Audiobook32 hours
Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women
Written by Sarah Helm
Narrated by Christa Lewis
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
On a sunny morning in May 1939 a phalanx of 867 women-housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes-was 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 Ravensbrück, 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 Genevieve de Gaulle, General de Gaulle's niece, and Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of the wartime mayor of New York.
Only a small number of these women were Jewish; Ravensbrück was largely a place for the Nazis to eliminate other inferior beings-social outcasts, Gypsies, political enemies, foreign resisters, the sick, the disabled, and the “mad.” Over six years the prisoners endured beatings, torture, slave labor, starvation, and random execution. In the final months of the war, Ravensbrück became an extermination camp. Estimates of the final death toll by April 1945 have ranged from 30,000 to 90,000.
Their destination was Ravensbrück, 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 Genevieve de Gaulle, General de Gaulle's niece, and Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of the wartime mayor of New York.
Only a small number of these women were Jewish; Ravensbrück was largely a place for the Nazis to eliminate other inferior beings-social outcasts, Gypsies, political enemies, foreign resisters, the sick, the disabled, and the “mad.” Over six years the prisoners endured beatings, torture, slave labor, starvation, and random execution. In the final months of the war, Ravensbrück became an extermination camp. Estimates of the final death toll by April 1945 have ranged from 30,000 to 90,000.
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Reviews for Ravensbruck
Rating: 4.3870966967741944 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
62 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's taken a while for me to figure this out about writing reviews for books I read, but the better the book, the harder it is for me to review it. Do I just say, "Wow, that was great!", and hope the person reading my review just takes my word for it? Not even my wife trusts me that much. So, no. Do I explain in detail why I think it's great, taking page after page to layout the book's many attributes? Nah. I need that time reading more books, and, after all, nobody likes me enough to read that much of what I have to say, so, also no. So, what can I say about this epic tome? It is epic, after all. Yet, one look at the book's subtitle, and most people I know wouldn't think twice about reading it, or should I say not reading it. Think Hitler and concentration camp, and I dare say the vast number of American's will think "Jews", "gassing", and probably Auschwitz. Who wants to read nearly 700 pages of assembly-line genocide? The thing is, this book is not even close to being that. First, it is unique, being about the Nazi concentration camp for women. Two, it very quickly fills the reader in on the breadth of depravity the Nazis had for a vast array of non-Jews, or should I say more precisely, non-Aryans, and even Aryans with "worthless lives" and any Aryan who may not support this depravity with full measure of vigor. Third, it acknowledges and points out the reaction within the camp to the various stages of this depravity, without specifying the cause of those stages. Emphasis of the Jewish genocide increased as German armies went toward and into Russia. The emphasis on merely killing anyone unable to walk, came when those Soviet armies won at Stalingrad, stopped Hitler from getting critical access to oil fields and started overrunning other concentration camps besides the women's camp. The author does not cite those events, but the reaction at the camp is obvious. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the author, who did masterful work both in document research and a multitude of personal interviews, lets the reader know in complex, intimate narrative about the persistent, creative, intelligent, empathetic, heroic ways many of the women in this camp, survived, if they could, and helped others survive, if they themselves could not. The idea of women as the "fairer sex" will be forever ripped from your brain, indeed if it was ever there. The deaths of so many of these women, regardless of their religion, nationality, politics, or vocation, is tragic beyond measure, but it was the will of them to withstand, to survive, that deeply colors my view of what the author has written. The book is like a great novel. I expect it to resonate with me not for just a long time, but forever.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't pick as your first ww2 book, difficult to read. Definitely with the read however. This and KL (can't remember author's name) were pretty gritty but definite recommends
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was at first a bit reluctant to read this book as I got the feel from the first pages it would be one of these interview account types, not to mention the depressing subject matter. But I am glad I persevered and experienced the awareness of what these women endured under the most horrific conditions.It was at times hard to grasp just how inhumane humans can be towards helpless, defenseless victims. The suffering was endless not only from their German captors but for many atrocities from the Russian liberators, and in some cases Communists reprisals in their native lands. Adding to this burden were those who escaped justice and punishment as well as the silence and cover up. It is hard to imagine a worse ordeal of the countless who lost their lives and those who lived and live with the memory. This is the type of book that should be required reading at the high school level to leave a lasting impression.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is an enthralling book, with some chapters extremely uncomfortable. But it needs to be written. As a women's camp it received a lot less attention, publicity, recognition after the war which means all these women risk being forgotten and unacknowledged. It was a multi-cultural camp, with women of multiple nationalities as well as a mixture of politicos, prostitutes and the mentally disabled, let alone those who went insane whilst there. Several SOE agents ended up there. Women were frozen or starved to death, shot and gassed. Some were experimented on.And yet the book describes the communities within the camp, the friendships and the mutual support given to each other. Writing sympathetically about the women's stories without minimising the horrors they lived through is challenging.If the subject matter was different, I could have said this was a pleasure to read. It wasn't but it was certainly riveting.