skilled and thorough, and she made certain that every part of the young woman's taut, straining body received a visit from one of the glowing irons. The penultimate atrocity came as the tortured victim's precious femininity was violated time and again by the terrible, fiery intruder until she fainted yet again.

Two of Irma's wardresses loosened the unconscious Erika from her bonds in order to turn her over on her stomach, revealing the untouched skin of her back for their fiendish attentions. Meanwhile, two others loosened the ash blonde from the wall while Irma watched with satisfaction.

"The spit for Fraulein Gretchen Schmidt," Irma said, and the audience applauded as they had for the first captive. "She looks so elegant now, but I think she'll look even more enticing when she's over the flames. Make sure to turn the spit slowly so the heat can reach every part of her."

Gretchen looked somewhat younger than her fellow sufferer on the stone table, having just turned nineteen the previous month. She had the strength of youth as she immediately began to struggle fiercely. She could have no illusions about what was going to happen to her, at least in a general sense, not after witnessing the cruel torment the first captive had endured so far, and she protested and cursed stridently as she struggled against the wardresses. Not only did her protests fall on deaf ears, but the wardresses just laughed at her as they easily controlled her struggles. She was not able to stop them from ripping her tattered dress from her, nor was she able to stop them from removing her silk undergarments with the same care as for the first victim, leaving her completely nude before the avid audience. She tried to cover herself, but the wardresses easily kept her arms twisted behind her, so that the onlookers could drink in her youthful beauty. She had the tall slender figure of a fashion model in more civilized times, but her attractiveness only served to whet the appetites of the audience in this setting.

Irma removed a drape from a long, sturdy wooden table, revealing a metal pole lying along the wooden tabletop. As the nude young woman was marched towards it, she ceased her useless protests and began to struggle even more fiercely, inspired to maniacal strength by the thought of being secured to a torture table like her fellow sufferer. But Gretchen's fate was to be even more fiendish, as she discovered when the wardresses lifted her and began to secure her to the pole and its cross-pieces rather than to the tabletop. They used chains instead of ropes, wrapping them tightly around her slender, nude body so they sank into her soft flesh and securing them to rings welded to the pole. The chains were unyielding, and, though she struggled mightily, she soon found herself immovably fixed to its long length. Her long, ash blonde hair was quickly woven into a thick braid, which was wrapped around the pole, and her head was pulled tight by soft leather straps at her forehead and throat.

"Noooooo! Don't do this to me!" she shrieked. "You're monsters! Monsters! It's inhuman what you're doing!"

"I tire of Fraulein Schmidt's useless pleadings!" Irma spat. "She's here to provide amusement for the leaders of the Fourth Reich, not to insult our ears! Bridle the wench so that she can still scream but can't talk!" She handed one of the governesses a device like a horse's bridle which with a bit which went inside the girl's mouth and pressed down her tongue when it was lashed to the pole. After a quick inspection of their work, the wardresses easily picked up the metal pole and its prisoner, and the sturdy chains held the terrified girl firmly in place as she was carried, squirming and screaming, over to the fire pit in the center of the room.

No! What are they going to do to me? Gretchen thought wildly, and her eyes were wide pools of horror as she recognized her destination. Not the fire! Not the fire! Oh, please not the fire!

But the fire was indeed Gretchen's fate, and it was to be a most lengthy and extreme ordeal. Most interrogation practitioners believed that roasting a female alive over a fire was not really torture but was just another form of execution, similar to being burned at the stake. Horrific and gruesome, of course, but over rather quickly. But Gretchen Schmidt was about to learn that, when administered by experts who would make sure that the prisoner did not die prematurely from exhaustion of body fluids or from shock occasioned by actual contact with the flames, being roasted alive was one of the most extremely agonizing deaths it was possible for a female captive to suffer at the hands of Irma Mirau. For the she-fiend had perfected her techniques while she had what had seemed like an infinite number of subjects on which to practice at Belsen.

But, even though Gretchen did not yet know of all these things, she was terrified of fire. A shriek of unspeakable fear was torn from her throat and resounded through the room as the wardresses dropped the ends of the pole, with its beautiful, completely naked burden, into supports at each end of the fire pit. The helpless, naked woman found herself suspended face down as she stared in terror at the blazing fire directly below her, unable still to comprehend what was intended. But her uncertainty could not last long, and it disappeared as scorching heat surrounded her bare body, attacking and sinking into her defenseless flesh. She screamed again, from pain this time, and that pain was not perceptibly reduced when a wardress affixed a crank to the pole and began to turn it.

