Ravensbrück () was a
Nazi concentration camp
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe.
The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...
exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of
Fürstenberg/Havel
Fürstenberg () is a town in the Oberhavel district, Brandenburg, Germany.
Geography
Fürstenberg is situated on the Havel, River Havel, south of Neustrelitz, and north of Berlin.
The town lies at the southern edge of the Mecklenburg Lake Di ...
). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, 28,000 from the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, almost 24,000 from
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, nearly 8,000 from
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, almost 2,000 from
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, and thousands from other countries including a few from the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. More than 20,000 (15 percent) of the total were Jewish. More than 80 percent were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave laborers by
Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis undertook
medical experiments on Ravensbrück prisoners to test the effectiveness of
sulfonamides
In organic chemistry, the sulfonamide functional group (also spelled sulphonamide) is an organosulfur group with the Chemical structure, structure . It consists of a sulfonyl group () connected to an amine group (). Relatively speaking this gro ...
.
In the spring of 1941, the
SS established a small adjacent camp for male inmates, who built and managed the camp's
gas chambers
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
Gener ...
in January 1945. Of the female prisoners who passed through the Ravensbrück camp, about 50,000 perished; some 2,200 were killed in the gas chambers.
Prisoners
Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by the order of the ''
SS'' leader
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
and was unusual in that it was intended exclusively to hold female inmates. Ravensbrück first housed prisoners in May 1939, when the SS moved 900 women from the
Lichtenburg concentration camp
Lichtenburg was a Nazi concentration camp, housed in a Renaissance castle in Prettin, near Wittenberg in the Province of Saxony. Along with Sachsenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and was operated by the SS from 1933 to ...
in
Saxony
Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
. Eight months after the start of World War II the camp's maximum capacity was already exceeded. It underwent major expansion following the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
. By the summer of 1941 with the launch of
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...
, an estimated total of 5,000 women were imprisoned, who were fed gradually decreasing hunger rations. By the end of 1942, the inmate population of Ravensbrück had grown to about 10,000. The greatest number of prisoners at one time in Ravensbrück was probably about 45,000.
Between 1939 and 1945, some 130,000 to 132,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system. According to ''
Encyclopædia Britannica
The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...
'', about 50,000 of them perished from disease, starvation, overwork and despair; some 2,200 were murdered in the gas chambers.
[Michael Berenbaum (2015)]
"Ravensbrück"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 26 January 2015. Upon liberation on 29–30 April 1945, approximately 3,500 prisoners were still alive in the main camp.
Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group in the camp were Polish. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men's camp adjacent to the main camp. The male inmates built and managed the gas chambers for the camp in 1944.
There were children in the camp as well. At first, they arrived with mothers who were
Romani or
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s incarcerated in the camp or were born to imprisoned women. There were few children early on, including a few
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus
*Czech (surnam ...
children from
Lidice
Lidice (; ) is a municipality and village in Kladno District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 600 inhabitants.
Lidice is built near the site of the previous village, which was completely destroyed on 10 June 19 ...
in July 1942. Later the children in the camp represented almost all nations of Europe occupied by Germany. Between April and October 1944, their number increased considerably, consisting of two groups. One group was composed of Romani children brought into the camp with their mothers or sisters after the Romani camp in
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
was closed. The other group included mostly children who were brought with Polish mothers sent to Ravensbrück after the collapse of the
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...
of 1944. Most of these children died of starvation.
Ravensbrück had 70
sub-camps used for slave labour that were spread across an area from the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
to
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
.
Among the thousands executed at Ravensbrück were four members of the British World War II organization
Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local Resistance during World War II, resistance movements during World War II. ...
(SOE):
Denise Bloch,
Cecily Lefort,
Lilian Rolfe and
Violette Szabo. Other victims included the
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
nun
Élise Rivet
Élise Rivet, also known as Mère Marie Élisabeth de l'Eucharistie (January 19, 1890, Draria, Algeria – March 30, 1945, Ravensbrück concentration camp, Germany) was a Catholic nun and World War II heroine. Rivet volunteered to go to the gas ...
,
Élisabeth de Rothschild (the only member of the
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish noble banking family originally from Frankfurt. The family's documented history starts in 16th-century Frankfurt; its name is derived from the family house, Rothschild, ...
to die in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
), Russian Orthodox nun St.
