If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women (130 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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| 489 | ‘excellent’ reports : Salvesen, Forgive . |
| 490 | ‘Suhren told us …’ : WO 235/309. |
| 491 | ‘Now we have gas’ : WO 309/421. |
| 491 | ‘SS Schwarzhuber’s son’ : Langbein, People in Auschwitz . |
| 494 | two male SS hospital orderlies : Very little known about these men. Franz Koehler was Slovakian, Rapp (who is never given a first name) a Yugoslav. Both disappeared after the war. |
| 495 | ‘transferred elsewhere …’ : WO 235/318. |
| 496 | asking for a divorce : Atkins. |
| 497 | ‘Though we had experience …’ : WO 235/318. |
| 497 | ‘You see, we wanted …’ : Author interview. For further testimony of others in this group, see Lund, BAL and TNA. |
| 498 | ‘presumably through exhaustion’ : Mary O’Shaughnessy’s testimony about the Youth Camp is the most valuable. She began writing her account almost as soon as she was liberated, and then made a series of statements for the Hamburg trial. The most vivid details are in her six-page handwritten account (WO 235/516a). Also see WO 309/417 and Atkins. |
| 499 | ‘Rest Camp Mittwerda’ : WO 235/516a. |
| 502 | ‘or I’d be shot’ : WO 235/317. |
| 503 | ‘women were put on half-rations …’ : 5 May 1945 statement, WO 235/309. |
| 506 | ‘It took a long time …’ : WO 235/317. |
| 507 | After that I paid : BAL B162/9814. |
Chapter 34: Hiding
| 510 | ‘When we checked …’ : WO 235/318 |
| 511 | ‘The bodies of the gassed …’ : WO 235/526. |
| 511 | ‘I often stood and counted …’ : Vavak, ‘Siemens & Halske im Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrück’, DÖW, Ravensbrück file 49. |
| 511 | ‘Extermination transport …’ : Useldinger diary, ARa. |
| 512 | ‘She was smiling …’ : Dragan, Lund 239. |
| 514 | It was the new SS doctor : Several prisoners talked about Lucas’s help, particularly Loulou Le Porz and Salvesen in Forgive . |
| 515 | Aka Kołodziejczak : Author interview with Mary Bielicka, and Lanckoroń ska, ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, AICRC. |
| 515 | Denise Dufournier received a parcel : From her autobiographical essay, written before La Maison des Mortes . A copy of the essay was kindly passed to me by her daughter, Caroline McAdam Clark. |
| 515* | she gave interviews : Aka gave interviews to Time magazine and the Hearst Press, with headlines such as SHE SCREAMED THROUGH THE NIGHT. In a radio interview in New York in February 1945, Aka was asked, ‘Is everything we hear about the cruelty of Germans to women and children actually true? |
| 516 | taken away to be shot : Frank Chamier – ‘Frank of Upwey 282’ (see p. 354) – was probably tortured and executed at this time. Chamier was the only MI6 agent known to have parachuted into Germany during the war. He was captured on landing and questioned, probably at the security police HQ at Drogen, five miles from Ravensbrück, which was why he was kept in a cell at the camp. For the story of Chamier, his German torturer and the post-war British cover-up about his death see Sarah Helm, ‘The Wartime Hero Abandoned by MI6’, Observer , 21 May 2005, and ‘A Nazi in Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, Sunday Times Magazine , 7 August 2005. |
| 517 | drawing intricate maps : Krysia’s drawings hang in the Museum of Martyrology ‘Pod Zegarem’ (Under the Clock), a branch of the Lublin Museum (Muzeum Lubelskie w Lublinie). |
| 518 | An incredible, unheard-of thing : This account of the hiding is drawn from Sokulska (WO 235/318), Dreams and several other Polish testimonies. |
| 518 | ‘They’re coming for them! …’ : The uproar is best described in Kiedrzyń ska, Ravensbrück . See also Lanckoroń ska, ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, AICRC. |
| 518 | plunged into pitch-darkness : Lanckoroń ska says that if it hadn’t been for the presence of mind and courage of the Red Army women who short-circuited the lighting at the crucial moment, the hiding might have failed. See ibid., and also the descriptions of the drama in Beyond and Dreams . The same sources contain the account of Suhren’s ‘new initiative’ and his subsequent retreat. |
| 520 | Suhren explained : In a post-war statement Suhren said he had once refused a request from Gebhardt to hand over ‘human material’ for experiments, and as a result Gebhardt ‘insulted’ him and said he’d speak to the Reichsführer and have him sacked. ‘Annoyed and a little frightened’ Suhren then apologised to Gebhardt and was forced to ‘obtain humans’ for him after all. WO 235/318. |
| 521 | ‘The girls succeeded …’ : In her ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, written and delivered while the events were still going on, Lanckoroń ska also said that the SS’s main motive in meeting with the rabbits at this time was to elicit information about Aka Kołodziejczak. They knew Aka had been talking about experiments in the US and that SS names were known. ‘Furthermore new arrivals at the camp were well informed on the subject, which had been commented upon at length by the London wireless’ – a reference to SWIT broadcasts. |
Chapter 35: Königsberg
For the last weeks of Königsberg I drew particularly on
An American Heroine in the French Resistance
, the memoir of Virginia Lake, on Jacqueline Bernard’s 1946 letter about Lilian Rolfe and on a letter sent to me in 2008 by Christian Cizaire, recalling her friendship with Violette Lecoq.