Sophia's stomach turned over as she recognized that the metal pole bore a striking similarity to a spit on which a pig or a haunch of beef might turn over a cooking fire. She had often seen meat roasting on a similar, if smaller, spit in the kitchen of her late father's farm in happier days. Except that a pretty young woman was now being cooked on this spit, not a pig, and that young woman was alive and screaming, not safely dead and unfeeling, as her defenseless, unclothed body slowly revolved above the flames. There was absolutely nothing between her bare skin and the flames beneath, and the slowly turning spit exposed every part of her lovely body to the rising waves of searing heat, just as Irma Mirau had ordered. The pain the girl was suffering was visibly intolerable, but Sophia was appalled to see that the audience did not share her own revulsion. Rather, they rather looked on the ghastly scene with approval and, even more nauseating, passionate sexual arousal. She could not believe people could be so heartless, but it was impossible to mistake their emotion for anything other than complete approval as a wardress used a sponge on the end of a long pole to lather grease all over Gretchen's twitching flesh. Sophia knew from watching her mother grease a pig before roasting it that the grease was intended to protect the captive's skin from the blistering heat and reduce the more immediate damage, but she instinctively knew that was not kindness. Instead, it was being done so the poor captive could suffer longer and more intensely in as she was roasted alive by the fiery torture. Sophia shuddered at the monstrous evil of what was being inflicted on her two companions in misery. And her stomach turned over as her desperate mind could not evade the certainty of her fate being every bit as dreadful and as lingering as that of the two naked young women whose strident screams filled the underground chamber.

The girl revolving above the fire was already almost out of her mind with the pain of the fire which was roasting her slender but well-rounded young body. The heat was terrible, and it never ended, since at least half of her body was always exposed to the fire under her. And a part of Irma's skill at roasting a female was that she had learned how critical it was to keep the captive provided with relatively cool air. Irma knew that if Gretchen was forced to breathe the super-heated air directly over the fire, she would not last long, and would provide little entertainment to her guests. So the suffering girl's head was just beyond the fire-pit, and an armor glass baffle reached from the ground up to her neck, screening the scorching heat away.

The nude girl was ignorant of all the special care that had been taken to keep her alive and suffering as the heat surrounded her slowly moving form. As she rotated face down yet again and saw the fierce flames beneath her in the fire pit, she began to pray...not for mercy, for she now knew none would be offered, but merely for death. Only death would release her from this unendurable, ceaseless agony.

Irma Mirau looked about her in satisfaction, taking in the two madly screaming captives as well as the enthralled audience. She knew she had produced yet another triumph, and she began to prance elatedly around the chamber. She smiled as one captive shrieked when a red-hot iron was stroked along the side of her perfect buttock and the other screamed as the glow of the fire under her turned the underside of her revolving body a bright yellow-orange. Their almost continuous squeals of pain and the writhing of their lovely, nubile bodies lent new urgency to Irma's carnal cravings as she encouraged the lecherous hands of both male and female admirers to do obscene things to her naked body. More and more of the guests were shedding the last remnants of their clothing while both tortured blondes convulsed from the agony of their ordeals. Once again, Irma Mirau was reliving the days of bestiality which had marked her glory in the service of Hitler.

For all her beauty, Irma Mirau had always been a mad sadist. Had she been born in a civilized country, she would have been incarcerated in a hospital for the criminally insane. But Germany had been spawned in madness and perversion. Its leaders were drug addicts, butchers, sadists.

Irma Mirau had found her vile talents and tastes greatly appreciated. She had first been exposed to the new order through Oskar Dirlewanger, the perverted S.S. General whose legion of convicted sex offenders had been formed into a division of Einsatzcommandos.

Dirlewanger had been on leave from his rape of Poland when he had met her at Mueller's Salon Kitty in Berlin. Immediately, he had recognized the perversity of her nature, and he was more than willing to appeal to her dark, hidden urges. As he stripped her clothing from her, he had regaled her with choice stories of his actions against the Poles and Russians. He had held her enthralled by his graphic descriptions of the atrocities of his unit while his hands explored the secrets of her naked body. Purring with pleasure at his touch as well as his tales of bestiality, she had sat beside him, cooing and rocking back and forth. She had clutched her own flesh until she had drawn blood.

"If only I could be a part of your world," she had whispered.

"I can arrange it. I can get you a position as wardress at Ravensbruck or Belsen. There you will have ample opportunities to carry out your patriotic duty for the Fatherland," the madman had promised.

