The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp

by Rochelle G. Saidel

Book Overview

Ravensbr ck 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 Ravensbr ck, including...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 029919860X
• ISBN13: 9780299198602
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Drawing upon interviews and unpublished testimonies

The Jewish Women Of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp by Rochelle G. Saidel (Founder and Director of the Remember the Women Institute in New York and Senior Scientific Research at the Center for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Sao Paulo) is an impressive and seminal contribution to the growing library of Holocaust Studies with its focus upon the fate of Jewish women imprisoned in the infamous Nazi concentration camp of Ravensbruck which was located about 50 miles north of Berlin. Originally designed for 5,000 women, it held six times this number and was the site for the Nazi's methodical program of extermination through slave labor, torture, starvation, shooting, lethal injection, medical experimentation, and gassing. Between 1939 and 1945, some 132, 000 women from twenty- three countries were imprisoned and in addition to the Jews, also included political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses, gypsies, prostitute, lesbians, criminals, and prisoners of war. Only 15,000 women survived by the end of the war (3,000 of them in the camp itself when it was overrun by the Soviet Army on April 30, 1945 -- the rest had been taken to Sweden by the Red Cross, while the remaining women survived a last ditch "death march" by the Nazi's fleeing the advancing Russian troops). Drawing upon interviews and unpublished testimonies from more than sixty survivors in the United States, Israel, Europe, Brazil, and Canada -- as well as documents, oral histories, and historic photography, The Jewish Women Of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp is a memorable and informative compilation of collective and individual portraits of these women and the suffering they endured. Very Highly Recommended.