Ravensbruck

by Sarah Helm

  Belsen fodder: Göritz interrogation, 16 April 1964, BStU ZUV 1.

  ‘agreed that she herself…’: Göritz interrogation, 18 December 1964, BStU ZUV 1.

  ‘I believe a Soviet woman…’: Samoilova statement to Stasi, 17 July 1964, BStU ZUV 1. When I interviewed Samoilova I hadn’t seen her ‘confession’ to the Stasi apparently owning up to becoming a ‘Spitzel’. I contacted Valentina again and asked for her response. Valentina repeated that she recalled the Stasi interrogation but had never said anything against Malygina; as she did not understand German she had not been able to check what had been written down at the time.

  ‘at the operating table…’: 1956 letter, Nikif papers. Tatyana Pignatti herself was suspected by several comrades, including Antonina Nikiforova, of working after the war ‘for the organs’ (i.e. SMERSh). Antonina told Stella Kugelman-Nikoforova that Pignatti was one of those who denounced people. ‘You had to be careful with Pignatti,’ said Stella when we met in St Petersburg. ‘She behaved all right in the camp but afterwards she was transformed. Maybe she had been persecuted and became sick. Who knows.’ See note for p. 643, below, on Stella’s post-war family ties to Antonina.

  Chapter 20: Black Transport

  ‘the potato-cake girl’: Author interviews with Wanda Heger (née Hjort), Nelly Langholm and Norwegian survivors. Also see Heger, Tous les vendredis, and Persson, Escape from the Third Reich.

  Sippenhaft: See Padfield, Himmler.

  ‘Die Salvesen…’: Salvesen, Forgive.

  I rang the bell: Author interview.

  ‘magnificent hospitality’: Cited in Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream.

  ingratiating letters: Favez, The Red Cross and the Holocaust.

  hitherto sceptical: The Allied Joint Declaration, issued on 17 December 1942, was supported not only by Britain, the US and the Soviet Union, but eight governments in exile and General de Gaulle’s French National Committee. For debate see Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies.

  crisis meeting: For a vivid account of this meeting, see Moorehead, Dunant’s Dream.

  the designation NN: Wanda was one of the first, if not the first, to get news of the Nacht und Nebel order out to the West. Author interview.

  ‘In the concentration camp…’: Polish Study Trust collection 3.16, note of 30 July 1943 relating to signal reveived on 29 July 1943.

  Regarding experiments: Polish Study Trust collection 3.16, note of 8 May 1943. Also see the note of 22 May 1943 in the same collection, which shows that an appeal was also sent by the Polish Embassy in the Vatican to the Pope on 20 March, asking His Holiness to intervene on behalf of the several hundred Polish women imprisoned in Ravensbrück.

  ‘We could hear motorbikes…’: Sokulska, Lund. Also see Wińska, Zwyciężyły Wartości, Kiedrzyńska, Ravensbrück, and Dąbrówska, BAL B162/9813.

  Judas soup: Młodkowska, Beyond.

  shinbone snapped: Sokulska, Lund.

  ‘crumpled up in the bed…’: Salvesen, Forgive.

  death rates were rising: Death rates were also high among women given late and botched abortions who were susceptible to TB. And new arrivals were in a far worse condition than before. A Polish woman arriving in 1943 was handcuffed en route but her hands were so thin ‘my handcuffs fell off’ and the clogs issued at the camp were ‘so heavy I could not lift them off the ground’. Cieplak, Lund 143.

  five stretchers: Sprengel, ‘Wie Siemens an Häftlingen verdiente’.

  ‘pitiable’: Cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück.

  ‘Many women had to be…’: Sprengel, ARa; also in Strebel, Ravensbrück.

  ‘capitalist toes’: Maurel, Ravensbrück.

  According to Carmen Mory: WO 309/419.

  ‘I asked him if…’: Some of Mory’s most credible evidence, particularly her description of black transports, emerged during a detailed interrogation carried out by the Belgian War Crimes Commission in 1946; a copy is filed in WO 309/419.

  ‘showed affection…’: Tillion, Ravensbrück.

  ‘Transports of the sick…’: Czyż letters.

  I went to Triete: Salvesen, Forgive. For details on selections, Treite’s role and selections also see statements and trial transcripts in WO 235/317 and 318 and Mant report, WO 309/416.

  ‘Difficult decisions…’: Boy-Brandt, ‘Überlick über die Reviertätigeit vom März 1942–Ende 1945’, Buchmann coll.