And Dirlewanger had made good his promise. Irma Mirau had reported to the woman's compound at Belsen, done up in a snug fitting blouse, jodhpurs and black riding boots. She soon proved herself, as her talent for torture knew no bounds. She wrangled an assignment to the reception committee, carefully selecting those female victims who were beautiful, strong, and relatively healthy so they could last the longest under torture. And she had brought books with her to Belsen, books which examined the history of torture and the torture techniques used by groups such as the ancient Romans, the Spanish Inquisition, and the most famous of the European Witchhunters. She read through the books diligently, often taking the opportunity to try out new torture methods on her prisoners.

There was no depravity, no act of barbarity which was beyond her diseased imagination. One of her favorite tricks was to have a young woman captive brought to her compound. There the prisoner would have her clothing stripped from her and her wrists bound behind her back in the position of strappado. Then her arms would be attached to an overhead rope, and she was dragged into the air so her full weight was born by her shoulders. Not satisfied, Irma would step up to the captive and begin spinning her around until the rope which supported her became knotted. The woman would then spin crazily around.

Irma Mirau did not stop at such excesses. She devised a system of weights which could be attached to her victim's toes, dragging them from their sockets and often dislocating her arms as well. The outraged howls of her victims were like a love refrain to the madwoman. As they hung in the throes of torture, she disported herself with male guards from the concentration camp. The excesses performed in the secret rooms of the compound defied description.

Irma Mirau capered around the concentration camp in an orgy of glory. Never had life been so good to her. She thought of what absolute victory over the allies would mean to her. Perhaps she would be allowed to head her own camp of exclusively female prisoners who had been sentenced to death as political criminals. There she would feed them well, exercise them to build up their strength, and then conduct special performances before the most prominent men and women of the Reich. There was no telling how far she would rise in Nazidom!

But time was running out for the Reich which was supposed to last a thousand years. On the Eastern Front, the Russian hordes had crawled out of Sevastopol and Stalingrad and swung over to the attack. Their horse-drawn artillery and surprisingly dangerous armored vehicles rolled relentlessly forward, crushing everything in their path. The American and British Armies on the western border ringed Germany in a steel curtain of fire. Festung Europe was a crumbling mass of rubble.

Madness had lent a certain animal intelligence to Irma Mirau. When an animal faces a forest fire, he runs before it. So, early in February, 1945, the she-beast of Belsen had walked away from the barbed wire entanglements. She had slept with an S.D. lieutenant all the way to Berlin in exchange for transportation. However, once the man's usefulness had spent itself, she had placed a bullet in his head and walked away from him. Irma Mirau, like so many other war criminals, shed her S.S. uniform and her identity at the same moment. After the surrender, she had used her body among the Russians and the deposed Nazis for any favors still available.

While the rest of the German population lived out of ash cans, certain high Nazi officials repaired to previously prepared hideaways with their trunks lined with booty from the occupied countries.

The she-beast now turned southward into the Austrian Tyrol. How better to escape detection than to assume the identity of a bereaved housefrau? With confusion at every point, she was perfectly safe just so long as she kept out of the mainstream, where allied intelligence might pick her up.

She had found the castle at Dolsach perfect for her purposes. A few discreet inquiries among her erstwhile Gestapo comrades showed that the former owner of the site had been liquidated at Dachau shortly before the end of the war.

Irma Mirau played for time. She claimed to be a distant relation of the deposed landlord. By that time, she even had forged credentials to prove the point. She set up housekeeping in the castle and waited for developments. They were not long in coming.

From unimpeachable sources, Irma learned that Dirlewanger had defected to the Reds and was now operating with their M.V.D. This was a major break. It would allow her to get back to business as usual.

She spent her days moving among the instruments of torture which she had found in the castle's dungeons. Nothing could have suited her purposes better. Using her feminine wiles, she was able to hire workmen to put the chamber back into order again.

To a query from one of her Nazi playmates about the danger of discovery, she answered, "There is no morality here. A man will do anything for a bowl of soup. As long as I pay my way, I have nothing to fear. And if anyone appears too inquisitive, I can arrange for him to disappear. The police functions are almost nonexistent, and the occupying forces care nothing for a disappeared menial worker."

She had been absolutely right. No avenging arm reached out for her, and no questions were asked when she arranged the quiet disappearance of the workmen who restored her torture chamber and its equipment. She traveled to the village with impunity. She even began making trips to Vienna to attend gatherings with other Nazi Werewolves. It was on these visits that she evolved her master plan.

