If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women (146 page)

My introduction to the Polish women came from Wanda Półtawska, who invited me to talk to her in Kraków and put me in touch with other survivors, including other Polish ‘rabbits’ who I found in Gdansk, Lublin and Warsaw. I was assisted in this by Anna Pomianowska, translator, companion and guide. The Polish historian Eugenia Maresch passed on names of Polish survivors in the UK and, later, Eugenia unearthed priceless testimony about the camp in the National Archives.

My first introduction to the French survivors came through Dr Annette Chalut, President of the Ravensbrück International Committee, and Denise Vernay, general secretary of the French survivors’ body, L’Association nationale des anciennes déportées et internées de la Résistance (ADIR), which led me to dozens of French survivors. I was particularly grateful in the early days to Anise Postel-Vinay, Christiane Rème, Michèle Agniel, Françoise Robin and Marie-Jo Chombart de Lauwe, for their hospitality and advice and for pointing me to others, and to Richard de Courson.

In Israel I met Irith Dublon-Knebel, who advised not only the Jewish survivors but on Ravensbrück’s place in Holocaust history. In the Netherlands I was assisted by Joke van Dijk-Bording. Selma van de Perre, a Ravensbrück survivor and my neighbour in West London, helped with countless questions, particular on Siemens. For contacts and background on Austrian prisoners I am indebted to Brigitte

Halbmayr and Helga Amesberger, whose research on the Burgenland Sinti and Roma was of particular value, not least since they were the hardest group to reach. Gerhard Baumgartner gave valuable advice on the Austrian story as did Gerhard Unger at the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes in Vienna.

From the start, and at every later stage, the help of staff at the Ravensbrück Memorial site was invaluable. I am particularly grateful to Insa Eschebach, Director of the Memorial, for her support, to Alyn Bessman for her excellent research and tireless answers to questions, and to Matthias Heyl for his suggestions about themes to pursue. I would also like to thank Sabine Arend, Monika Herzog, Cordula Hundertmark, Janna Lölke, Britta Pawelke and Monika Schnell for advising on the Memorial’s archives and collections, and Sigrid Jacobeit, the former Memorial director, for her advice.

Searching for survivors and testimony, I relied on many local guides as well as translators who often proved as committed to the story as me. Lyuba Vinogradova, the Russian journalist and author, climbed to the top of Moscow apartment blocks and plunged into the St Petersburg’s labyrinthine subways time and again as we sought out survivors and looked for testimony. Marina Sapritsky (now Nahum) translated and advised as we trekked through dusty Black Sea villages to find old ladies who hadn’t known we were coming but who welcomed us, filled their tables with food and talked of Ravensbrück, often for the first time. Ilena Izugrafova took overnight bus trips with me across the Ukraine and then waited outside closed doors for hours, certain they would eventually open – which often they did. Many stepped in to help along the way, including Vyacheslav Gorlinsky, an eighty-five-year-old Buchenwald survivor who had taken on the task of delivering small payments to survivors around Odessa, so knew every woman’s name and address. And I would like to thank Vova Chaplin of Odessa’s Jewish Museum, who explored the city’s archives and graveyards for me and even found the tomb of Yevgenia Klemm. I owe an enormous debt to Georg Loonkin, a former Soviet journalist, who had researched Klemm’s life and gave me his dossier, containing the story of one of the most remarkable women in the camp. William Bland did a terrific job translating Russian archival material.

In Germany I relied heavily on several translators and researchers, none
more so than Henning Fischer, who helped me from beginning to end with every aspect of the story, not only translating but researching, advising, proofreading and answering countless queries. Beate Smandek’s assiduous research and insights in the early stages were invaluable. Helmut Ettinger offered to translate on numerous occasions and always did more, filling in background and context and opening doors. For help with the Polish material I am enormously grateful to Barbara Janic, who gave her time to reading and translating books and testimony. I could not have covered the Polish story without Barbara, who also read the final proofs. Many others kindly provided assistance at various stages, including Andrew Smith, Tanja Röckemann, Sophia Schniederat, Tomasz Małkuszewski, Agnes Fedorowicz, Zakhar Ishov, Daniel Knebel and Esther Hecht, who all translated and helped follow trails. I would also like to thank Nikita Petrov and his staff at the Memorial human rights body in Moscow as well as Len Blavatnik and Eugeniusz Smolar for making introductions in the Ukraine and Poland respectively.