| 523 | more like a pigsty : Guyotat, Königsberg sur Oder . |
| 524 | ‘I want to die …’ : Litoff (ed.), An American Heroine in the French Resistance . |
| 525 | ‘They were all black …’ : Barry, WO 309/417 and Atkins. |
| 526 | ‘This was the last time …’ : Baseden testimony for the Hamburg trial: she was too sick to attend in person (HS 437) and author interviews. For details of the French parachutists, see Tillion, Ravensbrück , and testimony at the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon. |
| 527 | ‘Suhren read out …’ : Schwarzhuber statement in Atkins and WO 235/309. |
| 530 | ‘the remains of …’ : Dufournier, La Maison des Mortes . |
| 533 | ‘a terribly emaciated …’ : de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Dawn of Hope . |
Chapter 36: Bernadotte
| 534 | ‘What ugly creature …’ : Litoff (ed.), An American Heroine in the French Resistance . |
| 535 | ‘The committee has been …’ : ‘Note à l’intention de Monseiur Berber’, 15 September 1944, AICRC, B G 44/CP-227 023. |
| 535–6 | ‘If any different …’ : La Guardia Gluck, Fiorello’s Sister . |
| 534 | ‘The object of this action …’ : KV 2/98. |
| 539 | ‘a pretty caravan …’ : Cited in Persson, Escape from the Third Reich . |
| 539 | via the Swedish diplomatic bag, ‘to the very last detail’ : See Persson, Escape from the Third Reich , and Heger, Tous les Vendredis . Wanda Heger (née Hjort) describes how the neutral Swedes, through their legation in Berlin, had shown ‘extraordinary zeal’ in putting her Norwegian Gross Kreutz cell in touch with the Norwegian delegation in Stockholm. Norwegian officials had begun to view the cell as their own ‘secret committee in Berlin’. |
| 539 | had visited Ravensbrück in December : Johan Hjort, BAL B162/27217. |
| 540 | ‘in green Waffen-SS uniform …’ : Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain . |
| 541 | Gerda Schröder : The German camp nurse is an elusive figure. One of only a handful of German women employed by the SS who were universally liked and even admired by prisoners, she was not called to give evidence at Hamburg, but did give a statement to Vera Atkins, saying she had worked as theatre sister before the war and was ‘forcibly’ transferred to Ravensbrück. She assisted Treite with his experimental operations, including sterilisations and abortions ‘on debilitated German women and gypsies’: WO 235/318. Letters written by Gerda after the war to Sylvia Salvesen, who remained a close friend, show her anguish: ‘I was not a prisoner, but I was locked up. My hands were tied but I tried to help.’ Salvesen archives, Norges Hjemmefrontmuseet. |
| 541 | ‘Goodbye, Sister …’ : Salvesen, Forgive . |
| 541 | pleading with the Hjorts for refuge : Johan Hjort said Lucas turned up at Gross Kreutz on about 23 April, pleading for refuge. On learning that the Americans had stopped at the Elbe he feared falling into Soviet hands. Hjort hid Lucas for a few days then gave him an old bicycle and the SS doctor pedalled away. BAL B162/27217. |
Chapter 37: Emilie
| 544 | ‘Prisoners are sleeping …’ : Cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 544 | ‘It was clear …’ : Cabaj, Beyond . The testimony of the Belsen transport is some of the most horrifying. Stanislawa Michalik, in ibid., says the women were so weak on arrival that ‘just one strong blow was enough for someone to fall down dead. The same thing happened to women and children.’ |
| 545 | ‘The Dutch prisoners …’ : Lanckoroń ska, ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, AICRC. |
| 545 | ‘… with her knee’ : Wasilewska, Lund 434. |
| 546 | ‘Very tall …’ : Author interview. |
| 547 | She told us : Author interview. |
| 548 | ‘That morning …’ : WO 235/516a and related testimony, TNA. |
| 548 | now writing a daily diary : Tillion, Ravensbrück . |
| 549 | She marched : Cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück . |
| 549 | ‘I was in the sickbay …’ : Dictators , and Tillion, Ravensbrück . |
| 550 | We stood : Nedvedova, Prague statement. |
| 553 | In the yard : Emanuel Kolarik, ‘Tábor u jezera’, Roudnice 1945. |
| 554 | ‘I did the electrical equipment …’ : Jahn statement, NO-3109-311, Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. |
| 554 | ‘The motor bus …’ : Lanckoroń ska, ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, AICRC. |
| 554 | a British diplomat : FO 371/50982. |
| 554 | ‘two gas chambers’ : Barry, WO 235/318. |
| 554 | ‘gas vans’ and ‘gas lorries’ : For samples of testimony about gassing trucks see: Erna Cassens, BAL B162/9816; Dragan, Lund 239; O’Shaughnessy, WO 309/690; Tauforova, GARF; Sturm, Die Lebensgeschichte einer Arbeiterin and WO 309/416; and Nedvedova, Prague statement. |
| 555 | ‘to liquidate the entire camp’ : KV 2/98. |
| 556 | ‘We sensed something unusual’ : Dufournier, autobiographical essay, Dufournier family papers. |
| 556 | ‘screamed like a child’ : La Guardia Gluck, Fiorello’s Sister . |
| 556 | Everyone had to stand : Author interview. |
| 556 | ‘We had a selection …’ : Zają czkowska, Lund 50. |
| 558 | ‘skinny, hollow-eyes …’ : Wynne, No Drums, No Trumpets . |
| 560 | final clear-out : See multiple testimony in the Hamburg trial papers, for example WO 235/516a for the trial of Youth Camp guards. Also: Tillion, Ravensbrück ; Nedvedova, Prague statement; testimony in Lund; Les Françaises à Ravensbrück ; and Dufournier, La Maison des Mortes . |
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