Seeing so many displaced persons wandering aimlessly across the scarred face of Europe, she realized that here was the fodder for her charnel house. If they could be inveigled into coming to the castle, she could make them disappear without a trace. Nobody had time to worry over the nameless ones who had no homes or families.

Irma contacted Carl Braun, who ran a small and shoddy employment agency. The agency in reality was a booking service for prostitution. Selling one's body in Vienna was no longer a thing of immorality. It was merely an expedient means of staying alive.

Together Irma and Braun formed a partnership. The best looking of the young women who sought employment would be referred to her. Those who could be disappeared without questions being asked would be spirited to Dolsach, far from the protection of the Vienna police.

Then she went about setting up a staff. Hoerst Rascher, a former S.S. sturmbannfuhrer, was made a member of the household guard. Four other sluts who had been in the Hitler Maedchen Korps leaped at the chance to join the neo-Nazis combine.

But Irma was not so patriotic that she presented her blood orgies without benefit of profit. She reasoned-correctly-that there were many wealthy ex-Nazis who longed for the blood baths they had known since the days of the old Munich Beer Halls. With the funds they had secreted, they would be willing to pay very highly to participate in the new order.

Word went out, and within a few weeks, the Nazi cell had been formed. Once again, the sight of a nude woman dangling in mid-air from chains at her wrists and with heavy weights attached to her ankles stretching her body into a taut column of agony while a metal-tipped bullwhip seared her naked flesh became available for the exhilaration of the initiated. And the sight and sound of a beautiful captive bound tightly to the Witch's Chair, with inch-long spikes embedded in her thighs, buttocks, and back while a merry blaze in the firebox under the seat turned the metal surfaces and the spikes blazing hot, was available for the connoisseur who could pay. The shows she put on lent a debauched cacophony to the lusts of those in the Nazi cell, decadent pleasures unknown since the war years.

Dues were set in precious gems since reichmarks meant nothing. And Irma Mirau's vaults swelled to the bursting point. Obtaining suitable victims was done carefully but was really the least of her problems, since the supply was so plentiful. She would interview potential job-seekers at Braun's employment agency, careful to choose only those who would not be missed, give them bus fare, and promise them a good home, a small salary, and new clothing.

The unsuspecting "employees" arrived at the castle to a hot bath, a good meal and a delicious bottle of wine. Their reception was beyond their wildest dreams.

Actually, it soon proved to be beyond their worst nightmares.

Only later, as they felt the ropes binding them and the red-hot pincers seizing and rending their bare flesh, did they remember the peculiar bitter taste of the wine and the way they had drifted off to sleep immediately after having partaken of it.

But the realization came much too late for their salvation, and their horrific shrieks entertained the evil audiences but brought no rescue, since the dungeon had been carefully sound-proofed. So those unfortunates could only bellow their desperate screams and useless pleas for mercy as their bare, sweat-gleaming bodies were stretched, burnt, lacerated, and torn at the hands of Irma's fervent associates until they slowly dissolved into utter, bloody ruin. There was no power in Austria in 1946 to stop or even detect the demon woman and her equally depraved assistants as they wielded their instruments of torture with a skill derived from extensive practice during the Reich. They gloried in the agony, blood, and mutilation they inflicted as they applied their implements to the lovely nudes who fell into their hands. Bound helplessly for the amusement and excitement of an elegantly dressed audience of former Nazi notables, they writhed in sublime agony for motivations the poor captives could not even comprehend. Death was long in coming for these lovely "guests," for special care was taken to make their ordeals last as long as possible. When the Grim Reaper finally came for the hideously tortured young women, those few who remained sane welcomed his arrival as the only possible end to the ever-lasting agony.

Sophia Bruck did not know the specifics of Irma Mirau's history, but she had seen enough to well understand the dire implications for her personally when her turn came and the she-devils came for her. She had expected to be chosen an hour earlier, when the unfortunate first girl's valiant heart had burst after the cruel, smoking irons had explored every secret and sensitive part and recess of her straining form for so long. She had proven much stronger than many in the audience had expected, but even her valiant strength and spirit had proven insufficient to keep her alive forever under such a fiendish assault. When her lifeless, ravaged body was removed from the chamber, Sophia shrank back against the wall as two wardresses turned towards her. Instead, they had passed her by and loosened the prisoner beside her, the other one with golden blonde hair.

"The Rack for Fraulein Ingrid Hartmann," Irma Mirau had pronounced. Then with a smile, she added, "And use the candles to warm her up once she's properly stretched." The audience clapped, and the wardresses dragged the terrified young woman toward the monstrous Rack against the wall.

