Ravensbruck, May 22, 2009

Ravensbruck was designed to hold 5,000 women, but the population grew to more than six times that number, and the living conditions and treatment rapidly deteriorated, Between May, 1939, and June, 1944, an estimated 43,000 women were brought to Ravensbrück. During the next nine months, an estimated 90,000 more came.

The most serious overcrowding occurred after the evacuation of Auschwitz in January, 1945, when an unknown but significant number of Jewish women arrived at Ravensbrück. Toward the end of the war, transports from Auschwitz and other camps in the East increased the population to its maximum, some 32,000 women. The conditions were unimaginable. Barracks built for 250 women later housed 1,500 or 2,000, with three to four to a bed. Thousands of women did not even have part of a bed, and were lying on the floor, without even a blanket. When 500 Jewish women arrived from Hungary in the fall of 1944, they were placed in a huge tent with a straw floor and died in masses. The tent was placed there because of overcrowding caused by the arrival of 12,000 women with children exhiled from Warsaw and the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944. Testimony indicates 5 women were placed in one shelf in the barracks.

The prisoners were organized into categories, each with a distinctive colorcoded triangle, as well as by nationality. Political prisoners (including resistance fighters and Soviet prisonersofwar) wore red triangles; Jehovah's Witnesses wore purple triangles; "asocials" (including lesbians, prostitutes, and Gypsies) wore black triangles; and criminals (common criminals or those who broke Nazi imposed laws) wore green triangles. Jewish women wore yellow triangles, but if they were also political prisoners, they wore a red triangle and yellow triangle that formed a Star of David, or a yellow stripe on top of the red triangle. A letter within the triangle signified the prisoner's nationality. There was a separate adjacent camp that held about 20,000 men.

Exact statistics are impossible to obtain, because the Nazis burned many records before they fled. The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 includes about 48,500 Polish women, the largest national group imprisoned in the camp. There were 28,000 women from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 French women, and thousands from other countries in Europe. There were even British and American women imprisoned at the camp. Approximately 117,000 did not survive. While no exact records are available, an estimated twenty percent of the total population was Jewishmore than 20,000 women.

The site of Ravensbrück concentration camp is just outside the town of Fürstenberg, Germany and is 55 miles from Berlin. The area is secluded but has excellent rail connections to Berlin and is known as a boating resort. Perhaps these geographical features, in addition to new housing, were an enticement to the SS (Schutzstaffel [storm troopers]) to work at Ravensbrück.

We stayed in former SS housing while at Ravensbruck, overnight on May 22 and leaving in the afternon, May 23, 2009.