Maria Skobtsova, the 25-year-old French
Princess Anne de Bauffremont-Courtenay,
Milena Jesenská, lover of
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...
, and
Olga Benário, wife of the Brazilian Communist leader
Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes (January 3, 1898 – March 7, 1990) was a Brazilian revolutionary and politician who served as the Secretary (title), general-secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party from 1943 to 1980 and a senator for the Federal Distric ...
. The largest single group of women executed at the camp were 200 young Polish members of the
Home Army
The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
. A number of lesbians were imprisoned and murdered at the camp, including
Henny Schermann and
Mary Pünjer.
Among the survivors of Ravensbrück was author
Corrie ten Boom
Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" ten Boom (15 April 1892 – 15 April 1983) was a Dutch watchmaker and later a Christian writer and public speaker, who worked with her father, Casper ten Boom, her sister Betsie ten Boom and other family membe ...
, arrested with her family for harbouring Jews in their home in
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...
, the Netherlands. She documented her ordeal alongside her sister
Betsie ten Boom in her book ''
The Hiding Place'', which was eventually produced as a motion picture. Polish Countess
Karolina Lanckoronska, an art historian and author of ''
Michelangelo in Ravensbrück'', was imprisoned there from 1943 until 1945. SOE agents who survived were
Yvonne Baseden and
Eileen Nearne, who was a prisoner in 1944 before being transferred to another work camp and escaping. Englishwoman
Mary Lindell and American
Virginia d'Albert-Lake
Virginia d'Albert-Lake ( Roush; June 4, 1910 September 20, 1997) was an American member of the French Resistance during World War II. She worked with the Comet Line, Comet Escape Line. She and her husband Philippe helped 67 British and American a ...
, both leaders of
escape and evasion lines in France, survived. Another SOE agent,
Odette Sansom
Odette Marie Léonie Céline Hallowes, (née Brailly; 28 April 1912 – 13 March 1995), also known as Odette Churchill and Odette Sansom, code named Lise, was an agent for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) in ...
, also survived and is the subject of several biographies documenting her ordeals. Among the Communist survivors of the camp was French Resistance member
Louise Magadur.
Maisie Renault, sister of Gilbert Renault, wrote about her captivity in Ravensbrück in ''La Grande Misère'' which won France's Prix Verité in 1948. Other survivors who wrote memoirs about their experiences include
Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of New York Mayor
Fiorello La Guardia
Fiorello Henry La Guardia (born Fiorello Raffaele Enrico La Guardia; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives and served as the 99th mayor of New Yo ...
, as well as
Germaine Tillion, a Ravensbrück survivor from France who published her own eyewitness account of the camp in 1975. After liberation,
Anna Garcin-Mayade, French painter and member of the French Resistance, painted works illustrating prisoners and the terrible conditions of the camps; these were recreations of works she had created while in the camps.
In 2005, Ravensbrück survivor Judith Sherman published a book of prose and poetry titled ''Say the Name''. Sherman writes of her childhood home in
Kurima,
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
, and of several deportations, hiding in homes and in the forest, undergoing torture, and witnessing murder in Ravensbrück before her final liberation. Approximately 500 women from Ravensbrück were transferred to
Dachau, where they were assigned as labourers to the
Agfa-Commando; the women assembled
ignition timing
In a spark ignition internal combustion engine, ignition timing is the timing, relative to the current piston position and crankshaft angle, of the release of a spark in the combustion chamber near the end of the compression stroke.
The need ...
devices for bombs, artillery ammunition, and
V-1 and
V-2 rockets.
Gustav Noske, the former German Minister of Defense (1919–1920), stayed in Ravensbrück concentration camp after his arrest by the Gestapo in 1944. Later Noske was freed by advancing Allied troops from a Gestapo prison in Berlin.
Guards
Camp commandants included :
*
SS-Standartenführer Günther Tamaschke from May 1939 to August 1939
*
SS-Hauptsturmführer Max Koegel from January 1940 till August 1942
*
SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritz Suhren from August 1942 until the camp's liberation at the end of April 1945
The other male officers were :
*
Paul Borchert, chief of political section.
[Centre des archives diplomatiques de La Courneuve, 1AJ/6340.]
* ,
Schutzhaftlagerführer, assistant to
Fritz Suhren.
* , chief of labor section.