  ‘One day a woman…’: Tillion, Ravensbrück.

  ‘Then we hid her…’: Author interview.

  ‘They beat us…’: Quoted in Mednikov, Dolya Bessmertiya.

  ‘I give you my word…’: Mory, WO 309/419.

  Yvonne Le Tac: Testimony in Fonds (collection) Tillion, Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon.

  ‘sent to Lublin…’: Sprengel, ARa.

  On 3rd Feb 44: Czyż letters.

  Later came more news: Zofija Daniejel-Osojnik, report in ARa. Anna Hand, one of the Polish prisoner secretaries, said that such was the chaos of the Majdanek transport that nobody knew ‘of the 800’ who had finally gone, so a woman guard called Laurenzen went to Majdanek to find out. ‘With gruesome cold-bloodedness she reports back that out of 800 prisoners, sixteen died during the transport in the cattle waggons. The waggons had been left unopened on a siding for several days. The women had no blankets, very little straw, and had not been given any food or water. They had had nowhere to relieve themselves.?’ WO 235/318.

  ‘Vivisection in Ravensbrück’: FO 371/39396.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 21: Vingt-sept Mille

  The inspection by Himmler: Tanke, BAL B162/472.

  ‘depressed in mind…’: Kersten, Memoirs.

  it was only when her brother: Isa’s account of her brother’s defection and how it led to her arrest is given in a long statement to British investigators in Capri in May 1945. Isa found herself in Capri with a group of other Allied hostages (Prominente) who had been smuggled out of Germany and into Austria under SS escort in the last days, and were then liberated by the British who took them to Capri for immediate debriefing. See Vermehren statements, TNA TS 26/895.

  so, in the strictest secrecy: Himmler’s letter to Burkhardt, dated 21 July 1942, in reply to Burkhardt’s letter of 1 June 1942, is in the ITS archives (TID 800 176). For later correspondence see Favez, The Red Cross and the Holocaust, and below, p. 576.

  ‘protected’ Jews: On ‘protected’ Jews, see Buber Agassi, Jewish Women Prisoners of Ravensbrück.

  Chapter 22: Falling

  ‘Clap’ Wanda: Lundholm, Das Höllentor.

  ‘Holy Ghost–Kommando’: Baumann, BAL 162/448.

  ‘It is for the Reich…’: WO 309/416.

  Someone said: ‘Come and see…’: Author interview.

  ‘were very emotional…’: Author interview.

  unprecedented visit: Siemens monthly report, 23 February 1944, SA.

  ‘high culture’: Lanckorońska, Those Who Trespass Against Us.

  I came onto: Author interview.

  ‘From my window…’: WO 309/149

  promptly destroyed: Germain Tillion said in evidence at the Rastatt trial that she received information from camp secretaries and others to suggest that about sixty small ‘black transports’ left the camp in 1943 and 1944. Tillion, ‘Procès Verbal’, 11 June 1949, Tribunal Général de Rastatt; held at Archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères, Colmar.

  Chapter 23: Hanging On

  ‘Oh yes, Elfriede…’: Author interview.

  ‘Sometimes they would…’: Author interview.

  ‘and put it at the back…’: Silbermann, ‘SS-Kantine Ravensbrück’, DÖW, Ravensbrück f. 140.

  ‘international association’: Moldenhawer, Lund 420.

  ‘Every morning…’: Lundholm, Das Höllentor.

  ‘She believed…’: Author interview.

  ‘At first…’: Author interview.

  I asked her: Author interview.

  ‘…punched me violently…’: Mary O’Shaughnessy statement, Atkins.
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  Chapter 24: Reaching Out

  ‘We are in touch…’: Dufournier family papers, courtesy of Caroline McAdam Clark.

  German officials evacuated: Falkowska said ‘the big Eichmann office’ was re-located here, in other words the staff of part of Eichmann’s notorious department for Jewish affairs, 1VB4 of the RSHA (Reich Security Head Office) were evacuated to the Ravensbrück woods. Report.

  Those lucky enough: Maurel, Ravensbrück.

  ‘Look at the colour…’: Buber-Neumann, Dictators.

  ‘But Germaine…’: Author interview.

  ‘These other women’s…’: Czyż letters.

  ‘If the idea…’: Private letter cited in ibid.

  conditions were ‘tragic’: Note in Favez, The Red Cross and the Holocaust.

