Ravensbrück: Women's concentration camp

Ravensbrück (concentration camp) was designed for women. By its scale, it is considered the largest concentration camp of Nazis for female prisoners. During its existence, it contained about 130 thousand prisoners. This number is not final, as many were not registered, and some of the documentation was destroyed by the SS representatives.

It is also impossible to calculate the number of deaths in Ravensbruck. Scary figures are called: from 50 to 92 thousand people.

Location of the camp

Settled Ravensbrück (concentration camp) in the north of Germany, 90 kilometers from Berlin. Its name is connected with the village that was nearby. The literal translation of the German name - "crowbar bridge". Today this territory belongs to the city of Furstenberg.

Creature

The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp began its existence with the decision of Heinrich Himmler in 1938. Work on its erection was conducted by prisoners from other camps. By 1939 he had accepted the first prisoners. They were 867 women, who continued its expansion.

Since 1940 on the territory of the camp began to appear enterprises:

• Textile and leather production;
• Electrical engineering concern Siemens;
• Military-industrial.

The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp had many sub-camps, which were located in different settlements.

Prisoners

Initially, the territory of the camp housed representatives of Germany, who by their behavior and way of life "disgrace the nation." Among the prisoners were active Resistance fighters, representatives of the sect Jehovah's Witnesses and women behaving immorally.

During his lifetime, Ravensbruck (a concentration camp, whose photo is presented in our material) has seen representatives of many nationalities (more than 40). Among them were German women, Poles, Gypsies, French women, Jewish women, Belgians, Romanians and others. There were also Soviet prisoners of war among the prisoners.

According to the registration lists of the camp, it contained more than 132,000 women (including children), 20,000 men.

The list of some prisoners:

• Dina Babbitt is a Czech artist and sculptor.
• Maya Berezovskaya is a Polish artist.
• Paul Bernard is a Frenchwoman, a nurse of the Red Cross.
• Galina Birenbaum is a Jewish woman from Poland, a writer, a poetess.
• Genevieve de Gaulle-Antonioz is a Frenchwoman, a representative of the Resistance movement, the niece of the President of the Fifth Republic in France.
• Juliette Greco is a French singer and actress.
• Maria Filomena Dolanska is a Czech, a teacher and a nun.
• Milena Esenskaya is a Czechoslovak journalist.
• Philippa Rothschild-Sereis is the Baroness, the owner of the famous vineyard Chateau Mouton-Rothschild.
• Vanda Yakubovskaya is a Polish, a film director.

These are just a few names from tens of thousands who have learned what the Ravensbrück Women's Concentration Camp is.

Camp Order

Immediately upon arrival in the camp, all women underwent the same procedures, regardless of the time of the year. They were stripped naked in the street, they cut their hair, took away all their personal belongings, documents. So they waited their turn to the bathhouse, after which they received clothes, numbers, vinkels and were distributed among the barracks.

All women were given a striped dress and wooden slippers. In this garb they walked in any weather. The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, whose stories are found in various memoirs, was particularly cruel. Many of the prisoners were forced to walk barefoot all the time, because of which they received frostbite of the limbs.

In the camp, a system of numbers and vinkels was used. The prisoners had no names, they existed under numbers that were sewn to the dresses. Above such an identification code was placed a triangular sign, which was called a winch. By its color the category was defined:

• Red - Resistance member, political prisoner;
• Yellow - a Jew;
• Green is a criminal in a criminal case;
• Violet - Jehovah's Witness (Protestant);
• Black - a gypsy, a woman of antisocial behavior.

In the center of the vinckel there was a letter that indicated the nationality.

Every day women got up at four o'clock in the morning, received half a round of coffee surrogates, and lined up in the street for a roll call, which lasted 2-3 hours. Then they went to workplaces for 12-14 hours.

Workers of the day had the opportunity to get a half-hour break and lunch in the form of half a liter of water with potato peelings or a trout. For those who worked at night, there was no such break.

The evening check was the same as the morning check. After her prisoners received 200 grams of bread from flour and sawdust and the same coffee surrogate.

Prisoners were allowed to send letters, but not more than once a month and under strict censorship. At the slightest discrepancy, the letter or postcard was not sent to the addressee.

Methods of killing

The deaths in Ravensbruck were, according to various estimates, from 50 to 92 thousand people. The main causes of death were malnutrition, debilitating labor, inadequate sanitation and hygiene conditions, gross bullying.

