Holocaust Stories

Guest: Hans-Wilhelm Kelling, Ph.D., Professor at BYU  Austria-born Hermine Ryan was a homemaker in Queens living a quiet life, known for her friendliness and pristine housekeeping when, in 1964 the New York Times revealed her secret past as an infamous Nazi prison guard known as “The Stomping Mare.” What could transform a working-class girl who at one time wanted to become a nurse, and who would later live a quiet life as an American housewife, into a cruel prison guard who was feared because of her violent treatment of women and children? Ryan’s story is among the many BYU German professor Hans-Wilhelm Kelling has studied, trying to understand what could turn ordinary people into extraordinarily cruel Nazi agents.