Ingrid tried to struggle as the wardresses tore the shreds of her dress from her plump, nineteen-year-old body before carefully removing her frilly undergarments to leave her totally nude before the avid audience. Her struggles were as useless as her predecessor's had been, and she was unable to prevent leather cuffs from being fastened around her wrists and ankles. A pair of ropes from the top roller of the Rack were fastened to her wrists, and one of the wardresses began to turn a crank, which pulled Ingrid toward the device and then hauled her up onto it. Ingrid screamed in pain and protest as she was hauled toward the top roller, with the result that the back of her naked body was dragged over the splintery wood of the bed of the Rack, viciously embedding a multitude of splinters in her soft skin. The wardresses, as well as everyone else, thought this was quite amusing as well as delightfully entertaining.

This version of this infamous engine of torture had been modified at Irma's direction so that it was inclined at a forty-five-degree angle against the wall so it faced the audience. The result was, when the ankles of the still-struggling Ingrid were secured to the bottom rollers, she was clearly visible to the spectators, much more so than if the fearsome device had been horizontal.

Then the wardresses had swung into action to do the bidding of their Mistress, turning the rollers as the pawls fell into the gears with loud "clunks." The delightfully plump Ingrid was gradually stretched as the ropes were wound around the rollers, and her velvety skin was soon sheened by a layer of sweat as pain began to run up and down her body as all the slack was pulled out of it.

This can't be happening! she thought in mingled pain and terror. Not to me! I can't stand pain like that first girl endured! I'll die! I'll simply die!

But the youthful Ingrid, who had managed find enough to eat to maintain her well-fleshed attractiveness by a skillful use of her feminine favors, didn't die as she was pulled so taut that her nubile body was pulled off the splintery wood bed of the infamous device and suspended, quivering with tension, in mid-air. Fire seemed to burn in her joints, especially her shoulders and hips, as she hung in absolute agony, several inches above the bed of the Rack.

"Now we'll warm you up like our Mistress ordered," one of the wardresses cooed into her ear after several minutes of doing something Ingrid could not see behind her. "All we have to do is light these little candles we've been putting behind you, and you'll soon be begging us to be cold again!"

The wardresses had been placing candles beneath her, jamming the spur attached to brass candle bases into the wooden bed of the Rack at an angle. Then they had trimmed the fat candles to length and placed them onto the bases so the candles were upright. When the first candle was lit, the tip of the flame was only an inch below the blonde's straining thigh.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" she shrieked, stunned by the hideous agony as the flame seared her soft, delicate skin. It was only a small flame, and it was concentrated in a circle about a centimeter in diameter, but it felt like it was ten centimeters across. She screamed louder as other candles were lit under her other thigh, under her plump buttocks, and under her bare back. She tried her best to pull herself away from the terrible flames that slowly burned circles of brownish, greasy flesh in her back, but she could do nothing because of the hideous strain that already was stretching her beautiful, nude body so tightly.

Sophia had watched in horror as the tension of the Rack was slowly increased as the long minutes went by, stretching the nineteen-year-old's body inches longer until it was so difficult for her to draw a breath that her screams were more like whines. Her large breasts were pulled upward and flattened by the strain, while the wardresses moved the candles about, seeking unburned areas of the captive's soft skin to feel the kiss of the small flames. And the rollers continued to turn, slowly and carefully, until first Ingrid's shoulders and later her hips dislocated. Even now, disjointed and suspended in mid-air, with a half-dozen candles searing the soft flesh of her back, Ingrid screamed as much as was possible as one of the wardresses slowly rolled a spiked iron roller up and down her lush body, flattening her feminine charms even as it tore holes in her flesh.

Meanwhile, Gretchen Schmidt was at the height of her ordeal over the fire. She had been removed a quarter hour before so that her continual loss of fluids could be replaced, and her thirst was so pervasive that she could not stop herself from drinking the deliciously cool liquid that would prepare her for move torture over the fire. It would not have helped her to refuse the liquids, which were laced with minerals to replace those she was exuding beneath the grease that coated her body, since the wardresses would just have put a tube down her throat and pumped the life-extending stuff into her. Now, as the wardresses returned her spit to the supports at each end of the fire-pit, Gretchen started screaming well before she felt the searing heat from the fire laving at her well-greased, gleaming body...