*
Albert Sauer, arrived at Ravensbrück with
Johann Schwarzhuber, bringing 8,000 prisoners from
Auschwitz
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
.
*
Johann Schwarzhuber, assistant to
Fritz Suhren, replaced around January 1945. He introduced the gas chamber in the camp.
Besides the male Nazi administrators, the camp staff included over 150 female guards assigned to oversee the prisoners at some point during the camp's operational period. The technical term for a female guard in a Nazi camp was an ''
Aufseherin'', 'overseer'. Ravensbrück also served as a training camp for over 4,000 female overseers. The women either stayed in the camp or eventually served in other camps.
Some of these women went on to serve as chief wardresses in other camps. Several dozen block overseers (Blockführerinnen), accompanied by dogs, SS men and whips oversaw the prisoners in their living quarters in Ravensbrück, at roll call and during food distribution. At any single time, a report overseer (Rapportführerin) handled the roll calls and general discipline of the internees. Rosel Laurenzen originally served as head of the labour pool at the camp (Arbeitdienstführerin) along with her assistant Gertrud Schoeber. In 1944
Greta Bösel
Greta Bösel (née Mueller) (9 May 1908 – 3 May 1947) was a Nazi Party, Nazi German Nursing, nurse and camp guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was arrested and tried for her role in the Holocaust, found guilty of War crime, war crime ...
took over this command. Other high ranking female guards included Christel Jankowsky, Ilse Göritz,
Margot Dreschel, and Elisabeth Kammer. Head wardress at the
Uckermark death complex of Ravensbrück was
Ruth Neudeck (January 1945 – March 1945). Regular Aufseherinnen were not usually granted access to the internees' compound unless they supervised inside work details. Most of the SS women met their prisoner work gangs at the gate each morning and returned them later in the day. The treatment by the female guards in Ravensbrück was normally brutal. Elfriede Muller, an
Aufseherin in the camp was so harsh that the prisoners nicknamed her "The Beast of Ravensbrück". Other guards in the camp included
Hermine Boettcher-Brueckner,
Luise Danz,
Irma Grese,
Herta Oberheuser, and Margarethe de Hueber.
The female chief overseers (''Lagerfuehrerinnen'' and ''Oberaufseherinnen'') in Ravensbrück were:
# May 1939 – March 1942: ''Oberaufseherin''
Johanna Langefeld and her assistant
Emma Zimmer
# March–October 1942: ''Oberaufseherin''
Maria Mandl and assistant
Margarete Gallinat
# October 1942 – August 1943
Johanna Langefeld who returned from
Auschwitz
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
# August 1943 – September 1944 ''Chef Oberaufseherin''
Anna Klein (née Plaubel), with deputy wardress
Dorothea Binz
# September 1944 – April 1945 ''Chef Oberaufseherin''
Luise Brunner
Luise Brunner (25 August 1908 – 8 December 1977) was a German concentration camp guard in Auschwitz II (1942 – late 1944) and the chief oberaufseherin (chief guard) of Ravensbrück concentration camp from December 1944 to April 1945.
Biogra ...
, Lagerfuehrerin
Lotte Toberentz (January 1945 – April), with deputy wardress (Stellvertrende Oberaufseherin)
Dorothea Binz; in 1945 nurse
Vera Salvequart used to poison the sick to avoid having to carry them to the gas chambers
In 1973, the U.S. government extradited
Hermine Braunsteiner, living in
Maspeth, Queens
Maspeth is a residential and commercial community in the Borough (New York City), borough of Queens in New York City. It was founded in the early 17th century by Dutch and English settlers. Neighborhoods sharing borders with Maspeth are Woodside ...
, NY, for trial in Germany for
war crimes
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...
, and in 2006, extradited
Elfriede Rinkel, 84, a former Ravensbrück guard (1944-1945), who had lived in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, CA since 1959.