  The daily routine: FO 371/39395.

  ‘At first sight…’: Dreams. See also Kiedrzyńska, Ravensbrück.

  Allied landings: Falkowska, ‘Report to the History Commission’, Institute for National Memory, Poland.

  ‘in a loud voice’: Lanckorońska, Those Who Trespass Against Us.

  ‘Now ladies…’: Author interview.

  A Hungarian Jewish woman: La Guardia Gluck, Fiorello’s Sister and notes on her ITS file.

  Among the group was: Vaillant-Couturier, Nuremberg testimony, proceedings of 28 January 1946, Staatsarchiv Nürnberg.

  ‘But I thought…’: Author interview.

  In a little-noticed footnote: Bundsarchiv Koblenz, N 1126/38.

  cars with covered windows: Schinke, BAL B162/9817.

  ‘He sat on a chair…’: Vermehren, Reise durch den letzten Akt.

  Outside women: Author interview.

  ‘ridiculous dresses…’: Dufournier, La maison des mortes.

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 25: Paris and Warsaw

  train de la mort: Livre mémorial.

  ‘And the Allies?…’: Litoff (ed.), An American Heroine in the French Resistance.

  A sixteen-year-old girl: Krystyna Dąbrówska, author interview and her unpublished essay, ‘Through the Concentration Camp to Freedom’.

  ‘What news of Warsaw?’: Author interview with Półtawska and Dreams.

  ‘There were badges…’: Lanckorońska, Those Who Trespass Against Us.

  The original tent: Wasilewska’s report on the tent, ‘Block 25, Zelt’, Lund 434.

  ‘The strong snatched…’: Hand, BAL B192/9819.

  ‘They seemed to have…’: Dreams.

  She had faced Mengele: Wellsberg and Minsburg, author interviews; also testimony in YV.

  not be ‘recorded on the lists’: Stutthof Camp Archives, AMSt. I-IIB-7, cited in Hördler, Ordnung und Inferno.

  Her long hair: Lundholm, Das Höllentor.

  Chapter 26: Kinderzimmer

  ‘on the grounds…’: Lanckorońska, Those Who Trespass Against Us.

  Stasia Tkaczyk: Author interview.

  felt contractions: Kopczynska’s account in Die Frauen von Ravensbrück (1980), a film directed by Loretta Walz. Also see Ravensbrückerinnen (Berlin: Hentrich, 1995).

  allow the birth of babies: The details of births come from my interview with Marie-Jo Chombart de Lauwe (née Wilborts); Nedvedova, Prague statement and WO 235/317; Sylvia Salvesen, WO 235/305 and Forgive; Ilse Reibmayer, interview with Loretta Walz and in DÖW; Anna Weng Seidermann statements in WO 235/318 and Nikiforova, Plus jamais.

  ‘hanging pictures…’: Himmler, The Himmler Brothers.

  deliberate starving of babies: See Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide.

  Hermann Pfannmüller: Ibid.

  ‘They would count them off’: Cited in Les Françaises à Ravensbrück.

  ‘It was a dreadful sight…’: Cited in Strebel, Ravensbrück.

  ‘They died without crying…’: Author interview.

  Chapter 27: Protest

  ‘Do you know that feeling…’: Author interview.

  Her friends could see: Testimony of Anne-Marie de Bernard, in the archives of Loir et Cher, 55.j.4, and of Marguerite Flamencourt, HS 6/440. Both Bernard and Flamencourt were members of the ill-fated British Prosper circuit.

  ‘Ravensbrück was by this time…’: Moldenhawer, Lund 420.

  satellite network: See Tillion, Ravensbrück, on multiplying transports to satellite camps.

  ‘piled high…’: Wynne, No Drums, No Trumpets.

  ‘She always thought…’: Author interview.

  ‘I told him…’: WO 235/318. Odette was given a cover name of ‘Shurey’ in the camp, probably ‘so others wouldn’t know there was an important person in the camp,’ she thought.

  ‘too close to the Germans’: FO 371/50982. See also Julia Barry in same, and her testimony in Atkins and WO 235/318. The stories of the ‘British’ women—including Sheridan—also came to light in letters they wrote to Aubrey Radnall Davis, an autograph collector, after the war.

  ‘already belonged here’: Litoff (ed.) An American Heroine in the French Resistance.

  ‘She talked of…’: Author interview.