Nobody followed the Ravensbrück trails more widely or more assiduously on my behalf than the Second World War historian Stephen Tyas. With instincts second to none, Steve searched archives in Germany and the UK, finding testimony, often previously unknown. He not only dug in the archives but in the undergrowth of Mecklenburg forest, as we trekked through fields searching for Himmler’s Brückenthin house, or wandered in the desolate woods at Uckermark before driving the 600 miles back to Calais, to catch the midnight ferry home.

Many of my helpers were the children or relatives of survivors. Anita Leocadia Prestes, daughter of Olga Benario, gave me advice and showed me her mother’s letters. Judith Buber Agassi talked about her mother Grete Buber-Neumann and provided insights into the Jewish story, while Tania Szabo shared her memories of her mother Violette and her own research material. I am also grateful to Marlene Rolf, daughter of Ilse Gostynski; Caroline McAdam Clark, daughter of Denise Dufournier; Franz Leichter and Kathy Leichter, son and granddaughter of Käthe Leichter; and to Irena Lisiecki, sister of Aka Kołodziejczak. Maria Wilgat, daughter of Krysia Czyż, and Krysia’s brother Wiesław, talked about Krysia’s secret letter-writing, and Maria passed me copies of all her mother’s letters.

I am indebted to the granddaughter of the SS doctor Walter Sonntag, who agreed to about him and her own life, and passed on his letters.

Jean-Marie Liard, son of Dr Louise Liard-Le Porz, not only passed on advice and translated, but gave up time to carry out research and read my first draft, correcting errors and giving suggestions for which I am enormously grateful.

Dozens of helpers stepped in at different stages: Wolfgang Stegemann
and Wolfgang Jacobeit talked about Fürstenberg; Keith Janes helped find Comet Line women; Anna-Jutta Pietsch talked about Olga Benario; Michael Pinto Duschinsky talked about Siemens. Nikolay Borodatin attempted, with great skill and in no time, to explain life under Stalin’s purges. I should also like to thank David Coulson, Hella Pick, Father Edward Corbould, Martyn Cox, Michael Hegglin, John Hemingway and Krzysiak Lukasz. Ian Sayers and Peter Hore helped with details of British survivors, and Fiona Watson at NHS Grampian Archives and Richard Hunter at Edinburgh City Archives helped trace Mary Young, who was gassed at Ravensbrück. The details on Mary, as well as other lesser-known British women, were particularly hard to come by. This failure to recognise their courage and suffering should bring a shame on their country.

For the stories of the SOE victims and the general context I was again grateful to Professor Michael Foot, Duncan Stuart, Gillian Bennett, Francis Suttill and Tim Mant, who had helped with my first book on Vera Atkins. I made use of material, photographs and memories of John da Cunha, who was part of the prosecution team at Hamburg. My early talks with John were in many ways the inspiration for this book.

It was an enormous pleasure to meet Wanda Hjort, who had brought help to the Ravensbrück prisoners and played a key role in the Swedish White Bus rescue led by Count Bernadotte. For background on the story of the White Buses, I am also grateful to the Swedish historian Sune Persson, to Ricki Neumann and to Bertil Bernadotte.

Several German historians advised on specific aspects of the camp history. Bernhard’s Strebel’s exhaustive study of Ravensbrück was an essential resource. I am particularly grateful to Stefan Hördler, whose work on the SS at Ravensbrück, Lichtenburg and other concentration camps has been ground-breaking, and who readily sent material, corresponded and met to talk. Johannes Schwarz, Simone Erpel, Christa Schikorra, Linde Apel, Loretta Walz, Irmtraud Heike, Susanne Willems and Grit Philipp were among other historians who helped.

For the wider historical background I am grateful to Sir Martin Gilbert, who generously gave time to talk, and made suggestions. I would also like to thank Anne Applebaum, Antony Beevor, David Cesarani, Richard Evans, Peter Longerich and Nikolaus Wachsmann, who all gave advice.

Lord Weidenfeld passed on his unique memories of the period and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a survivor of Auschwitz, kindly talked of her time in the camp.

Others whose assistance I have valued include the journalist Andrew Gimson, the columnist Joan Smith, the professor of English Philip Davis, the biographer Nancy Wood and the politician and author Denis MacShane.
There are countless others who lent books, looked up references, passed on names and testimony found while researching their own book or simply encouraged me at difficult moments. There are too many names to mention here; I am grateful to them all.