Life in the camp
When a new prisoner arrived at Ravensbrück she was required to wear a colour-coded triangle (a ''Winkel'') that identified her by category, with a letter sewn within the triangle indicating the prisoner's nationality. For example, Polish women wore red triangles, denoting a political prisoner, with a letter "P" (by 1942, Polish women became the largest national component at the camp). Soviet prisoners of war, and German and Austrian Communists, wore red triangles; common criminals wore green triangles; and
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a Christian denomination that is an outgrowth of the Bible Student movement founded by Charles Taze Russell in the nineteenth century. The denomination is nontrinitarian, millenarian, and restorationist. Russell co-fou ...
were labelled with lavender triangles. Prostitutes, Romani, homosexuals, and women who refused to marry were lumped together, with black triangles. Jewish women wore yellow triangles but sometimes, unlike the other prisoners, they wore a second triangle for the other categories. For example, quite often it was for ''
Rassenschande
''Rassenschande'' (, "racial shame") or ''Blutschande'' ( "blood disgrace") was an anti-miscegenation concept in Racial policy of Nazi Germany, Nazi German racial policy, pertaining to sexual relations between Aryan race#Nazism, Aryans and non-A ...
'' ("racial pollution").
Some detainees had their hair shaved, such as those from Czechoslovakia and Poland, but other transports did not. In 1943, for instance, a group of Norwegian women came to the camp (Norwegians/Scandinavians were ranked by the Nazis as the purest of all Aryans). None of them had their hair shaved.
Between 1942 and 1943, almost all Jewish women from the Ravensbrück camp were sent to
Auschwitz
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
in several transports, following Nazi policy to make Germany ''judenrein'' (cleansed of Jews). Based on the Nazis' incomplete transport list (''Zugangsliste''), documenting 25,028 names of women sent by Nazis to the camp, it is estimated that the Ravensbrück prisoner population's ethnic structure comprised:
Poles
Pole or poles may refer to:
People
*Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland
* Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist
...
24.9%,
Germans
Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...
19.9%,
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s 15.1%,
Soviets
The Soviet people () were the citizens and nationals of the Soviet Union. This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities" ().
Nationality policy in the Soviet Union ...
15.0%,
French 7.3%,
Romani 5.4%, other 12.4%. The
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
further categorised the inmates as: political 83.54%, anti-social 12.35%, criminal 2.02%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.11%, ''
Rassenschande
''Rassenschande'' (, "racial shame") or ''Blutschande'' ( "blood disgrace") was an anti-miscegenation concept in Racial policy of Nazi Germany, Nazi German racial policy, pertaining to sexual relations between Aryan race#Nazism, Aryans and non-A ...
'' (racial defilement) 0.78%, other 0.20%. The list is one of the most important documents, preserved in the last moments of the camp operation by members of the
Polish underground girl guides unit "
Mury" (The Walls). The rest of the camp documents were burned by escaping SS overseers in pits or in the crematorium.
One form of resistance was the secret education programmes organised by prisoners for their fellow inmates. All national groups had some sort of programme. The most extensive were among Polish women, wherein various high school-level classes were taught by experienced teachers.
In 1939 and 1940, camp living conditions were acceptable: laundry and bed linen were changed regularly and the food was adequate, although in the first winter of 1939/40, limitations began to be noticeable. The German Communist, Margarete Buber-Neumann, came to Ravensbrück as an inmate after nearly two years in a Russian Soviet
Gulag
The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
. She described her first impressions of Ravensbrück in comparison to the Soviet camp in Karaganda:
I looked across the great square, and could not believe my eyes. It was surrounded by manicured lawns, covered by flower beds on which bloomed bright red flowers. A wide street, which led to a large open area, was flanked by two rows of wooden barracks, on both sides stood rows of young trees and along the roadside ran straight flower beds as far as the eye could see. The square and the streets seemed freshly raked. To the left towards the watchtower, I saw a white wooden barrack and beside it a large cage, the size of a birdhouse the like you see at a zoo. Within it paraded peacocks (''stolzierten'') and on a climbing tree dangled monkeys and a parrot which always screamed the same word, "Mama". I wondered, "this is a concentration camp"?
Buber-Nuemann wrote how her first meal in Ravensbrück exceeded her expectations, when she was served sweet porridge with dried fruit (''backobst''), plus a generous portion of bread, margarine, and sausage.
Conditions quickly deteriorated.
Elsie Maréchal, a young Belgian who worked with the
Comet Line, was a prisoner at Ravensbrück from 1943 to 1945. She described the conditions:
They didn't shoot the women. We were to die of misery, hunger and exhaustion...when we arrived at Ravensbrück, it was the worst. The first thing I saw was a cart with all the dead piled on it. Their arms and legs hanging out, and mouths and eyes wide open. They reduced us to nothing. We didn't even feel like we had the value of cattle. You worked and you died.
