ePub The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe; Africa; and the Americas by Eltis in History

Description

Ravensbrück was the only major Nazi concentration camp for women. Located about fifty miles north of Berlin; the camp was the site of murder by slave labor; torture; starvation; shooting; lethal injection; "medical" experimentation; and gassing. While this camp was designed to hold 5;000 women; the actual figure was six times this number. Between 1939 and 1945; 132;000 women from twenty-three countries were imprisoned in Ravensbrück; including political prisoners; Jehovah's Witnesses; "asocials" (including Gypsies; prostitutes; and lesbians); criminals; and Jewish women (who made up about 20 percent of the population). Only 15;000 survived. Drawing upon more than sixty narratives and interviews of survivors in the United States; Israel; and Europe as well as unpublished testimonies; documents; and photographs from private archives; Rochelle Saidel provides a vivid collective and individual portrait of Ravensbrück’s Jewish women prisoners. She worked for over twenty years to track down these women whose poignant testimonies deserve to be shared with a wider audience and future generations. Their memoirs provide new perspectives and information about satellite camps (there were about 70 slave labor sub-camps). Here is the story of real daily camp life with the women’s thoughts about food; friendships; fear of rape and sexual abuse; hygiene issues; punishment; work; and resistance. Saidel includes accounts of the women's treatment; their daily struggles to survive; their hopes and fears; their friendships; their survival strategies; and the aftermath. On April 30; 1945; the Soviet Army liberated Ravensbrück. They found only 3;000 extremely ill women in the camp; because the Nazis had sent other remaining women on a death march. The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp reclaims the lost voices of the victims and restores the personal accounts of the survivors.