Read If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women Online
Authors: Sarah Helm
Chapter 11: Auschwitz
| 179 | ‘… disastrous confusion’ : Buber-Neumann, Die erloschene Flamme . |
| 180 | At first I didn’t : Author interview. |
| 181 | 3 March 1942 : Himmler’s desk diary for 3 March 1942 states that he visited FKL Ravensbrück between 1100 and 1400 hours. Witte et al. (eds), Dienstkalender . |
| 182 | entire corps of guards : See Langefeld interrogation, 26 December 1945, NARA, NAW RG 338-000-50-11; also Dictators and Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 182 | 26 March : According to Danuta Czech, the chronicler of Auschwitz, they arrived on a Thursday. See Czech, Kalendarium . |
| 182 | We have little information : The political prisoner Klara Pförtsch went as a Kapo and amongst the guards sent to Auschwitz remembers Hasse and Drechsel, terming the latter a ‘bloody bitch’ (BAL B162/9809). |
| 183 | Philomena Müssgueller : WO 309/412. See report in this file dated 19 April 1947 from US investigators, saying that a Philomena Muesgueller [ sic ], alias Mimi Heller, had been caught and – according to her statement – was an ‘oberkapo’ in several camps since 1939. At Ravensbrück she confessed to having been in charge of the punishment company and at Auschwitz she ran the ‘infamous Kommando Sauna’ (the clothing stores at the gas chambers). The notes say Jewish prisoners who had been at Auschwitz accused Müssgueller of torture and ‘causing death’. There are also notes about a possible extradition to the British sector to stand trial, but she was not apparently charged or tried. Inteviewed by German investigators in April 1965, she described herself as ‘a housewife’ living in Oberpfalz. She admitted to having been in Ravensbrück as a Stubova, saying she was ‘released’ in 1942, which was in fact when she was posted to Auschwitz. She says nothing about Auschwitz in this later interview and, not apparently pressed on the issue, was allowed to go home (BAL B162/9818). |
| 183 | vivid accounts : Luise Mauer report in Elling, Frauen im deutschen Widerstand . Teege statement, ‘Hinter Gitter und Stacheldraht’, ARa 647. |
| 183 | arrived from Poprad : Czech, Kalendarium . |
| 185 | ‘piled high to the ceiling’ : Höss, Commandant . |
| 187 | ‘I took the first …’ : Langefeld interrogation, December 1945, NARA, NAW RG 338-000-50-11. Also see Buber-Neumann, Die erloschene Flamme . |
| 188 | Nora Hodys : See Langbein, People in Auschwitz . |
| 189 | 18 July 1942 : See Hoss, Commandant , and Rees, Auschwitz . |
| 191 | Gorlitz : See Buber-Neumann, Die erloschene Flamme , Langefeld interrogation, December 1945, NARA, NAW RG 338-000-50-11, and Höss, Commandant . |
Chapter 12: Sewing
The story of the sewing shop has been pieced together from scores of prisoner accounts, including: Wiedmaier, untitled statement on the sewing shop, 29 December 1946, ARa; Alfredine Nenninger, ‘Erlebnisse in Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück und bei den Wirtschaftsbetrieben der Waffen-SS’, DÖW; Müller,
Klempnerkolonne
;
Dictators
; Wińska,
Zwyciężyły Wartości
; and testimonies at Lund as well as French and Russian statements.
| 194 | sold toys : Dą brówska, BAL B162/9813. |
| 194 | local links : Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 195 | Herr Wendland’s work : Dictators . |
| 196 | ‘reduced the impetus …’ : Moldenhawer, Lund 420. |
| 197 | circle of friends : See Feldenkirchen, Siemens , the company’s official history. |
| 197 | To make up the shortfall : By the end of 1940, Siemens was heavily reliant on Jewish labour in Berlin. The Jewish workers were kept separate and had less favourable working conditions from others. Ibid. |
| 198 | adapted for precision work : Ibid. |
| 198 | shipment of Germany’s Jews : When the deportations began Carl Friedrich von Siemens told a Jewish Siemens manager he found it ‘upsetting’ to have to dismiss him. However, von Siemens added that if he had objected to Hitler’s policies he ‘would be risking the existence of the entire house of Siemens’. Cited in ibid. |
| 198 | ‘encourage the men …’ : Himmler to Pohl, 23 March 1942, BA NS 19/2065. See also Sommer, ‘Warum das Schweigen?’. |
| 198 | ‘The women chosen …’ : Schiedlausky, WO 235/309. |
| 199 | Texled was professionally run : See Strebel, Ravensbrück . Trial testimony is divided between the first, main case in which Binder was a defendant (WO 235/305–319), and the trial of Opitz and Graf a year later (WO 309/1150). |
| 199 | ‘women’s work’ : Cited in Iris Nachum and Dina Porat, ‘The History of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp as Reflected in its Changing and Expanding Functions’, in Dublon-Knebel (ed.), A Holocaust Crossroads . |
| 200 | word comes that she has died : Accounts of such deaths are plentiful. See, for example, Ilse Gohrig and Neeltje Epker, in WO 235/433 and WO 309/1150. |
| 201 | Suddenly Schinderhannes : See Alfredine Nenninger, ‘Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück Abteilung Industriehof’, DÖW, Ravensbrück f. 143. |
| 202 | Kawurek, Ryczko and Zaremba : Wiń ska, Zwyciężyły Wartości |
| 203 | ‘It was a kind of history lesson …’ : Dragan, Lund 239. |