Nazi medical experiments
Starting in the summer of 1942,
medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. Two types of experiments were conducted on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of
sulfonamide
In organic chemistry, the sulfonamide functional group (also spelled sulphonamide) is an organosulfur group with the Chemical structure, structure . It consists of a sulfonyl group () connected to an amine group (). Relatively speaking this gro ...
drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting of leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones.
The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called ''Kaninchen'', ''Króliki'', ''Lapins'', or "Rabbits" by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed, and (with assistance from other inmates) the rest survived with permanent physical damage.
Four such survivors—
Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Władysława Karolewska, and Maria Kuśmierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the
Doctors' Trial in 1946.
Between 120 and 140
Romani women were
sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All had been deceived into signing the consent form, having been told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they complied.
Forced labor
All inmates were required to do heavy labor ranging from strenuous outdoor jobs to building the
V-2 rocket
The V2 (), with the technical name ''Aggregat (rocket family), Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range missile guidance, guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the S ...
parts for
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...
. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.
Ravensbrück was the main supplier of women for the brothels set up at many major Nazi camps toward the end of the war. Although women often volunteered for these positions, hoping they would be spared the most difficult physical labour and perhaps receive better rations, most in fact died quickly due to sexual abuse and the rampant spread of venereal disease.
For the women in the camp, it was important to retain some of their dignity and sense of humanity. Therefore, they made necklaces, bracelets, and other personal items, like small dolls and books, as keepsakes. These personal effects were of great importance to the women and many of them risked their lives to keep these possessions. Some of these types of effects can be seen at the exhibition "Voices from Ravensbrück" (hosted by Lund University Library, Sweden).
Murder in gas chamber
The bodies of those perished or killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943 when SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In January 1945, the SS also transformed a hut near the crematorium into a
gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
Donatie ...
, where they murdered several thousand prisoners before the camp's liberation in April 1945. In particular, they executed some 3,600 prisoners from the
Uckermark police camp for "deviant" girls and women, which was taken under the control of the Ravensbrück SS at the start of 1945.
Death march and liberation
In January 1945, prior to the liberation of the remaining camp survivors, an estimated 45,000 female prisoners and over 5,000 male prisoners remained at Ravensbrück,
including children and those transported from satellite camps only to be murdered in the
gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
Donatie ...
, which was being performed in haste.
With the Soviet
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
's rapid approach in the spring of 1945, the SS leadership decided to remove as many prisoners as they could, in order to avoid leaving live witnesses behind who could testify as to what had occurred in the camp. At the end of March, the SS ordered all physically capable women to form a column and exit the camp in the direction of northern Mecklenburg, forcing over 24,500 prisoners on a
death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war, other captives, or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinct from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires tha ...
.
Some 2,500 ethnic German prisoners remaining were released, and 500 women were handed over to officials of the Swedish and Danish Red Cross shortly after the evacuation. On 30 April 1945, fewer than 3,500 malnourished and sickly prisoners were discovered alive at the camp when it was liberated by the Red Army.
The survivors of the death march were liberated in the following hours by a Soviet scout unit.
Ravensbrück trials
The SS guards, female ''Aufseherinnen'' guards, and former prisoner-functionaries with administrative positions at the camp were arrested at the end of the war by the
Allies and tried at the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials from 1946 to 1948. Sixteen of the accused were found guilty of war crimes and
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...
and sentenced to death.
Having fled to Bavaria,
Fritz Suhren and were caught by the American troops in 1949 and were sent to the
French occupation zone
The French occupation zone in Germany (, ) was one of the Allied-occupied areas in Germany after World War II.
Background
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta C ...
. The trial and appeal took place from February to May 1950. The jury was composed of representatives from the French, Dutch and Luxembourg governments, presided by the chief justice officer of the
French zone. Several dozens of former prisoners were subpoenaed. Suhren and Pflaum were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were sentenced to death and executed on 12 June 1950.
Memorial site
German Democratic Republic
On the site of the former concentration camp, there is a memorial. In 1954, the sculptor
Will Lammert was commissioned to design the memorial site between the
crematorium
A crematorium, crematory or cremation center is a venue for the cremation of the Death, dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a ...
