Ilse Koch’s trials for her role in atrocities at the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp served as visual spectacles and primed her portrayal in media and public spaces. Koch’s conduct was credibly rumored to be one of frequent affairs, simultaneous lovers, and the sexual humiliation of prisoners. The gendered construction of her sexual identity played a distortive role in her intersections with law and with post-conflict Germany. Koch’s trials revealed two different dynamics. Koch’s actions were refracted through a patriarchal lens which spectacularized female violence and served as an optical space to (re)establish appropriate feminine mores. Feminist critiques of Koch’s trials furthermore also spun problematic narratives of womanly innocence and victimized powerlessness, or at times ignored her as a perpetrator. In the end Koch’s actual story—‘her’ story—becomes lost amid prurience, politics, and burlesque.

伊尔丝·科赫因在纳粹布痕瓦尔德集中营的暴行中所扮演的角色而受到审判，成为视觉奇观，并为她在媒体和公共场所的形象打下了基础。据传，科赫的行为是频繁发生的事情、同时发生的情人和对囚犯的性羞辱之一。她的性别认同的性别建构在她与法律和冲突后德国的交集中起到了扭曲的作用。科赫的试验揭示了两种不同的动态。科赫的行为通过父权制镜头折射，将女性暴力壮观化，并作为（重新）建立适当的女性风俗的光学空间。此外，女权主义者对科赫审判的批评也编造了女性纯真和受害无能为力的有问题的叙述，或者有时将她视为肇事者。