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Did the Nazis make lampshades out of human skin?

June 4, 2004

Dear Cecil:

Now, I'm no Holocaust denier. I firmly believe the Holocaust
occurred and the Nazis committed great atrocities during WWII. What I have a
hard time believing is the accusation that Nazis made lampshades from human
skin. Genocide is repulsive, but making lampshades out of human skin is more in
line with what crazy serial killers do. I can see Nazis experimenting on Jews
for their research and stealing their gold teeth for money, but what would they
do with a lampshade made from human skin? Bring it back home as a gift to the
hausfrau? Is this just an urban legend born out of Allied propaganda, or is
there any truth to this?

— Andres, via e-mail

Cecil replies:

At first I was skeptical about your skepticism, Andres. You're
saying that methodically exterminating five to six million people, performing
bizarre experiments on them, and plundering their bodies is, at some level,
comprehensible, but making lampshades out of their skin — now that's crazy.
Personally I wasn't seeing any great leap, depravitywise. However, on
investigation, I think you may be right. While the Nazis kept many grisly
mementos of their victims, including tattooed skin, the lampshade claim may be a
myth.

By far the best-known account of human souvenirs comes from the
camp at Buchenwald. Here's the story as best I can piece it together:

(1) Even by Nazi standards, Buchenwald was out of control. Its
original commandant, Karl Koch, was by all accounts corrupt and cruel. Inmates
loathed him and his apparently sadistic wife, Ilse, whom they dubbed "the Witch
of Buchenwald." Meanwhile, medical personnel were keeping human
souvenirs — in 1942 SS higher-ups ordered them to quit making "gifts"
such as shrunken heads. A story arose that Ilse had had tattooed prisoners
killed so lampshades and other articles could be made from their skin.

(2) In 1943 the SS conducted an internal investigation and tried
the Kochs on charges including embezzlement and incitement to murder. (Karl had
arranged for the shooting of two inmates who knew he'd contracted
syphilis — the SS brass, if not necessarily the rank and file, paid at
least lip service to the notion that prisoners weren't to be killed
frivolously.) The SS judge, Konrad Morgen, found Karl guilty and ordered his
execution, but acquitted Ilse. Later at her war crimes trial Morgen testified
that a thorough search of her home found no human-skin lampshades or the like.
Ilse didn't live at Buchenwald after 1943.

(3) Shortly after U.S. troops liberated Buchenwald in 1945,
director Billy Wilder made a documentary about the camp to publicize Nazi
atrocities. A widely circulated still photo from the film showed a table covered
with preserved human remains, including two shrunken heads; several pieces of
what appears to be tattooed skin; and an ordinary-looking table lamp. The film's
narration says that among the items found was "a lampshade, made of human skin,
made at the request of an SS officer's wife." The press went nuts, and soon the
lampshade became emblematic of Nazi barbarism.

(4) Ilse Koch and others from Buchenwald were tried in 1947 for
war crimes. Prosecutors submitted as evidence a shrunken head and three pieces
of tattooed human skin but apparently no lampshade. Much of the testimony
against Koch was hearsay, although at least one former inmate said he'd seen a
tattooed-skin lampshade. Koch was convicted, but her life sentence was commuted
on review, in part because of doubts about the witnesses' credibility. She was
later tried by a German court, again sentenced to life, and committed suicide in
prison in 1967.

(5) Five pieces of tattooed skin are kept at the National Museum
of Health and Medicine (NMHM) and one at the National Archives (NA), both
federal facilities in the D.C. area. All six items are from Buchenwald; three
have been positively identified as human, and another is now being tested. The
NA item was once labeled "human skin lampshade," but an archivist there says it
has no perforations or other indications of such use. Two of the NMHM items have
holes on the left side as though from a hole punch. A third, which is large and
irregularly shaped, has pinholes around the perimeter at one- to
three-centimeter intervals. How the holes got there is unknown, but a photo
shows the skins stuck up on an exhibit board at Ilse Koch's 1947 trial. The NMHM
curator reserves judgment, but to me nothing suggests these items were part of a
lampshade. The lamp from the movie still has vanished; however, as photographed
it doesn't match the lamp described by witnesses at the trial — it has no
visible markings at all.

Absent compelling evidence to the contrary, I tend to the view
that appalled liberation forces heard the survivors' tales, found the
tattooed-skin souvenirs, and thought: Whoa, lampshades. In short, the story may
be a legend. Deniers will now claim: That proves the Holocaust didn't happen!
No, it doesn't, you losers. All it means is that, even in a gamy business like
this one, it's still possible to separate fiction from fact.

Late addition

Occasionally you hear about human-skin lampshades in private
collections. I won't claim to have surveyed the field, but I did speak to Norm
Sauer, a professor of forensic anthropology at Michigan State University.
Professor Sauer was part of a team of experts that a few years ago examined a
number of alleged human souvenirs that had been donated to the Holocaust
Memorial Center, now located in Farmington Hills, MI. Among the items were a
lampshade (and it really was a lampshade, consisting of panels on a wire frame),
two chess sets, and a bar of soap, along with some collections of ashes, bone
fragments, and so on. Although some of the bone fragments did appear to be
human, most and possibly all of the household objects were not. The chess sets
were made of animal but not human bone; the lampshade possibly was deer or goat
but not human skin. Tests of the soap were inconclusive. (The alleged practice
of rendering human fat into soap is a story unto itself; the common opinion now
seems to be that while it may have been made experimentally once, human soap was
never produced in quantity.) You never know what will turn up, but without
tests, don't assume that just because a lampshade or other item is claimed to be
of human origin, it is.

— Cecil Adams

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