In time, the wardresses turned toward the statuesque Sophia Bruck, and there could be no mistake that they were coming for her this time, since she was the only one left. She shrank away as she was released from her manacles and the wardresses' hands reached for her bra, which could barely contain her Junoesque breasts. It had taken some time to find an undergarment large enough to contain her bosom, and she hardly remembered her pride in feeling her treasured breasts encased in such an exquisite garment. Now, as her firm mounds tumbled free, her efforts to pull away from her captors were as useless as the other three captives' efforts had been, and her silk panties joined her bra as they were carefully set aside for future use.

"We have a very special entertainment for you, Fraulein Bruck," Irma Mirau said to Sophia with a cruel smile as she was loosed from the cruel gyves. "It should prove most entertaining for you...for the hours you have left to live, that is. Of course, I'll do my best to ensure those hours seem like an eternity...to you, at least!"

"Noooooooooooooooooooo!" shrieked Sophia as she jerked madly at the strong hands that held her.

"Put her on the stone table," Irma continued. "I trust the needles are ready?"

"Yes, Mistress!" the wardresses chorused, and Sophia screamed for a quick death as they lifted her struggling body to the cold stone table and roped her to her harsh, unyielding deathbed. She already knew it was useless to beg for mercy, having witnessed the merciless torture of the others, but she could not stop the desperate pleas that tumbled from her mouth. The first of Irma's "guests" was dead, Ingrid had been turned face down on the Rack and stretched taut again so the candles could burn the front of her stretched body, and the ash blonde Gretchen, chained to her spit, still turned over the fire, though she had no breath for useless pleas, even if she had not had the iron bit in her mouth, as her agony-wracked body slowly revolved in the searing heat. She needed all her breath to scream, which she was able to do quite energetically, since she was not breathing the blistering-hot air that was cooking her alive. Her slender, fashion-model's body gleamed in the lights of the torture chamber since it was still coated with a layer of grease which was renewed often.

So Sophia Bruck had a dreadful certainty that her death would not be fast - but even she was not prepared when a brazier of glowing coals was brought to the stone table and Irma Mirau pulled a white-hot needle from it. Sophia's eye widened in terrified shock, and she saw that innumerable other needles waited in the coals. The needle Irma held was long, about a foot long, more than an eighth of an inch thick, and it glowed from the sharp tip to the other end, which was embedded in a ceramic knob so that Irma could handle it with leather gloves without being burned herself. Most fearsome of all were the small barbs all along the shaft, only a millimeter or so long, but infinitely menacing as the lights of the dungeon flickered off the sharp tips.

"No, please!" Sophia begged, as the wardresses forcibly turned her face toward the ceiling and buckled leather straps around her neck and forehead so, exactly like Erika, she could not move her head. With her head secured, fear crescendoed in her chest as they began to shove a rope between her teeth, preparatory to securing it to the table.

"I'll do anything you want!" Sophia screamed past the rope at her lips, finding her voice at last. "Anything! Please! Don't do this to me! I'll do anything at all!"

Irma Mirau had placed one hand on the inside of Sophia's succulent breast, plumping it up, as she brought the point of the fearsome implement near the blonde's flesh, and she paused at the desperation of the plea. The wardress used Sophia's frantic pleas to shove the thick, leather rope, still wet from Erika's spittle, between the captive's teeth, stifling any further talk, but she removed it at a motion from her Mistress.

"Anything?" asked Irma, with seeming interest. "Anything at all?"

Sophia's heart leaped at this chance of mercy, and she was quick to assure her mistress that she would do anything. She would, she affirmed, engage in any sexual acts that Irma desired, and she even offered to become one of her wardresses and torture other young women to death at their side. She imagined that she saw a flicker of interest in the cold expression on the other woman's face at this avowal, since Irma placed the needle back into the brazier. In her hope, Sophia thought her plea was being considered and didn't comprehend that Irma was simply toying with her. She ought to have realized the truth when one of the wardresses used a bellows to increase the heat of the glowing coals until the needle again glowed white-hot. If there was really any possibility that Sophia might be spared, the hot needle wouldn't be needed.

"What I really want, my dear," Irma said at length, after a period of introspection, caressing Sophia's massive breast with gentle fingers while the hint of a smile teased at her thin lips, "is not another helper. I already have all the assistance I need."

Sophia gasped at the tingle that went through her breast as Irma's deft fingers stroked her turgid nipple - she had no experience with being pleasured by a woman. Or even a man, since she had somehow preserved her virginity. In any event, her hopes were dashed and she was shocked back into reality as her captor continued, "What I want - what we all want - is for you to suffer, Fraulein Bruck. To undergo the most intense agony that a living woman can possibly withstand, for as long as I can keep you alive to feel the pain continue and grow greater. You're the most beautiful, the most voluptuous of my four guests tonight, and I want you to experience all the agonies of the damned before you finally die!"

