Ravensbruck: Everyday Life in a Women's Concentration Camp / Edition 1

by Jack Morrison

Overview

Attempting to reconstruct the workings of everyday life in the concentration camp at Ravensbrück, the only camp in the Nazi system designed for women, Morrison examines the prisoners’ social relationships with each other and their overlords; prisoner activities, from bartering to storytelling, from political maneuvering to coping with body lice, and, of course, the kinds of forced labor performed (Ravensbrück was a labor camp, not an extermination camp); and the occurrences of sickness, death, and killing at the camp. The volume is illustrated with drawings by inmates, and photos by the SS. This book is designed to make it possible for today’s generation of students and general readers to imagine what daily life in a concentration camp may have been like.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558762183
Publisher:	Wiener, Markus Publishers, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/10/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.42(h) x 0.98(d)

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xii
	Introduction: National Socialism and Women	1
Part I	Beginnings
1.	The Women's Camp and the SS	9
	The Early Concentration Camps and Women	10
	The Creation of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp	14
	The SS Administration	19
	The Female Overseers	23
2.	Arriving	29
	First Impressions	31
	The Trauma of Processing	32
Part II	The Women Prisoners
3.	Green and Black Triangles: Criminals, Asocials & Gypsies	37
	Categories	38
	Criminals	40
	Asocials	43
	The Youth Camp	46
	Gypsies	48
4.	Lavender Triangles: Jehovah's Witnesses	54
	Intransigence and Persecution	55
	The "Volunteer" Prisoners	58
5.	Yellow Triangles: Jews	61
	German Anti-Semitism	62
	Nazi Anti-Jewish Programs, 1933-39	64
	Jewish Women at Ravensbruck	69
6.	Red Triangles: Politicals	75
	Communists	76
	Members of Foreign Resistance Groups	81
	Soviet Army Women and "Special Prisoners"	82
7.	Nationalities	85
	Nationality Conflicts	86
	The Poles	91
	The French	94
8.	The Prisoner Administration	99
	Block and Room Seniors	100
	Other Prisoner Officials	105
	The Haves and Have-Nots	106
Part III	Living and Working at Ravensbruck
9.	The Camp Routine	109
	Roll Calls and Food	110
	Weekends	116
	Clothing and Possessions	119
10.	Friendships	124
	Camp Families	125
	Intimacy and Homoerotic Relationships	129
11.	Little Pleasures	134
	Mail	135
	Parcels	140
	Getting the News	141
	Bartering	142
	Money	144
12.	The Finer Things in Life: Cultural and Educational Activities	146
	Poetry	147
	Paintings and Drawings	157
	Handicrafts, Singing, and Storytelling	163
	Educational Programs	166
13.	Keeping Clean (and Other Personal Matters)	169
	Lice and Delousings	170
	Menstruation	173
	Dysentery	174
	Rape	177
14.	Two Factories	179
	The SS Textile Factory	181
	The Siemens Factory	186
15.	Work Crews	189
	Administrative and Kitchen Work	191
	Gardens and Farm Work	193
	Internal Work Crews	195
	The "Availables"	201
	Prisoner Prostitutes	201
16.	The Subcamps	205
	Overview of a Mini-Empire	207
	Life and Work in the Subcamps	210
	Neubrandenburg	211
	Dresden and Leipzig	213
	Neustadt-Glewe and Malchow	215
	German Civilians and Ravensbruck Prisoners	218
17.	Crime and Punishment	223
	"Minor" Punishments	224
	The "Idiots' Room"	226
	The Punishment Block	228
	The Bunker	231
	Sabotage and Escapes	233
	Executions	236
18.	Sickness and Health	239
	Sick Call and the Infirmary	240
	Extermination through Work	243
	Medical Experiments	245
	Typhus and Tuberculosis	249
19.	The Men's Camp	252
20.	Children	261
	Children in the Camp	262
	The 1944 Christmas Parties	267
	Births in the Camp	270
	The Children's Transports	273
Part IV	From Work Camp to Extermination Center
21.	The Final Winter	275
	Overcrowding	276
	The Tent	278
	Corpses and Cremations	282
	Uckermark: A Killing Place	286
	The Gas Chamber	289
	The Chaos of Dissolution	291
22.	April 1945
	Red Cross Transports	296
	Death Marches	300
	Liberation by the Red Army	305
	Conclusion	307
	Notes	311
	Glossary and Abbreviations	342
	Bibliography	345
	Index	359

Editorial Reviews

A comprehensive history of the only concentration camp entirely for women, this book tells the story of Ravensbr ck from the moment when the first 867 women were transported to the camp in 1939 until the moment when most of the remaining inhabitants were forcibly marched away from it in 1945. Morrison, a professor of history at Shippensburg University, spent two years meticulously conducting research at (and helping to organize) the archives at the former concentration camp. Since the Nazis destroyed most of the camp's records, he relies heavily on memoirs and interviews to provide a comprehensive picture of the administrative hierarchy and the prisoners' daily lives. Ravensbr ck, he explains, was a labor camp rather than an extermination camp--still, tens of thousands of women died there due to the harsh conditions and the brutal treatment. He notes that although the inmates were divided into groups (designated by differently colored triangles) depending on their status as political prisoners, criminals, prostitutes, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses or Jews, they worked together to better their chances of survival, by sharing food, assisting ill women and "adopting" the younger prisoners. Most important, Morrison takes issue with Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, arguing that most of the German townspeople near the camp did not know much about it and that many of those who did treated the inmates with kindness. In contrast to survivor accounts such as Genevi ve de Gaulle Anthonioz's The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbr ck, Morrison's study has a detached, scholarly feeling that contrasts with the drama of what he relates. Photos and drawings by former Ravensbr ck inmates. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Ravensbruck was the only Nazi concentration camp that was built and operated exclusively for women prisoners. It was a labor camp located within Germany, not far from Berlin. Originally designed for indoctrination and industrial production (and mainly administered by the inmates), by war's end it had degenerated into just another overcrowded death camp with an agenda of mass extermination and the gas chamber (More than 140,000 Ravensbruck inmates did not survive the war). Jack Morrison's Ravensbruck: Everyday Life In A Women's Concentration Camp is an informative case study of how women of different nationalities and social backgrounds coped for years with a chronic lack of food and basic sanitation, illnesses, prejudices, and death. It was through asserting courage, love, and carving out their own cultural life under the harshest of conditions that the survivors overcame fear, hunger and hate. Ravensbruck is an impressive, much appreciated, highly recommended addition to Holocaust studies reading lists and library reference collections.