Read If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women Online
Authors: Sarah Helm
Chapter 15: Healing
| 237 | Kazimiera Pobiedzińska : See Grabowska, Beyond , and Falkowska, ‘Report to the History Commission’, Institute for National Memory, Poland. |
| 237 | ‘these unscrupulous Kapos …’ : Höss, Commandant . |
| 238 | On the ground : Pery Broad affidavit, 14 December 1945, NI-11397, Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. |
| 239 | backroom boy : In training SS chiefs found Suhren ‘a little hesitant and awkward’ and lacking ‘military sentiment’ but his conduct was ‘irreproachable’, as were his National Socialist convictions. See Strebel, Ravensbrück . The German prisoner Isa Vermehren noted he had a ‘cultivated demeanour’ (TNA TS/895). Also see note for p. 354, below. |
| 239 | SS corruption : Ramdohr’s so-called ‘investigation’ centred on SS looting in the fur workshop, but according to Ella Pietsch, a particularly observant guard, it was a cover-up. A key witness – a junior SS man called Verchy – was shot before he could spill the beans. Ramdohr told Pietsch that Verchy ‘died a natural death’ but she didn’t believe him (BAL B162/981). |
| 239 | lethal toll : Death figures cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 241 | ‘Each prisoner’s output …’ : Dictators . Also see samples of monthly reports in SA, showing the turnover of ‘useless’ workers and numbers rejected due to ‘death’. In Siemens , Feldenkirchen notes that management found output ‘impressive’ due to ‘exemplary’ fitting out of workshops and ‘order that reigned in the workplace’. |
| 242 | ‘wriggling between …’ : Dictators . Helena Strzelecka, Lund 192, described the couple’s ‘drunken orgies’ in the Revier . Quernheim put on ‘macabre shows’ for those she was going to kill, bathing them first and decorating the bath tub with flowers, then combing their hair. |
| 244 | sneaking little luxuries : Grabowska and Mać kowska, Beyond . |
| 244 | ‘I’ll just try …’ : Beyond . |
| 245 | ‘We were silent …’ : Dreams . |
| 246 | ‘painful sight’ : Michalik, Lund 117. |
| 246 | ‘telling the world’ : Krysia Czyż -Wilgat (née Cycż ) essay, describing the genesis of the plan, in Beyond , and author interview with Wanda Półtawska (née Wojtasik) and Wojciecha Zeiske (née Buraczyń ska). See also Dreams . |
| 248 | ‘It seemed out of context,’ : Author interview. |
| 249 | ‘This was the only story …’ : Author interview. |
| 249 | The letter writing began : Czyż -Wilgat, Beyond . |
| 253 | protest march : The march was described to me by Wojciecha Zeiske and is in testimony of several cited above, in particular Pelagia Mać kowska, and Eugenia Mikulska in Beyond . |
| 254–5 | ‘knew nothing of the operations’ : Lanckoroń ska, ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, AICRC. |
| 256 | a near-mutiny : Czyż letters. See also Kiedrzyń ska, Ravensbrück . |
| 257 | I sat at my typewriter : Dictators . |
PART THREE
Chapter 16: Red Army
For the story of the Red Army women I interviewed more than thirty survivors and have also drawn on others’ interviews, notably those with the German historian Loretta Walz, who was the first Western writer to work on an oral history of the camp.
Trial testimony is limited. Crimes against Russians were not investigated in Western post-war trials, and nor did Russians give evidence, which is in part why the story has never been told. A few ad hoc trials were held at Neustrelitz, near Ravensbrück, by Soviet prosecutors after liberation but details are few.
Papers relating to a Soviet Investigative Commission into Ravensbrück have recently come to light in GARF, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and were invaluable though incomplete.
