Ravensbruck (concentration camp) was designed for women.By its scale, he is considered the largest Nazi concentration camp for female prisoners.For all time of its existence it contained about 130 thousand prisoners.This number is not final, since many were not registered as part of the documentation was destroyed by members of the SS.
also impossible to count the number of victims in Ravensbrück.Called terrible figures: from 50 to 92 thousand people.
Location camp
located Ravensbruck (concentration camp) in the north of Germany, 90 kilometers from Berlin.His name is connected with the countryside, is next.The literal translation of the German name - "Magpie Bridge".Today, this area belongs to the city of Furstenberg.
Create
Ravensbrueck concentration camp came into existence with the decision of Heinrich Himmler in 1938.Work on its construction was carried out prisoners from other camps.By 1939, it received its first prisoners.They were 867 women who continued its expansion.
Since 1940, the camp began to appear the company:
- textile and leather industry;
- electrotechnical concern "Siemens";
- military-industrial.
Concentration camp Ravensbruck subcamp had many that were located in different localities.
Prisoners
Originally the camp housed the representatives of Germany, whose behavior and way of life "disgrace the nation."Among the prisoners were active resistance fighters, representatives of Jehovah's Witnesses and women who behave immorally.
Over the period of Ravensbrück (a concentration camp, a photo of which are presented in our material) has seen representatives of many nationalities (more than 40).Among them were Germans, Polish girl, gypsy, French, Jewish, Belgian, Romanians and others.Including among female prisoners and Soviet prisoners of war.By
camp registration lists, there were more than 132 thousand women (including children), 20 thousand men.
list of some women prisoners:
- Dina Babbitt - Czech painter and sculptor.
- Maya Berezovskaya - Polish artist.
- Paul Bernhardt - French nurse of the Red Cross.
- Galina Birenbaum - Jew from Poland, writer, poet.
- Genevieve de Gaulle-Antonioz - French, a spokesman for the resistance movement, the niece of the president of the Fifth Republic in France.
- Juliette Greco - French singer and actress.
- Maria Filomena Dolanskaya - Czech woman, a teacher and a nun.
- Milena Jesenská - Czechoslovak journalist.
- Philippine Rothschild Sereys - Baroness, owner of the famous vineyard Chateau Mouton-Rothschild.
- Wanda Yakubovskaya - Polish film director.
These are just a few names of tens of thousands, will learn what a female concentration camp Ravensbrück.
The daily camp
on arrival at the camp the women were all the same procedures, regardless of the time of year.They were stripped naked on the street, cut their hair, took away all personal belongings and documents.So they waited for their turn in the bath, after which received clothes, rooms, Winkel and distributed to the barracks.
All women were given striped dress and wooden sandals.In this garb they walked in any weather.Ravensbrück Concentration camp, stories of which are available in various memoirs, known for his cruelty.Many female prisoners were forced to walk barefoot all the time due to give frostbite of the extremities.
The camp system was used numbers and Winkel.Prisoners did not have names, they existed under the numbers that are sewn to the dress.Above this identification code symbol is placed, called Winkel.In his color is determined by category:
- red - resistance fighter, a political prisoner;
- yellow - a Jew;
- green - the perpetrator of the criminal case;
- purple - a Jehovah's Witness (Protestant);
- black - Gypsy woman antisocial behavior.
Centered Winkel placed the letter, which indicated nationality.
Every day the women got up at four in the morning, put them got half a cup of coffee and surrogate lined up outside for roll call, which lasted 2-3 hours.Then they went on jobs for 12-14 hours.
work 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 rutabaga.For those who worked at night, the break was not provided.
evening check was the same as the morning.After it the prisoners received 200 grams of bread flour and sawdust, and the same coffee substitute.
prisoners are allowed to send mail, but not more than once a month and under strict censorship.At the slightest non-compliance letter or card to the addressee is not expelled.
methods of killing
Fatalities in Ravensbrück was, according to various estimates, from 50 to 92 thousand people.The main causes of death becomes malnutrition, hard labor, inadequate sanitation, gross abuse.
