Ilse Koch
Koch was born Margarete Ilse Köhler on 22 September 1906 in Dresden, Germany.  Her father was a factory foreman.  In elementary school, she was known as a polite and happy child.  At age 15, she started school to become an accountant.  Later, she went to work as a bookkeeping clerk.  Germany's economy had been ruined when Germany lost World War I, and at the time that Koch worked in bookkeeping, the economy still had not recovered.