| 261 | ‘… orders came to mobilise’ : Author interviews. Also see Shneer, Plen , and Mednikov, Dolya Bessmertiya . |
| 262 | 800,000 Soviet women : Cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 263 | ‘Malygina was …’ : The account of the last battle on the Crimean cliffs, the swim, the march west and the shooting of Jews is based on my interviews, as well as the account of Leonida Boyko in Mednikov, Dolya Bessmertiya and Konnikova, GARF. Also Tschajalo, report to the Military Medicine Museum, St Petersburg. |
| 264 | ‘depraved creatures’ : Cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück . Also see Shneer, Plen . |
| 267–9 | used for slave labour : Author interviews. Also see Tschajalo, report to the Military Medicine Museum, St Petersburg, and Shneer, Plen . |
Chapter 17: Yevgenia Klemm
| 270 | From the train : Author interviews. Also: Konnikova, GARF; Tschajalo, report to the Military Medicine Museum, St Petersburg; Losowaja, ARa; and Nikif papers. |
| 272 | ‘war status’ : Author interviews, and see discussion in Strebel, Ravensbrück and Favez, The Red Cross and the Holocaust . |
| 273 | ‘official’ Russians : Dictators . Grete Buber-Neumann’s memoir, first published in West Germany in 1949, was viewed in the East as the work of a fascist traitor and is still today not translated into Russian. |
| 273 | ‘They came from …’ : Hájková, ‘Ravensbrück’, Prague 1960, ARa. |
| 273 | ‘contemptible’ : Dictators . |
| 273 | post-war censorship : On Nikiforova’s fight with censors I drew on interviews with Stella Nikiforova (née Kugelman) and Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow. |
| 274 | born in Odessa : Klemm’s background is based on survivors’ accounts and Georg Loonkin’s papers, including an article he wrote in 1968 for the Communist Flag . The article was groundbreaking as it extolled the heroism of the Soviet women at a time when Hitler’s Red Army prisoners were still viewed by many in Russia as traitors. |
| 276 | I found the camp : Yekaterina Olovyannikova, Nikif papers. |
| 276 | ‘I don’t see Lyusya …’ : Anna Fedchenko, Nikif papers. |
| 278 | ‘extremely beautiful clothes’ : Letter in Nikif papers. |
| 278 | ‘always held high’ : Hájková, ‘Ravensbrück’, Prague 1960, ARa. |
| 278 | more were arriving every day : Increasing overcrowding is described in most accounts of the period; see for example Moldenhawer, Lund 420. Also see the SS photo album showing building work (ARa) and Plewe and Köhler, Baugeschichte Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück . |
| 278 | her favoured Blockovas : Amongst other Blockovas sacked and sent to the bunker when Langefeld was dismissed were Rosa Jochmann, the Austrian trade unionist and Helena Korewina, the Polish countess. |
| 279 | Spitzel : Multiple accounts in Hamburg trial testimony and BAL. See Apfelkammer BAL B162/9818, and Ramdohr’s own testimony, WO 309/416. |
| 279 | ‘strolling up and down …’ : Dictators . |
| 279 | ‘beautiful beast’ : Exactly when Binz officially became chief guard is not clear. At first she shared the post with a newcomer to the camp, Anna Klein-Plaubel, but Klein-Plaubel made little impression on prisoners and claimed in post-war interrogations that she had no direct contact with inmates (WO 309/115). From 1943 onwards most prisoners believe Binz was only chief guard; she certainly had the most power. |
| 279 | Binz paid a visit : Author interview with Ilse Halter, childhood acquaintance of Binz. |
| 280 | ‘ It was 4 a.m . …’ : Nikif papers. |
| 280 | stand outside in the cold and rain : Konnikova, GARF. New forms of water torture were always being invented. Anna Stekolnikova recalled digging sand from the lake floor, standing waist-deep in water to do it. Author interview. |
| 280 | ‘Suddenly from machine to machine …’ : Nikif papers. |
| 283 | sang an aria : Tschajalo, report to the Military Medicine Museum, St Petersburg, says it was an aria from Carmen . Anise Girard recalled singing an aria with the Soviet women when she lived in the same block. |
| 284 | ‘Only the proletarians …’ : Hájková, ‘Ravensbrück’, Prague 1960, ARa, on the march and also author interview with Galina Gorbotsova. |
Chapter 18: Doctor Treite
