Prisoners forced to dig trenches in Ravensbrück, 1940-41. This photo is from an SS propaganda album. Photo courtesy of the USHMM.

In May 1939, approximately 900 women were transported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp from the Lichtenburg women's camp in southeastern Germany. Located 90 kilometers north of Berlin, the Ravensbrück camp was one of the only concentration camps designed almost exclusively for women.

By the end of 1942, the female inmate population of Ravensbrück had grown to approximately 10,000. Prisoners in Ravensbrück and its over 40 subcamps were required to perform forced labor, primarily in agricultural projects and local industry, but also in the armaments industry. SS medical doctors also subjected Ravensbrück prisoners to medical experiments. Most of the women died from the experiments, and those who survived suffered permanent physical damage. SS doctors also attempted to develop sterilization methods by carrying out experiments on women and children, many of them Roma (Gypsies). Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 women prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp network, and only 40,000 survived. Some 20,000 men were also imprisoned in the camp, as well as about 1,000 young people in the nearby Uckermark youth camp. Although most of the inmates were from Poland and the occupied Soviet territories, they came from every country in German-occupied Europe. Approximately 15 percent of the prisoners were Jewish and close to 5 percent were Roma. Besides the male Nazi administrators, the camp staff included over 150 female SS guards assigned to oversee the prisoners. Ravensbrück served as one of the main training camps for female SS guards. In late March 1945, the SS evacuated Ravensbrück, forcing over 20,000 prisoners on a death march. Soviet troops encountered the march and liberated the prisoners. Shortly before the evacuation, the Germans had handed over several hundred female prisoners to the Swedish and Danish Red Cross. When Soviet forces liberated Ravensbrück on April 29/30, 1945, they found about 3,500 remaining sick and emaciated female prisoners in the camp. When teaching our students about Ravensbrück, it is important to emphasize the fact that the majority of its prisoners were women and children. Like male camp prisoners elsewhere, these women and children were subjected to forced labor, medical experimentation, physical and emotional torture, and death. They were also overseen by female Nazi guards and administrators. How does this alter our perception of life in the concentration camps? What does this teach us about the Nazi views of women and their role in society?