We had one last memorial to do and that was Ravensbruck Women’s Concentration Camp. Ravensbruck is located about an hour outside of Berlin in a beautiful village up in the lake country. We took the regional train and got off in Furstenberg/ Havel. We walked about 3 km to the enterance. This was the largest concentration camp for women on German soil. From 1939 to 1945 there were 132,000 women that went through their gates and 1000 young girls. They eventually added a men’s prison for labor. These women and men came from 40 different countries. There were Jews and Gypsys as well as resistance fighters from all over Europe. The prisoner’s life was marked by slave labor. There were four SS run companies where they were forced to work. They established brothels using the women as prostitutes and did medical experiments on the women. Once again the stories and pictures are very powerful. The inspirational stories ordinary women and girls willing to hide people, fight the Nazis to those that were imprisoned because of their faith or origin.
A view toward a church!
Flowers growing in the ashes of those cremated
Industrial Area
SS Officer’s housing
View from Officer’s housing
Female guards homes
Now converted into Youth Hostile
Where they came from
We all got off at this station; fortunateely, Joan and Stu got back on..
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