And Sophia's shriek was one of mingled despair and terror, as Irma Mirau took a newly heated needle from her wardress and touched the tip to the skin on the outside of her captive's magnificent breast. A second later, Sophia's scream moved from fear to agony as the point pricked through her smooth skin and the searing hot needle began to rip slowly into her firm, youthful breast. The timbre of her scream changed as the wardress shoved the moist leather rope firmly between her teeth and cinched it tight. The curvaceous, nude girl would do no more intelligible talking in the many agony-filled hours that were left to her - this audience wanted to hear her screams, not her futile and distracting pleas.

The beautiful young woman, her sweet, angelic face twisted by the agony of blazing hot metal actually inside her precious breast, flung herself upwards against her bonds as the terrible pain radiated throughout her chest. Her lush orb was absolutely filled with blazing agony as the barbed needle tore a path of lacerated and burned flesh through the tender interior meat. Finally, the skin on the inside of her globe bulged out, and the still-hot tip emerged, smoking, into the cleavage between her breasts. But that was not the end of this ordeal, as Irma continued to shove the needle until the point pierced the skin of her other breast and sank deeper. She did not cease shoving the needle into Sophia's lovely breasts until the bosom of the tortured blonde had swallowed the entire length of the horrific shaft, with the ceramic knob resting flush against her skin of one breast and the point protruding an inch from her other. Both of Sophia's lush, maidenly udders throbbed and shuddered with excruciating agony that spread throughout her chest from the still-sizzling shaft until she didn't think she could stand another second of the horrible pain.

But her captors cared nothing about what she thought she could stand, since they knew from experience that their female victims could endure far more pain than they had ever imagined. So Sophia Bruck opened her tear-brimming eyes to see Irma Mirau approaching her, and she screamed even louder as another white-hot needle began to rip its way through her breasts from the other side of her body...

Barbed needle after barbed needle followed, each of them heated to a white-hot pitch before being shoved into Sophia's quivering flesh, with the glowing metal being slowly quenched by her agonized tissues. Her breasts were first, both because of their size, firmness, and sheer lusciousness, and the poor victim had no attention to spare to count or even consider how many were shoved home in her horribly tender, throbbing orbs in the hour and a half that followed. Towards the end, so many metal shafts pierced her breasts that metal often scraped on metal as new needles rubbed along shafts already thrust home in her throbbing flesh. Only when it started to become difficult to find untouched flesh did Irma Mirau move on to other areas of Sophia's lush, nude body, which strained so unsuccessfully at the unyielding ropes.

The needles that the torture mistress used were of differing length to match where she desired to place it. Thus, the white-hot needle that she shoved directly into Sophia's brown, turgid nipples and aureoles were only four inches long, while the needles shoved completely through her thighs were on the order of eight inches, and the needles inserted into her navel and heaving belly were only an inch long so they would do no damage to her internal organs.

But such trifling details were nothing to the naked blonde who convulsed and screamed as glowing needle after glowing needle was shoved, sizzling and smoking, into her bound flesh. Her champagne blonde hair was plastered to her skull and neck by the muck sweat of pain, which exuded the coppery smell that Irma Mirau was so familiar with and which she loved so intensely. The barbs tore Sophia's inner flesh as the needles penetrated, and the heat cauterized the wounds, bringing unending agony for her to endure. As the endless minutes turned into an infinity of hours, every visible portion of her body became marked by the ceramic heads of barbed shafts which slowly cooled in her pierced muscles and flesh. Her eons of suffering were broken up by short periods when the rope was removed from her mouth to replenish the water she was losing by sweating. There were also brief halts occasioned by the insertion of needles into particularly sensitive parts of her body that would drive drove her into the brief release of unconsciousness.

But Sophia was always awoken to a continuing hell in which there were always more areas of her body which could accept a glowing hot needle to tear a smoking path through her flesh. Blood loss was not a problem at all, since the fierce heat of the shaft not only brought her to peaks of agony she had never believed existed but also seared her inner flesh and prevented excessive bleeding.

