If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women (123 page)

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Authors: Sarah Helm

BOOK: If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

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Chapter 2: Sandgrube

25	men were not allowed : See Wicklein, BAL B162/9808, and Maase, BAL B162-9896/9828.
25–6	‘The blanket …’ : Author interview.
27	‘… fancy stuff later,’ : Author interview.
27	syphilis : Agnes Petry’s camp health card, ITS Bad Arolsen. A batch of Ravensbrück prisoner health cards came into the possession of the ITS after the war. These cards, complete with prisoner numbers, names and dates of birth as well as health details, have been a means of confirming some identities.
27	974 prisoners : Figures cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück .
28	‘It will be impossible …’ : Koegel to Eicke, ARa.
29	‘Next I remember …’ : Wachstein, Vienna report, ARa.
31	‘Iron Gustav’ : von Luenink, WO 309/416.
31	‘Be hard …’ : Insa Eschebach, ‘Das Fotoalbum von Gertrud Rabestein’, in Erpel (ed.), Im Gefolge der SS .
32	often on heat : Schiedlausky trial testimony (WO 235/309). Testimony in general contains multiple accounts of serious injury caused by dog bites.
32	‘… give up their God’ : Berta Hartmann and Klara Schwedler, ‘Bei der Sandarbeit’, in Hesse and Harder (eds), ‘… und wenn ich …’ . Testimony of Anna Kanne and others in reports provided by GZJ.
33	‘Abdecken’ : von Luenink, WO 309/416.
33	I looked out : Wachstein, Vienna report, ARa.
34	‘I wish I could be …’ : Maase letters, Studienkreis Deutscher Widerstand 1933–1945.
34	finding Tolstoy : Sturm, Die Lebensgeschichte einer Arbeiterin .
36	‘a young woman …’ : Gostynski, eyewitness account, WL P.III.h. No. 159.
37	On arrival at the camp Jozka : Werner, Olga Benario .
38	lived in Burgenland : I have drawn from accounts, published under pseudonyms, in Amesberger and Halbmayr, Vom Leben und Überleben . I also spoke to Rudolf Sarkozi about his mother Paula, and with the Burgenland Gypsy Ceija Stoika, who was sent first to Auschwitz then Ravensbrück. See also Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide and Thurner, National Socialism and Gypsies in Austria .
39	‘A multicoloured dress …’ : Gestapo transport order, 20 July 1939, in VVN, Olga Benario . The story of the attempt to secure Olga’s release is told in the family correspondence and was also explained to me by Anita Leocadia Prestes. See also Apel, ‘Olga Benario – Kommunistin, Jüdin, Heldin?’, in Eschebach, Jacobeit and Lanwerd (eds), Die Sprache des Gedenkens .
42	She’s lying here dead …’ : Doris Maase also saw the killing of the unnamed Gypsy. WO 309/416.
42	‘suicide by stab wounds …’ : Copy of death notice, ITS/ANF/KL Ravensbrück Indiv-Unterlagen.
42	‘… lunatic asylum must be like’ : Sturm, Die Lebensgeschichte einer Arbeiterin .
43	Zimmer screamed : The prisoner Berta Maurer (and many others) said Zimmer was usually ‘ill-tempered and drunk’, BAL B162/9809.
44	The work that we have : Wachstein, Vienna report, ARa.

Chapter 3: Blockovas

47	‘I saw Binz …’ : Maase, BAL B162/9828.
47	The daughter of : See Duesterberg, ‘Von der “Umkehr aller Weiblichkeit”’ and Johannes Schwartz, ‘Handlungsräume einer KZAufseherin. Also Dorothea Binz – Leiterin des Zellenbaus und Oberaufseherin’, in Erpel (ed.), Im Gefolge der SS . Early signs of sadism were noted by many survivors: Erika Buchmann said Binz beat ‘until she saw blood coming from the nose and the mouth’. She also used ‘the heels of her boots’ to kick women on the ground. WO 235/318.
48	‘treat orders as …’ : Höss, Commandant . For regime change on the outbreak of war in other camps see Sofsky, The Order of Terror and Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell .
49	‘September prisoners’ : Luise Maurer left two important statements; one is in Ludwigsberg (BAL B162/9809) and the other is in Elling, Frauen im deutschen Widerstand .
49	‘until hands were …’ : Moldenhawer, Lund 420. On early Polish arrivals see also Kiedrzyń ksa, Ravensbrück .
51	Kapos : For a study of the Ravensbrück Kapo system, see Annette Neumann, ‘Funktionshäftlinge im Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück’, in Röhr and Bergkamp (eds), Tod oder Überleben?
52–3	‘Zimmer surrounded herself …’ : Wiedmaier statement, ARa
54	‘A Jewish woman …’ : Wachstein, Vienna report, ARa.
55	It was 5 p.m. : LAV NRW R RW-58/54910.
55–6	‘Not married. 138 cm …’ : LAV NRW R RW 58/63779.
56	Dear Mutti : Eckler, Die Vormundschaftsakte .
57	‘bourgeois Jews …’ : Werner, Olga Benario . Olga’s comarade Ruth Werner (née Ursula Ruth Kuczynski) became one of the Soviet Union’s most famous secret agents. Codenamed Sonya, she worked after the war with the German atomic spy Klaus Fuchs, sending British and American nuclear secrets to Moscow.
61	Brother, have you : Leichter family papers.
61	‘My release must have been’ : Hirschkron, WO 309/694.
63	‘The child was ill …’ : Samulon (née Bernstein), BAL B162 9818.