, the camp wall, and
Schwedtsee Lake. Up to his death in 1957, the artist created a large number of sculpted models of women. On 12 September 1959, the Ravensbrück National Memorial was inaugurated outside the former concentration camp on an area of 3.5 ha between the former camp wall and the shore of the Schwedtsee Lake. Rosa Thälmann, a former concentration camp inmate and widow of the politician
Ernst Thälmann, held the opening speech. Compared to
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...
and
Sachsenhausen, it was the smallest of the three National Memorials of the
German Democratic Republic (GDR).
For the inaugural opening of the National Memorial site, a scaled-up version of ''Tragende'' (''Woman with Burden'') was created (under the supervision of
Fritz Cremer) and exhibited. This central symbolic figure, also known as the "''
Pietà
The Pietà (; meaning "pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Mary (mother of Jesus), Blessed Virgin Mary cradling the mortal body of Jesus Christ after his Descent from the Cross. It is most often found in sculpture. ...
'' of Ravensbrück", stands atop a stele on the peninsula in Lake Schwedtsee. The ''Zwei Stehende'' (''Two Women Standing'') monument also has its origins in Lammert's models. Other statues, which were also originally created for Ravensbrück, have been on display at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Berlin Mitte since 1985, in commemoration of the Jewish victims of fascism.
Since 1984, the former
SS headquarters have housed the ''Museum des antifaschistischen Widerstandskampfes'' (Museum of Anti-fascist Resistance). After the withdrawal from Germany of the
Soviet Army
The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army.
After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...
, which up to 1993 had been using parts of the former camp for military purposes, it became possible to incorporate more areas of the camp into the memorial site.
The three National Memorials
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...
,
Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrück played a central role in the GDR's remembrance policy under
Erich Honecker
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the post ...
. They were controlled by the Ministry of Culture and served as places of identification and legitimisation of the GDR. According to historian Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf the political instrumentalisation of these memorials, especially for the current needs of the GDR, became particularly clear during the major celebrations of the liberation of the concentration camps.
After German reunification
Today, the former accommodation blocks for the female guards are a youth hostel and youth meeting center. In the course of the reorganization, which took place in the early 1990s, the ''Museum des antifaschistischen Widerstandskampfes'' was replaced by two new permanent exhibitions: "Women of Ravensbrück", which displays the biographies of 27 former prisoners, and "Ravensbrück. Topography and History of the Women's Concentration Camp", which provides information about the origins of the camp, describes daily life in the camp, and explains the principle of ''Vernichtung durch Arbeit'' (extermination through work). Since 2004 there has also been an exhibition about the female guards at the Ravensbrück Women's Concentration Camp, housed in another of their former accommodation blocks. Additionally, temporary exhibitions of special interest are held regularly at the memorial.
On 16 and 17 April 2005, a ceremony was held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation. Among those invited were approximately 600 survivors from all over the world, mostly eastern Europe. At the same time a new, permanent outdoor exhibition was opened, on the theme of the train transports to Ravensbrück. Its central exhibit is a refurbished goods wagon. The exhibition's information boards describe the origins of the transports and how they developed over time and explain the different types of trains, where they arrived, and the part played by the local residents. It is probably the only exhibition so far at a German memorial which is dedicated solely to the subject of the transports to the camp.
Monuments outside of Germany
A monument to the French victims of Ravensbruck is one of the memorials to several concentration camps in
Pere Lachaise Cemetery Pere may refer to:
*Pere, Hungary, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county
*Pärtel-Peeter Pere (born 1985), Estonian entrepreneur, urban strategist, and politician
*Rose Pere, Rangimārie Te Turuki Arikirangi Rose Pere (1937–2020), Māori New ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
Archaeology and artifacts
Ravensbrück did not have its own burial site, so most of the bodies were kept nearby at the site of their cremation. In 2019, the archaeological remains of Polish women were found in the Fürstenberg cemetery. Nine urns and two plaques were discovered. Their ashes were found buried with metal plaques that had once been part of their urns. The urns had since broken down in the soil but the plaques still have the identities of those who were buried there. Previously in 1989, a mass grave was found by the cemetery accidentally. In more recent excavations, archaeologists have found human body parts that were never fully burned in cremation. Ravensbrück archaeology is hard to come by from the actual site itself, as most of its artifacts escaped with its survivors.