Fortnightly camp staff were selected prisoners who were to be destroyed.First of all, they were the ones who were not able to work.They were shot in the head.Every day, 50 people died.
for mass destruction of prisoners sent to Auschwitz and other such camps.Later, in 1943, women were put to death en masse in the territory of the concentration camp.To do this, we use lethal injection, and a crematorium.
In 1944, Ravensbrück (a concentration camp) visited Himmler, who ordered to get rid of all the old and infirm prisoners.To this end we have been invited "experts for the destruction" of Auschwitz, Birkenau.
woman checks in special parades and those who were given pink card with Latin letters "VV" ("death camp, destroy") were transferred to Uckermark.There they waited for his death, although the official documents they were transported to the wellness center, located in Silesia.Initially, the owners of the pink cards executed by a bullet in the head, but the process is too slow, so we decided to built the gas chambers.They died for 2-3 minutes just 150 women.
medical experiments
first experiments on prisoners in the camp began to 01/08/1942.It is proved that for the entire period of the Ravensbrueck medical experimentation have been 86 female prisoners.
purpose of the first experiments was to determine the efficacy of new drugs for the treatment of deep lacerations, including a gunshot.Women made on the right thigh deep to the bone incision and injected to staphylococci, together with other types of bacteria.This provoked the rapid emergence of gangrene and tetanus.
To wound was similar to a gunshot, it is often added to the particles of glass, wood, metal.All actions carried out, as well as their implications carefully recorded.There were the slightest changes in the body of the prisoners - from the appearance of the temperature to death.The results of these studies were presented in a report at the military academy in 1943.Concentration camp Ravensbruck, where the torture took place, not all prisoner was not only famous for this.
purpose of the second experiment was to determine the possibilities of transplantation of bone tissue.For this healthy women broke limbs and imposed gypsum.To see the process of the experiment, guinea cut out of the living tissue to expose the bone.Some women have amputated the healthy limb or shoulder and taken to the surgery in the other camp, where they sewed these body parts to others.
This is just part of the experiments.The most cruel experiments were killing injections of healthy children and abortion in the last trimester fetus with immediate burning.
Security
camp commandant of the camp at various times Tamashke Gunther, Max Bowling, Fritz Zuner.The staff were not only men, but also more than 150 women.After training it took about 4 thousand matrons.They tend to be excessively prone to cruelty and sadism.
«Death March»
During the retreat of the German troops and the evacuation of the camp.04/27/1945 prisoners were driven to the west.Their number reached more than 20 thousand people, about 3 thousand in the camp was abandoned.
Two days later, the guards SS left the prisoners locked in barracks Malchow, and the next morning they were released, the Red Army.
Releasing prisoners
release date is considered to 30.4.1945, when the forces of the 2nd Byelorussian Front were rescued prisoner.A couple of days Ravensbruck (concentration camp), memories of which have disappeared through the ages, it has been filled by doctors who created a makeshift hospital.
Until 1993, the territory of the Soviet troops used as a placement of its parts.
Trials of war criminals
first trials were held in a concentration camp personnel 1946-1948.The result was the 16 death sentences.Some employees
SS fled to the United States, but even decades later they were calculated and deported to face trial in Germany.People who hunted Nazis for their crimes as part of the SS, became known as "Nazi-hunter".
historical memory of the prisoners of the camp
In 1959, the GDR government has given the order to the territory, where there was Ravensbruck (concentration camp), created a National memorial complex "Ravensbrück."As an authentic objects were left following:
- commandant;
- crematorium;
- building with cameras;
- underground road leading to the lake;
- fragment of the wall of the camp.
central element on the lake has become a stele "carrier", designed by Villa Lammert.So Ravensbruck (concentration camp), a monument which was built in Germany for many has become a symbol for all the monstrous crimes against humanity.
In 1996 he released a documentary film, which are interviewed five former women prisoners from different countries - Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia.Director and screenwriter Dutch steel Anet van Barneveld and Annemarie Streybos.It's called the painting "The past is."
In 2005 came the creation of the director of the Federal Republic of Germany Loretta Walz, who collected an interview with former prisoners for 25 years.The documentary includes the stories of more than 200 female prisoners and is called "Women Ravensbrueck."
Ravensbrück (The Second World War 1939-1945) lasted six years, killing tens of thousands of women and children, who did not want this war.