Material was drawn from archives and libraries in a dozen countries and I am indebted to the archivists for their advice and help. In the UK I was particularly reliant on staff at the National Archives, the London Library, the Weiner Library, the Imperial War Museum, the Polish Study Trust, the Polish Institute and Library and the BBC Written Archives at Caversham. In France I was assisted by staff at the Musée de la Resistance in Besançon, the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (BDIC) in Paris and in Germany at the Bundesarchiv in Ludwigsberg, the Stasi Archives in Berlin and the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen Staatsarchiv. I would like to thank Frank Wittendorfer at the Siemens Archives, Munich, and Barbara Oratowska at the Muzeum Martyrologii ‘Pod Zegarem’ in Lublin.

At the ITS (International Tracing Service) in Bad Arolsen I received help from Reto Meister and his staff, and at the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) in Geneva by the chief archivist Fabrizio Bensi. In Jerusalem, Alexander Avram at Yad Vashem gave valuable advice. I am also grateful to Brigitta Lindholm at Lund University Library, to staff at Oslo’s Hjemmefrontmuseet and to Gro Kvanvig at Stiftelsen Arkivet, Kristiansand.

My gratitude to the Ravensbrück survivors themselves is, of course, immeasurable. I am grateful not only for their memories, their patience and their inspiration, but for their hospitality and friendship as I asked them – sometimes time and again – to recall a painful past.

Amongst those women I met were women who fought at Stalingrad, defended the Crimea, dropped by parachute into Nazi-occupied France, stared Himmler in the eye, permed Dorothea Binz’s hair and marched in protest to the commandant of a concentration camp. I was honoured to meet every one of them; each story enriched my own life.

I would like to express particular gratitude to Yvonne Baseden, who I met many times, and whose modesty about her own remarkable courage left a profound impression. Anise Postel-Vinay (née Girard) provided the most incisive analysis of the SS regime and of the French group. The Red Army parachutist Olga Golovina talked with humour but gripped my hand with steel. Loulou Liard-Le Porz was not only an oracle on Ravensbrück but also as a friend, and provided confirmation that humanity can surmount the greatest degradation. Jeannie de Clarens (née Rousseau) I will remember for her pure courage. I will not forget the tears in the eyes of Zofia Cisek (née
Kawińska) as she recalled the deaths of fellow rabbits, the inability of Stella Nikoforova (née Kugelman) to smile, nor Nelly Langholm’s sheer delight at having come out alive. They all gave me many, many hours of their time.

While grateful for help with my research, support during the writing has been invaluable too. I would like to thank those who advised on early drafts, including Katrina Barnicoat, Tony Rennell and Bernardo Futscher Pereira. I am particularly grateful for the suggestions and support of Richard Tomlinson, who advised on the first draft, made countless excellent suggestions and has always been on hand to help.

I have strived for accuracy, but there are bound to be errors in the text, and I hope where this occurs readers will alert me so corrections can be made.

I would like to thank my agent Natasha Fairweather for her unfailing support, and my editors at Little, Brown, Ursula Mackenzie and Tim Whiting, who have waited patiently, offering guidance along the way. I am also grateful to Ronit Wagman, my editor at Doubleday, and to Zoe Gullen at Little, Brown for suggestions and encouragement. In the last months Zoe Gullen took on the task of editing the final text, which she has done with remarkable skill, judgement and patience.

I owe a very great deal to my own family. I will always be grateful to my father, a doctor on the Normandy battlefields, whose curiosity about the world and love of literature first drew me to writing, and to my mother, who served as a Wren in the Royal Navy. My daughters Jessica and Rosamund have helped in every way they can.

The writing was not easy and the words would not have emerged onto the page at all without the help of my husband Jonathan, who has talked the story through, read every chapter more than once, edited and given advice and encouragement every step of the way. I sincerely doubt that any other author has ever had such support from a partner. I owe him my deepest thanks.

Sarah Helm
is the author of
A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE
and the play
Loyalty
, about the 2003 Iraq War. She was a staff journalist on the
Sunday Times
and a foreign correspondent on the
Independent
, and now writes for several publications. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.

*
Nazis pointed to scientific studies showing that women had smaller brains than men and were therefore obviously inferior.