Many of these artifacts were lost once some of the survivors reached Sweden. Survivors kept them hidden in the waistbands and hems of their clothes. As the women were being cleaned, their clothes were burned. While the women showed hesitation in getting rid of their clothes, no one voiced why they were upset about it. They didn't yet trust the people taking care of them after all they had endured. Karin Landgren Blomqvist helped the survivors but regrets this detail:
The clothes one was to take care of proved to be dirty rags, infested with lice, which were according to Swedish standards too worn down to be worth cleaning. The consequence was that it was all burned. Many survivors protested, but few dared to say why. They dared not believe we were fully without German influence. We had been too naïve and unsuspecting. Inseams, hems, and waistbands, many had with great effort and danger for life during internment in camp managed to save personal souvenirs and treasures. Now, when liberation was a fact, they lost these very last objects from their original lives.
These were things secretly made in the camp. Prisoners could be punished if caught but many disregarded camp rules and continued to make art in secret, such as dolls for orphaned or lost children. Chances were not good for children at Ravensbrück. Many lost their mothers, and as a result lost what little protection they did have. Many were medically experimented on or killed. Children on their own would not survive in the camp but women would step forward and behave as surrogate/adoptive mothers, making dolls and taking care of them.
The creation of art or personal belongings in the camp was strictly prohibited. Despite this, there are still artifacts found today that display resistance. A sprig of the lily of the valley
is a prime example. While only a piece of plastic, if caught could be considered an act of "sabotage" and largely punishable. In an interview done just after liberation in Sweden, Interview 420 describes: "The smallest infractions were elevated to the level of 'sabotage', which brought the highest possible sentences: whipping, the bunker, and even execution by shooting. For making toe-warmers with camp wool for her stockings in the winter, a prisoner would get 25 blows and two weeks in the bunker". Many of the items were made of spare bits of plastic, wood, or cloth.
In 2017, 27 secret letters were gifted to the Museum of Martyrology in Lublin.
These letters describe the camp in detail, including the doctors practicing medical experimentation. Concealed in the sofa of Krystyna Czyż, they spent decades hidden away until their donation. In September 1941, sisters Janina and Krystyna Iwańska, Wanda Wójtasik, and Krystyna Czyż were sent to Ravensbrück for their assistance of the Polish Underground. In 1942, medical experimentation was introduced and began with a group of 86 women, including the four letter-writers. As detailed in the letters, their legs were sliced open with glass or wood before the doctors introduced bacteria and test medicine. If the wounds did not heal, they later found out that it would result in execution. The four survived and lived to write the letters.
Once a month, prisoners were allowed to write letters to their families. These messages were monitored by the guards. The women wrote a message in visible ink, and then in between the lines, they wrote in their own urine. This worked as a version of invisible ink. When held over a heat source or ironed, the message would appear. Cyż communicated this with her brother by referring to a children's book. It instructed him to look for a message using the first letter of every line. It spelled out: "list modem" which translates to "letter in urine". From there the women delivered intelligence about the medical experiments. In 1943, one of the many letters read "Further details of operations. Up to 16 January 1943, 70 people in total have been operated on. From this, 56 from the Lublin September transport, of which 36 were infection operations (without incision), 20 bone operations. ... In bone operations, each cut is reopened. Bones are operated on both legs or just one." and "We are worried that they will want to get rid of the ones who have been operated on as living proof. Bear in mind that in the course of 20 months about a quarter of all the Polish women from political transports have been shot. On 30 April, five more were shot under the guise of being sent to Oświęcim." Not only did they detail medical experiments but brothel work as well. These letters and their information made their way into the Polish Underground, the International Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Polish government-in-exile in London. Eventually, these letters would be used as evidence for the trials. These artifacts give records and witness accounts from Ravensbrück and are now being preserved.
When Ravensbrück was liberated a note was found on the body of a dead girl. It read as follows:
See also
*
List of Nazi concentration camps
According to the '' Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos'', there were 23 main concentration camps (), of which most had a system of satellite camps. Including the satellite camps, the total number of Nazi concentration camps that existed at one ...
*
Hamburg Ravensbrück trials
*
Holocaust memorial landscapes in Germany
*
International Ravensbrück Committee
*
White Buses
* ''
If This Is a Woman'' by
Sarah Helm
* ''Across the Lake: A Novel of the Holocaust and Ravensbrück'',
Patrick Hicks
Notes
References
* Natalie Hess: ''Remembering Ravensbrück. Holocaust to Healing'', Oegstgeest: Amsterdam Publishers.