| 285 | he donated : Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 285 | Youth Camp : Construction of the Uckermark camp was carried out at about the same time the Siemens plant was built, and was also done by prisoners from the men’s camp. Once again the death toll was shocking. Witnesses said ten to fifteen men were shot each day, as they collapsed of hunger and exhaustion, or tried to escape. |
| 286 | ‘I absolutely wanted …’ : Vavak, ‘Siemens & Halske im Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück’, DÖW, Ravensbrück f. 49. |
| 286 | ‘It is incomprehensible …’ : SA uncatalogued file, cited in Feldenkirchen, Siemens . |
| 286 | to work at the death camp : Ehlert, BAL B162/452. |
| 287 | ‘I wanted to go back …’ : Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 287 | ‘As the housing …’ : Ibid. |
| 287 | ‘Under our eyes …’ : Bontemps, ‘Siemens-Arbeitslager-Ravensbrück’, ARa. |
| 287–8 | ‘After three months …’ : Author interview. |
| 288 | ‘It was one of the …’ : Author interview. |
| 288 | had never halted : The sewing shop kept lists of the ‘useless’ too. WO 235/433. |
| 288 | black transports : Schiedlausky, WO 235/309. Also see Tillion, Ravensbrück and her evidence at Rastatt, Archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères, Colmar. Also Anise Postel-Vinay (née Girard), ‘Les exteminations par gaz a Ravensbrück’, in Tillion, Ravensbrück , 3rd edition. |
| 289 | ‘They chose us …’ : Maurel, Ravensbrück . |
| 290 | the contracts : See Strebel, Ravensbrück ; also Speer, The Slave State . |
| 290 | ‘whether because of …’ : Czyż letters. |
| 291 | clandestine radio station : SWIT came under the Politcal Warfare Executive, a British wartime secret service, which oversaw all underground radio propaganda. A women’s branch of SWIT was started too, at the instigation of a Polish woman lawyer called Krystyna Marek. |
| 292 | The first time : Author interview. Poles had also been sent to work as labourers at Hohenlychen clinic, from where they got letters out from in the ordinary mail. |
| 292 | ‘produced a feast’ : Silbermann, ‘SS-Kantine Ravensbrück’, DÖW, Ravensbrück f. 140. |
| 294 | ‘With such a high rate …’ : NI-10815, Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. |
| 294 | ‘… only those suffering …’ : Himmler, NO-1007, Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. |
| 294 | ‘I didn’t want to do it’ : Konnikova, GARF. |
| 294 | at least two abortions : Rosenthal’s officer file, copy in ARa. |
| 295 | family background : See Salvation Army yearbooks (various editions), ‘Jubilee Memories of Lt-Col K. Treite’ and other papers in the Salvation Army archives, London. Family tree in Percy Treite officer file, BA. |
| 295 | reorganised the Revier : See, for example, Maria Grabska, ‘Bericht über das Revier Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück’, ARa. |
| 296 | ‘After her illness …’ : Dictators . |
| 297 | ‘Even the SS guards …’ : Ibid. |
| 298 | ‘Bolshevik cow’ : Konnikova, GARF. |
| 298* | officially secret letter : Cited in Mitscherlich and Mielke, Death Doctors . |
| 299 | ‘The conditions …’ : Dictators . |
| 300 | ‘And looking at me …’ : Tillion, Ravensbrück . |
| 300–1 | This for me : Salvesen, WO 235/305. |
| 301 | ‘no other hospital on earth’ : Salvesen, Forgive . |
| 301 | ‘Are you the daughter …’ : WO 309/149 |
| 301 | ‘Was he a Jew?’ : See Nikoforova report in Buchmann coll. |
| 301–2 | ‘Treite often came …’ : Nedvedova, Prague statement. |
| 302 | ‘I thought it might …’ : Salvesen, Forgive . |
| 302 | ‘Except one day …’ : Author interview. |
| 302 | ‘The conversation turned to …’ : Hanka Housková, handwritten memoir, ARa. Also see Jirásková, Kurzer Bericht über drei Entscheidungen . |
| 303 | Two inmates : Elisabeth Thury, the camp policewoman, said by 1943 the prisoner-beaters lived in a special room in the bunker, WO 235/318. |
| 303 | urinating in terror : Multiple testimonies, for example Epker, WO 309/1150, and Konnikova, GARF. |
| 303 | ‘Flogging of Female Prisoners’ : WO 309/217. |
| 304 | ‘perhaps because he was …’ : Nedvedova, Prague statement. |
| 305 | ‘Armed with a broom …’ : Salvesen, Forgive . |
| 306 | they were to be bribed : Konnikova, GARF, and see French refusal in Les Françaises à Ravensbrück , also Poles refusing in Lund testimony. |
| 306 | ‘Girls, we must show …’ : Quoted in Mednikov, Dolya Bessmertiya . |
| 306 | Today we have learned : Nikif papers. |