  Chapter 28: Overtures

  Vera Atkins travelled: See Sarah Helm, A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE (London: Little, Brown, 2005).

  ‘delivered to this country by hand’: From the files of the Liaison Committee of the Women’s International Organisation, IISH.

  Born in the United States: Details on Aka Kołodziejczak were kindly provided by her sister Irena Lisiecki in Michigan, and also came from Maria Bielicka.

  rules forbade: Minutes in the files of the Liaison Committee of the Women’s International Organisation, IISH.

  ‘The information is so terrible…’: Minutes of the 133rd meeting of Polish station managers to discuss BBC/Polish broadcasts, E.1. 1,148, Poland, BBC Written Archives, Caversham.

  ‘probably the greatest…’: Churchill to Anthony Eden, 11 July 1944, facsimile, Churchill Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

  When they met in Paris: Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain.

  There were other reasons: On early overtures see also Persson, Escape from the Third Reich.

  ‘No truck with Himmler’: Cited in ibid.

  ‘He seemed put out…’: de Gaulle, WO 235/318.

  ‘I saw a Russian girl…’: WO 235/318; see also Tickell, Odette.

  ‘Madame Baroness’: ten Boom, The Hiding Place.

  Chapter 29: Doctor Loulou

  For the story of Block 10 I drew on several long interviews with Dr Louise Liard (née Le Porz) at her house in Bordeaux, as well as her testimony and private archive. The Hamburg trial evidence on Block 10 is extensive, and is largely in WO 235/317, WO 235/318 and WO 309/416.

  ‘Instead we hoped…’: Litoff (ed.), An American Heroine in the French Resistance.

  ‘Sunday: My bread…’: Maurel, Ravensbrück.

  It was night: Author interview. Loulou was by no means the only prisoner to talk of making a film. Many others, including Käthe Leichter, Antonina Nikiforova and Milena Jesenka, thought a film would be the only way to make people believe what happened at Ravensbrück.

  ‘neglect killing’: Mant report, WO 309/416.

  an English teacher: Like the Poles, a large number of the French prisoners had been teachers, probably because they were useful to the resistance as couriers—they could move around unobtrusively and had good contacts.

  She was called Joanna: Author interview.

  they were a little odd…’: Maurel, Ravensbrück.

  In her own testimony: Mory’s trial statements (particularly to the Belgian commission, WO 309/419); also Spoerry, Lecoq and Héreil in WO 235/318 and Spoerry’s May 1945 report to the ICRC.

  attacking each other: See Le Porz, Héreil, Lecoq and Mory, WO 235/317 and 318.

  ‘because Mory detested her’: WO 235/318.

  ‘When they passed…’: Barry, WO 309/417, and letter, Atkins.

  PART SIX

  Chapter 30: Hungarians

  ‘We were taken…’: Author interview.

&n
bsp; a tiny station: In 1944 the railway was extended from Fürstenberg to Ravensbrück village, where a small station opened, to be closer to the camp.

  On one of the trains: Zajączkowska, Lund 50.

  ‘Entering the tent…’: Wasielewska, Lund.

  typhus: See Nedvedova, Prague statement. Nedvedova also talks of a diphtheria epidemic when inoculations were carried out. In some cases the diphtheria caused paralysis: ‘It passed to me to obtain strychnine injections so that the diphtheria cases with paralysis were also healed.?’

  ‘a carving…’: Ten Boom, The Hiding Place.

  ‘women all around…’: Mittelmann, YV.

  ‘If you don’t behave…’: Okrent, YV.

  ‘We were put…’: Author interview.

  I’d filled the jug: Author interview.

  I saw in the yard: Lecoq, WO 235/318.

  ‘The women arrived…’: Barry, WO 235/318.

  Chapter 31: A Children’s Party

  Bank records: Copies in ARa. Höss has also been made head of Bureau D of the WVHA (camp inspectorate), a job performed while lending a helping hand at Ravensbrück.

  appears to have been irked: See Suhren’s three statements in 1946, WO 235/318. Suhren claims he handed over command of Ravensbrück to Sauer for several weeks early in 1945 (when the mass killing began) as he had to go away to deal with the disbandment of subcamps. It was easy for him to claim this as Sauer was by now dead, killed in action during the battle for Berlin. Suhren’s direct role in the extermination would be set out by Johann Schwarzhuber—see statements of 15 and 30 August 1946, WO 235/309—and would emerge at the Rastatt trial.