Like her predecessor, Sophia was eventually released from the table and turned over on her belly to expose her back to the ministrations of the wardresses, who had by this time taken over from their mistress, who was again reveling in the debauchery of her guests. For the poor captive, the sensation of actually laying on her front-side on the hard stone table was an agony beyond belief, as her weight pressed down on almost five hundred needles embedded deeply in her body. She was already screaming as her arms and legs, pierced by scores of needles, were stretched to the corners of the table, and the agony escalated as a pair of white-hot needles began to probe deeply into the muscles of her buttocks even as her limbs were being secured to the waiting shackles.

Sophia screamed until she could scream no more as the torture continued, until the raspy complaint which was all her abused vocal cords could manage diminished still further to a continual moan and croak of insane horror. Every move sent shocking surges of pain through her body from all the terrible needles resting inside her lush body, shoved into every available part of her shapely form except her neck and face, even the most private recesses of her body, and any move that she made caused the innumerable shafts to shift horribly inside her lacerated flesh.

At one point, Sophia looked wildly about her, praying that her ordeal might be close to an end. She could not move her head very far, due to the straps that held her, but the fire and the Rack were within her field of vision, and she could see that her two sisters in agony were no longer in place. Dimly, she realized they must be dead and had been removed from the room, and she prayed that she too would soon find an end to her agony. But she wailed in dismay as her gaze moved to the brazier beside the stone table and she saw the multitude of needles which were still being heated. Her dry, cracked lips prayed for death at the thought that those many needles might find a home in her suffering flesh, and she could not understand why she had not died already from the pain and injury. But Sophia Bruck did not know the skill of her torturers. Though she was doomed in the long run, the heated metal shafts had seared her internal tissues and organs as they tore their way into her body, thus preventing a premature death and keeping the helpless, pain-crazed victim alive to further entertain this depraved audience.

Sophia Bruck finally found her end in that underground vault a little more than an hour later, after needles had been inserted through her cheeks and tongue, quelling her croaks of agony. Even Irma Mirau knew that the end for Sophia Bruck was near, but, since she was not yet dead, she gave her wardresses the liberty to continue the tortured girl's ordeal for as long as the horribly butchered creature clung to life. They started by turning Sophia over on her back, a process that was a hideous torture all in itself, as she now lay on the needles embedded in her back. But, weak as she was, it was her misfortune to still be alive and more or less sane when the wardresses began to shove long, glowing needles from side to side through her abdomen. They were seeking to provoke a heightened reaction from the tortured captive by this barbaric, risky ordeal, and in this they were quite successful. Sophia's revived response to this new, nauseating, and soul-shattering agony through her belly and internal organs was indeed enough to satisfy the audience, who had gathered about the table to watch the last agonies of this voluptuous but ravaged captive.

Other needles followed, each being slowly shoved through her belly, carefully gauged to miss her more vital organs, but the inevitable finally happened, as one needle ripping through her belly pierced an artery. Sophia's head jerked upright, and she stared down the length of her ravaged body in horror, her eyes wide as if she was seeing what had been done to her for the first time. She gave one last, strangled scream, gaping wildly, then her eyes rolled up as her head fell loosely back as her straining body relaxed onto her death-bed of inhuman anguish.

But her suffering had entertained Irma's audience all through the night and a little past dawn, and Irma took pride in informing them that her premier entertainer had somehow endured having more than a thousand white-hot needles shoved into her bound and one-time lusciously naked body before dying.

The end of Sophia Bruck and her luckless companions was, unfortunately, unmourned, and unnoticed by anyone, save only her torturers and the audience. The only comment from these depraved fiends was a casual observation that this last blonde victim had been a superbly strong and entertaining performer, as well as strikingly beautiful, and they certainly hoped to someday find someone as lovely, as strong, and as capable of enduring the extremes of pain as she had. Irma Mirau even mused to one of her wardresses that they might consider extending these sessions to a several day affair, with each victim being tortured in sequence while the others looked on in horror as they waited their own turn.

It would be wonderful to say that the forces of retribution finally closed in on Irma Mirau. Regrettably, such was not the case, and screaming young women, many of them blonde-haired beauties, continued to die in the most extreme agony possible to her skilled wardresses until late in 1948, when Carl Braun was recognized as a war criminal and arrested. Fearful that he might in some way implicate her, Irma approached an M.V.D. friend who had once sampled her physical favors and asked him to contact Dirlewanger in Moscow.

Arrangements were made and, having set fire to the castle of Dolsach, she and her loyal accomplices were spirited through the night and across the border in a huge Zim limousine. Given the grim stories that later filtered out from behind the Iron Curtain, it is a plausible surmise that she continued her bestial career under the auspices of her new-found allies.