Ravensbruck Concentration Camp was an exclusive camp for women which during the Second World
War around 132,000 people passed through the barbed wire fences.
It’s believed that around 50,000 of the prisoners who arrived at Ravensbruck never
made it out, and it was a place where the SS guards were incredibly brutal and sadistic.
Thousands of prisoners arrived there from many different countries and there were even
inmates from the UK or America, but the conditions were horrendous, and there were many medical
experiments which were also carried out.
Ravensbruck was also considered a training centre for many female guards, and they were
schooled in how to establish and set up a reign of terror with guards such as Maria
Mandel teaching others how to be violent and intimidating.
Many of the former guards of ravensbruck were executed for their conduct at the camp, but
what is the story of the horrific torture of the women there?
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Heinrich Himmler himself ordered the construction of a camp which was intended to hold just
women or female inmates.
Construction of the camp began in November 1938, and the first prisoners came in May
1939 and the SS moved 900 women from Lichtenburg to the new camp.
But quickly the camp got overcrowded and full, and as time went on in the war the camp was
expanded especially following the Invasion and occupation of Poland.
It’s believed that when Operation Barbarossa was launched, around 5000 women were imprisoned,
and many at this time were suffering from starvation as the food was not sufficient
for the prisoners.
The largest amount of women there at one point was around 45,000, but during the first year
of prisoners being based at the camp it was believed that around 47 women were dying each
day from the conditions, mostly from disease, starvation and overwork, and this figure rose
as the war continued.
There were also a number of children who were imprisoned there, and at first they came with
their mothers who were imprisoned.
Many children then came from other nations, and lots of them died from starvation in the
main camp or in the 70 sub camps where slave labour was administered.
Executions of members of the resistance also occurred at Ravensbruck, as four women who
were members of the British Special Operations Executive were executed there, as were many
other nuns and even a French Princess was killed there dying from dysentry.
There were a number of commandants who served at Ravensbruck, including Max Koegel and Fritz
Suhren who both served for a number of years, and there were many male officers based there.
But amongst the male staff were over 150 female SS guards who were tasked with overseeing
prisoners during the camps day.
Over 4000 female guards were trained there, and many of the women stayed there or went
to different camps such as Auschwitz.
Many of the women became senior figures in the hierarchy of other places, and many of
these guards were notorious for their treatment of prisoners at camps such as Auschwitz, with
Irma Grese, Luise Danz and Dorothea Binz working there.
When prisoners came to Ravensbruck they were forced to wear a colour coded triangle identifying
what kind of prisoner they were, and where they were from.
Many of the women were forced to have their hair shaved, and this was done on entry and
was considered a very painful experience at times with guards hacking their hair away,
and also psychologically it was horrendous for many of the women.
Most of the Jewish women based there were sent to Auschwitz on transports between 1942
and 1943 and many of them were killed straight away inside of the gas chambers in the selections
when they arrived.
Ravensbruck shocked many when they first arrived, but as time went on the conditions broke down.
One former prisoner of a soviet gulag said of Ravensbruck, 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”?’
The first meal in Ravensbruck also often exceeded the expectations of prisoners, but conditions
after this quickly deteriorated, to the point where one former prisoner stated, ‘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.’
One of the most torturous parts of the day at Ravensbruck was the work that the women
were forced to conduct on a daily basis.
All the inmates were forced to conduct heavy labour, and many were involved in building
parts for the B2 rocket.
There were other factories built near Ravensburck, and women were forced to work very long hours.
There was also a horrific industry inside the camp where women were supplied to work
in brothels at Nazi camps, and many of these women were forced to participate in these
activities, and many of the women died quickly because of the abuse they suffered at the
hands of the SS men they were forced to sleep with.
Also they died from the spread of transmitted diseases also.
There was a gas chamber which was established at Ravensbruck, as a hub near to the crematoria
was changed to being a site of mass murder where several thousand women were killed in
the months before the complex was liberated.
Many of Ravensbruck’s prisoners were also shipped to the Uckermark police camp where
they were executed, and around 3,600 prisoners were killed in this manner.
Inside of Ravensbruck was a torture centre which became known as the bunker.
Inside was a number of cells where solitary confinement and torture occurred inside.
Women who found themselves inside here were often starved and also beaten, whipped and
in some cases executed by gunshot.
Many women were forced into being tortured in public where they were whipped in front
of a large crowd, to send a clear message onto other inmates.
Women inside the bunker were often whipped very hard more than 35 times, it was believed
that more than 20 lashes could be deadly, and if 25 lashes were delivered twice, then
it’s likely someone would be killed after this.
Many women inside the bunker were also forced to stand in flooded cells and cold water for
days on end, and many would get hypothermia.
Medical experiments were also very extensive at Ravensbruck, and many of the women were
killed by the sadistic human experimentation.
These experiments were conducted without consent, and in deceiving ways.
Many drugs were tested on inmates, and some experiments involved cursing into leg bones
and muscles and infecting them with deadly bacteria, or introducing glass or wood shards
into a wound to cause infection.
Also a number of medical staff deliberately broke the bones of others, and many of these
patients died from the experiments.
A number died from the infected wounds that did not heal, and a number died from the pain
they were subjected to.
Those who survived were left with permanent damage for the rest of their lives.
Also a number of women were forcibly sterilised, and all had been deceived into doing this.
Many of the guards though were the ones who inflicted such suffering and evil onto inmates.
Many of the women who were later brought to trial were accused of deliberately inflicting
death onto inmates, and also being violent brutes who would attack prisoners.
Many prisoners were beaten if they did not do enough work, and also in the roll call
yards gallows were found and women were hanged if they resisted or broke the camps rules.
These were often left for hours and days to send a message to others, and the guards were
the executioners.
Many female guards became known for their attacks and their brutal and tormenting natures,
and they were the ones that inflicted the torture on a daily basis.
Following the war the Ravensbruck trials took place and many SS guards and female members
of staff were sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity, relating to their
conduct at Ravensbruck.
Fritz Suhren the former commandant was executed, along with many other women.
But the evil of the guards was something that never left the minds of the former inmates
at Ravensbruck.
The camp was different as it was exclusively a women’s camp, but ultimately it was the
same as all of the other deadly camps, in which disease, violence and execution was
common on a daily basis.
As mentioned around 50,000 women never made it out of the camp, and today their stories
remain untold parts of the Second World War.
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