Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women
Mar 2015 ¡ Sold by Anchor
4.9star
9 reviews
Ebook
768
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
A masterly and moving account of the most horrific hidden atrocity of World War II: RavensbrĂźck, the only Nazi concentration camp built for women
Â
On a sunny morning in May 1939 a phalanx of 867 womenâhousewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutesâwas marched through the woods fifty miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded in through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards.
   Their destination was RavensbrĂźck, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Holocaust. By the end of the war 130,000 women from more than twenty different European countries had been imprisoned there; among the prominent names were Geneviève de Gaulle, General de Gaulleâs niece, and Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of the wartime mayor of New York.Â
   Only a small number of these women were Jewish; RavensbrĂźck was largely a place for the Nazis to eliminate other inferior beingsâsocial outcasts, Gypsies, political enemies, foreign resisters, the sick, the disabled, and the âmad.â Over six years the prisoners endured beatings, torture, slave labor, starvation, and random execution. In the final months of the war, RavensbrĂźck became an extermination camp. Estimates of the final death toll by April 1945 have ranged from 30,000 to 90,000.
   For decades the story of RavensbrĂźck was hidden behind the Iron Curtain, and today it is still little known. Using testimony unearthed since the end of the Cold War and interviews with survivors who have never talked before, Sarah Helm has ventured into the heart of the camp, demonstrating for the reader in riveting detail how easily and quickly the unthinkable horror evolved.Â
   Far more than a catalog of atrocities, however, RavensbrĂźck is also a compelling account of what one survivor called âthe heroism, superhuman tenacity, and exceptional willpower to survive.â For every prisoner whose strength failed, another found the will to resist through acts of self-sacrifice and friendship, as well as sabotage, protest, and escape.Â
   While the core of this book is told from inside the camp, the story also sheds new light on the evolution of the wider genocide, the impotence of the world to respond, and Himmlerâs final attempt to seek a separate peace with the Allies using the women of RavensbrĂźck as a bargaining chip. Chilling, inspiring, and deeply unsettling, RavensbrĂźck is a groundbreaking work of historical investigation. With rare clarity, it reminds us of the capacity of humankind both for bestial cruelty and for courage against all odds.
Â
On a sunny morning in May 1939 a phalanx of 867 womenâhousewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutesâwas marched through the woods fifty miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded in through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards.
   Their destination was RavensbrĂźck, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Holocaust. By the end of the war 130,000 women from more than twenty different European countries had been imprisoned there; among the prominent names were Geneviève de Gaulle, General de Gaulleâs niece, and Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of the wartime mayor of New York.Â
   Only a small number of these women were Jewish; RavensbrĂźck was largely a place for the Nazis to eliminate other inferior beingsâsocial outcasts, Gypsies, political enemies, foreign resisters, the sick, the disabled, and the âmad.â Over six years the prisoners endured beatings, torture, slave labor, starvation, and random execution. In the final months of the war, RavensbrĂźck became an extermination camp. Estimates of the final death toll by April 1945 have ranged from 30,000 to 90,000.
   For decades the story of RavensbrĂźck was hidden behind the Iron Curtain, and today it is still little known. Using testimony unearthed since the end of the Cold War and interviews with survivors who have never talked before, Sarah Helm has ventured into the heart of the camp, demonstrating for the reader in riveting detail how easily and quickly the unthinkable horror evolved.Â
   Far more than a catalog of atrocities, however, RavensbrĂźck is also a compelling account of what one survivor called âthe heroism, superhuman tenacity, and exceptional willpower to survive.â For every prisoner whose strength failed, another found the will to resist through acts of self-sacrifice and friendship, as well as sabotage, protest, and escape.Â
   While the core of this book is told from inside the camp, the story also sheds new light on the evolution of the wider genocide, the impotence of the world to respond, and Himmlerâs final attempt to seek a separate peace with the Allies using the women of RavensbrĂźck as a bargaining chip. Chilling, inspiring, and deeply unsettling, RavensbrĂźck is a groundbreaking work of historical investigation. With rare clarity, it reminds us of the capacity of humankind both for bestial cruelty and for courage against all odds.
Ratings and reviews
4.9
9 reviews
Charlie Sports
- Flag inappropriate
January 20, 2023
GREAT BOOKđŻđŻđŻ
About the author
Sarah Helm is the author of A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII and the play Loyalty, about the 2003 Iraq War. She was a staff journalist on the Sunday Times (London) and a foreign correspondent on the Independent, and now writes for several publications. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