Once every two weeks, the camp staff selected the prisoners who were to be destroyed. First of all, they were those who were not able to work. They were killed by a shot in the back of the head. Every day up to 50 people died.

For the mass destruction of prisoners, other similar camps were sent to Auschwitz. Later, in 1943, women were massacred on the territory of the concentration camp. For this, lethal injections and crematorium were used.

In 1944, Ravensbrück (concentration camp) visited Himmler, who ordered to get rid of all the old and feeble prisoners. To this end, "experts on destruction" from Auschwitz, Birkenau were invited .

Women were tested on special parades and those given pink cards with Latin letters "VV" ("death camp, to destroy") were transferred to Ukkermark. There they waited for their death, although they were transported to the health center in Silesia, according to official documents. Initially, the owners of pink cards were executed with a bullet in the back of the head, but this process proved too slow, so it was decided to build gas chambers. In them for 2-3 minutes 150 women died at once.

Medical experiments

To conduct the first experiments on prisoners in the camp began on 01.08.1942. It is proved that during the entire period of Ravensbruck's existence, 86 prisoners were subjected to medical experiments.

The purpose of the first experiments was to identify the effectiveness of new drugs for the treatment of deep ragged wounds, including gunshot wounds. The women were made on the upper part of the thigh a deep, up to the bone, incision and injected there staphylococci along with other kinds of bacteria. This provoked the rapid appearance of gangrene and tetanus.

In order for the wound to be similar to a gunshot, it was often added particles of glass, wood, metal. All carried out actions, as well as their consequences, were carefully recorded. There were slight changes in the body of prisoners - from the appearance of temperature to the death. The results of these studies were presented in the form of a report at the military academy in 1943. The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, where not all the prisoners were tortured, was not only famous for this.

The purpose of the second experiment was to establish the possibility of bone tissue transplantation. For this, healthy women were fractured by limbs and impregnated with gypsum. To see the process of the experiment, the subjects were cut out of parts of living tissues to expose the bone. Some women were amputated with a healthy limb or shoulder blade and taken to surgeons in another camp where they sewed these parts of the body to other people.

This is only part of the experiments. The cruelest experiments were the killing of healthy children by injections and the termination of pregnancy in the last trimester with immediate burning of the fetus.

Protection of the camp

The camp commandants at different times were Guenter Tamashke, Max Kegel, Fritz Zuner. In the state there were not only men, but also more than 150 women. About 4 thousand warders passed through the training. They, as a rule, were characterized by excessive cruelty and a tendency to sadism.

"March of Death"

With the retreat of German troops, evacuation began in the camp. 04/27/1945 The prisoners were driven to the west. Their number reached more than 20 thousand people, about 3 thousand were abandoned in the concentration camp.

Two days later the SS guards left the prisoners in the locked barracks of Malkhovo, and the next morning they were liberated by the Red Army.

Release of prisoners

The date of liberation is 30.04.1945, when the prisoners were rescued by the forces of the 2nd Belorussian Front. In a couple of days Ravensbrück (concentration camp), whose memories will not disappear in the centuries, was filled with doctors who created a temporary hospital.

Until 1993, Soviet troops used this territory as the location of their units.

Courts of war criminals

The first trials of the concentration camp staff took place in 1946-1948. They resulted in 16 death sentences passed.

Some SS employees fled to the US, but even decades later they were calculated and deported for trial to Germany. People who tracked down the Nazis for their crimes within the SS, began to be called "hunters for the Nazis."

Historical memory of the prisoners of the camp

In 1959, the government of the GDR ordered that in the territory where Ravensbrück (the concentration camp) was located, the Ravensbrück National Memorial Complex was established. As the original objects were left the following:

• Commandant's office;
• crematorium;
• A building with chambers;
• Underground road leading to the lake;
• Fragment of the camp wall.

The central element on the shore of the lake was the "Bearer" stele, designed by Villa Lammerta. So Ravensbrück (concentration camp), a monument erected in Germany, for many has forever become a symbol of a monstrous crime over humanity.

In 1996, a documentary was released in which five former prisoners from different countries - Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia - are interviewed. The directors and screenwriters were the Dutch Anet van Barneveld and Annemarie Streibos. The painting "Past is" is called.

In 2005, the creation of the director from Germany, Loretta Valtz, was published, which collected interviews with former prisoners for 25 years. The documentary consists of stories of more than 200 prisoners and is called "Ravensbrück's Women."

The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp (World War II, 1939-1945) lasted six years, destroying tens of thousands of women and children who did not want this war.