Maria Mandl, who arrived at Ravensbrück at the start, was appointed chief woman guard at Auschwitz in 1942, taking over from Langefeld, and soon became the most powerful woman in Himmler’s empire. Mandl – the woman overheard by Maria Bielicka in Ravensbrück, ‘lost in a trance’ playing the piano – went on to found the women’s prisoner orchestra at Auschwitz.