Chapter 4: Himmler Visits

64	On 4 January 1940 : Phillip and Schnell, Kalendarium .
65	‘the cold-blooded murder …’ : Kersten, Memoirs .
65	‘ with such a narrow pedantry …’ : Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler .
67	‘He let the guards …’ : Erna Ludolph, ‘“Das war der Weg, den ich gehen wollte” – Hafterfahrungen in den Frauen-KZ Moringen, Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück und andere Erinnerungen von Erna Ludolph’ in Hesse and Harder (eds), ‘… und wenn ich …’ and many accounts of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ protest in trial testimony and memoirs.
67	cover of war : Hitler said in 1935 that he would deal with the problem of the mentally ill once war broke out. He ‘took the view that in wartime measures for a solution to the problem would be put through more easily and with least friction, since the open opposition which must be expected from the Church could not then, in all the circumstances of war, exert so much influence as it would in the time of peace,’ said Karl Brandt, his personal physician, at the Nuremberg doctors’ trial. The trigger to start was, according to Brandt, a petition in 1939 direct to Hitler from the father of a deformed child requesting a ‘mercy killing’. Brandt went to see the child in Leipzig. ‘It was a child who was born blind, an idiot – at least it seemed to me an idiot – and it lacked one leg and part of an arm’. Cited in Mitscherlich and Mielke, Death Doctors .
68	In one of the rooms : Buber-Neumann, Die erloschene Flamme .
69	Mariechen Öl and Hilde Schulleit : Phillip and Schnell, Kalendarium .
69	Himmler had personally approved : Binz, along with several other accused, testified that each beating – including the number of lashes – had to be approved by Himmler in person. This was proved to be true by Himmler’s ‘flogging order’, uncovered after the war (WO 309/217). In the early days the staff followed Himmler’s ‘verbal orders’ on procedures, which were later written down (see p. 303).

Chapter 5: Stalin’s Gift

73	In February 1940 : Dictators .
77	The communist coup : See Sturm, Die Lebensgeschichte einer Arbeiterin and statement (DÖW 4676 1-6). Also Rentmeister testimony, 30 April 1947, at the trial by Landgericht Dresden against Knoll, BstU Ast 32/48. Also see Annette Neumann, ‘Funktionshäftlinge im Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück’, in Röhr and Bergkamp (eds), Tod oder Überleben? , and see Strebel, Ravensbrück .
79	At that time : von Luenink, WO 309/416. Susi’s daughter, Tanja, first learned of her mother’s death when a card she sent for her birthday was returned with a notification of her death. The cause of death was given as heart failure. Benesch correspondence, DÖW 02110 and 08815.
79	exhumed his corpse : Haag, How Long the Night .
80	her later Stasi file : After the war, Maria Wiedmaier and several others of those meeting on Käthe Rentmeister’s bunk were recruited by the Stasi to spy on the West. See p. 644.
80	Barbara Reimann : Author interview.
81	‘We were’t allowed …’ : Rosa Jochmann, ‘Wenn der Elferblock voll gewesen ist, dan …’, < http://www.doew.at/erinnern/biographien/erzaehlte-geschichte/haft-1938-1945/rosa-jochmann-wenn-der-elferblock-voll-gewesen-ist-dann >.
82–3	Don’t forget : Ibid.
83–4	Prisoners liked : Clara Rupp memoir, ARa.
85	‘She could have got out …’ : Author interview.

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