| 203 | ‘ took the money and gold …’ : Wiedmaier, WO 309/42. She also talks of army uniforms coming for repairs ‘covered in blood and muck’. |
| 203 | ‘laden with Jewish furs’ : Biega, BAL B162/9818. |
| 203 | ‘ lifting our chins …’ : Dragan, Lund 239. |
| 204 | ‘Even today when …’ : Michalik, Lund 117. |
| 204 | ‘beautiful sunny day’ : Dreams . |
| 205 | ‘Fanatical patriot …’ : Bielicka. Kiedrzyń ska, in her introduction to Beyond , said evidence emerged that the death sentences on these women had not been formally agreed by Odilo Globocnik, the Lublin police chief. |
| 205 | sewing on buttons : Młodkowska, Beyond . |
| 206 | ‘scream of unbearable longing …’ : Dreams . |
| 207 | ‘I knew they were …’ : Falkowska, ‘Report to the History Commission’, Institute for National Memory, Poland. |
| 208 | ‘like medieval penitents’ : Dictators . |
| 208 | ‘Pola pointed a finger …’ : Dreams . |
| 208 | ‘a truck carrying prisoners …’ : Pietsch, BAL B162/981. |
| 208 | ‘At 6 p.m. roll-call …’ : Adamska, WO 235/318. |
| 208 | ‘We stood there …’ : Dictators . |
Chapter 13: Rabbits
| 210 | ‘caused by bacteria …’ : Quoted in MacDonald, The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich . |
| 211 | They were holding : Hozáková, Und es war doch . Also see Russell, The Scourge of the Swastika , and Uwe Naumann (ed.), Lidice: Ein böhmisches Dorf (Frankfurt: Röderberg, 1983). |
| 212 | Karl Gebhardt had no interest : Interrogated by the Americans in October 1945, Gebhardt poured scorn on other high-up Nazi doctors, saying, unlike him, they had joined the SS for personal advancement. Had he (Gebhardt) not carried out the sulphonamide tests they would have had no scientific basis at all and been assisgned to some incompetent like Dr Rascher, whose experiments were ‘ridiculous’. For Himmler, the experiments were simply a way of finding ‘a new device’ to impress the Führer. NARA M 1270. |
| 213 | ‘visiting some relations …’ : Cited in Mitscherlich and Mielke, Death Doctors . |
| 213 | born at Hohenlychen : Himmler, The Himmler Brothers . It was a difficult forceps delivery. |
| 214 | ‘you horse …’ : Ostermann, Buchmann coll. |
| 214 | Wanda was picked out last : The doctors said at Nuremberg that during what they called this ‘second’ phase of experiments from September to early October, thirty-six women were chosen, divided into three groups of twelve. In total seventy-four Polish women were operated on. See Mitscherlich and Mielke, Death Doctors . |
| 218 | ‘How many deaths …’ : Ibid. |
Chapter 14: Special Experiments
| 223 | Kazia Kurowska : Kurowska had tried to escape the camp a few weeks before the experiments, as if instinct had pre-warned her. She illegally joined an outside work group then ran from one work team to another ‘like a frightened deer’ before being caught. See Grabowska, Beyond . |
| 224 | spies through keyholes : Mą czka, Lund 228. |
| 226 | ‘Look here,’ : Dreams . |
| 226 | Gebhardt left : Zofia Mą czka, the Polish doctor, later said that one day she overheard Oberheuser admit that ‘there was at least one good thing about the operations: I got a bit of practice with surgery, and I have a chance of getting a position at Hohenlychen now’. |
| 227 | ‘I can also imagine …’ : Cited in Mitscherlich and Mielke, Death Doctors . Himmler’s mania for experimentation became clear to Keith Mant, the British war crimes pathologist, when preparing for the Nuremberg cases. ‘I discovered when reading the SS documents in Nuremberg during preparation for the trial of the doctors that he [Himmler] had personally read and initialled virtually every document dealing with human experiments which were in the SS HQ files’. Note on a file, Atkins. |
| 227 | ‘showed unobjectionably Nordic …’ : Mitscherlich and Miekle, Death Doctors . |
| 227–8 | ‘very quickly grasped …’ : Ibid. |
| 228 | opposed Stumpfegger’s tests : Nuremberg testimony, cited in ibid. Details of these experiments also in Mą czka, Lund 228, and Mant report, WO 309/416. |
| 231 | A little Gypsy girl : Housková, BAL B162/455. |
| 231 | ‘marks of hypodermic needles …’ : Dictators . |
| 232 | mostly to Auschwitz : In autumn 1942 the Ravensbrück women were still unclear what happened at Auschwitz, but news arrived with a group of ‘extreme’ Jehovah’s witnesses, sent from Ravensbrück to Auschwitz for making trouble, then returned – nonsensically – a few weeks later to be executed. Grete Buber-Neumann managed to speak to one of them, who said: ‘You won’t believe it, I know, but living human beings are thrown into the fire there, including little children. Jews chiefly.’ Grete didn’t believe her. She looked delirious. She’d obviously gone mad. See Dictators . At the same time as the Jewish prisoners left for Auschwitz in October 1942, so Emma Zimmer, the senior guard, was transferred to work there; she said her job was supervising the SS accommodation (WO 309/1153). |
| 232 | ‘They were often sick …’ : Hoffmann, Buchmann coll. |
| 233 | a Ukrainian girl : Winkowska, Lund 285, and Grabowska, Beyond . There were at least ten of these ‘special experiments’, says Zofia Mą czka (Lund 228). |
| 234 | Russian doctor in Kiev : Mitscherlich and Miekle, Death Doctors . |
| 234 | shoulder blade : Ibid, and Mą czka, Lund 228. |
| 234 | One of these women : Also see Grabowska, Beyond . |