* Brown, Daniel Patrick. ''The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Concentration Camp System'', . Source of the information on female guards, with the exceptions of Suze Arts and
Elisabeth Lupka.
*
* Marlies Lammert: ''Will Lammert – Ravensbrück'', Akademie der Künste, Berlin 1968. In German
* Claire Pahaut, ''Ces Dames de Ravensbrück, Contribution au mémorial belge des femmes déportées à Ravensbrück, 1939-1945'', Bruxelles, Archives générales du Royaume, 2024,
* Sherman, Judith, & Carrasco, Davíd. (2005). ''Say the Name''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
*
* Karolin Steinke: ''Trains to Ravensbrück. Transports by the Reichsbahn 1939–1945'', Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2009, .
* Delia Müller, Madlen Lepschies: ''Tage der Angst und der Hoffnung''. Erinnerungen an die Todesmärsche aus dem Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück Ende April 1945
Dr. Hildegard Hansche Stiftung Berlin. .
*
* See Carola Sachse: "Jewish forced labor and non-Jewish women and men at Siemens from 1940 to 1945", in ''International Scientific Correspondence'', No. 1/1991, pp. 12–24; Karl-Heinz Roth: "Forced labor in the Siemens Group (1938–1945). Facts, controversies, problems", in Hermann Kaienburg (ed.): ''Concentration Camps and the German Economy 1939–1945'' (Social studies, H. 34), Opladen 1996, pp. 149–168; Wilfried Feldenkirchen: 1918–1945 Siemens, Munich 1995, Ulrike Fire, Claus Füllberg-Stolberg, Sylvia Kempe: "Work at Ravensbrück concentration camp", in ''Women in Concentration Camps. Bergen-Belsen. Ravensbrück'', Bremen, 1994, pp. 55–69; Ursula Krause-Schmitt: "The path to the Siemens stock led past the crematorium", in ''Information''. German Resistance Study Group, Frankfurt / Main, 18 Jg, No. 37/38, Nov. 1993, pp. 38–46; Sigrid Jacobeit: "Working at Siemens in Ravensbrück", in Dietrich Eichholz (eds) ''War and economy. Studies on German economic history 1939–1945'', Berlin 1999.
* Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf: ''Erinnerungspolitik der DDR. Dargestellt an der Berichterstattung der Tageszeitung „Neues Deutschland“ über die Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstätten Buchenwald, Ravensbrück und Sachsenhausen.'' Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-631-63678-7.
* Bundesarchiv Berlin, NS 19, No. 968, "Communication on the creation of the barracks for the Siemens & Halske, the planned production and the planned expansion for 2,500 prisoners 'after direct discussions with this company'": Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS (WVHA), Oswald Pohl, secretly, to Reichsführer SS (RFSS), Heinrich Himmler, dated 20.10.1942.
* Karl-Heinz Roth: "Forced labor in the Siemens Group", with a summary table, page 157. See also Ursula Krause-Schmitt: "The road to Siemens stock led past the crematorium," pp. 36f, where, according to the catalogs of the International Tracing Service Arolsen and Martin Weinmann (eds.). ''The Nazi Camp System'', Frankfurt / Main 1990 and Feldkirchen: ''Siemens 1918–1945'', pp. 198–214, and in particular the associated annotations 91–187.
* Wanda Kiedrzy'nska, in National Library of Poland, Warsaw, Manuscript Division, Sign. AKC 12013/1 and archive of the memorial I/6-7-139 RA: see also: "Woman Ravensbruck concentration camp. An overall presentation", State Justice Administration in Ludwigsburg, IV ART 409-Z 39/59, April 1972, pp. 129ff.
*
External links
"Medical Experiments Conducted on Polish Inmates"from Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not"
Homepage Memorial RavensbrückSite created in conjunction with a group of Dutch survivors from the camp''United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia'' entry"Voices from Ravensbrück – a unique collection of sources from the survivors of Ravensbrück"Collection of testimonies concerning KL Ravensbrück in "Chronicles of Terror" testimony database* Dr. Gil Davi
''The Brilliant Code Used by Concentration Camp Inmates to Tell the World About Nazi Experiments''''Haaretz'' 18 May 2019.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ravensbruck concentration camp
Buildings and structures in Oberhavel
Medical experimentation on prisoners of war
Museums in Brandenburg
World War II memorials in Germany
World War II museums in Germany