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Maria Rutkowska: They robbed us... (1942)

Info / context to the poem

The entrance into the camp system meant a nightmarish loss of identity for those arriving. Will and personal integrity were to be broken by a complete physical and emotional subjugation. At the end of this degrading entrance procedure the women did not recogize themselves and each other anymore. These traumatic shock experiences turned the first days and weeks into a extremely dangerous time during which women were very susceptible to diseases and thoughts of suicide. (C. Jaiser)

Author - biography

Maria Rutkowska

Maria Rutkowska was born in 1910 in Gidle near Częstochowa. She attends a boarding school in Warsaw. According to her own statements, she is brought up in a very devout and patriotic atmosphere, which shapes her later attitude in the camp. After graduating from high school, she studies economics in Warsaw. In 1934 she marries her first husband, Tadeusz Rutkowski, with whom she has a daughter, Elżbieta.

Maria Rutkowska becomes a journalist and fights against the Nazi regime and Italian fascism even before 1939 with reportages in Poland. After her return from Rome in early September 1939, she takes part in the civil defense of Warsaw.

She is arrested on 20 June 1941 in front of her daughter's eyes, presumably because of her articles from Italy and a coded letter, and held in Częstochowa prison. Accused of "conspiracy," she was deported exactly one year later on a transport from Radom to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and transferred to the Neubrandenburg subcamp beginning in July 1943. There, she and her fellow prisoners had to produce parts for the V1 and V2 rockets as well as for airplanes for the Mechanische Werkstätten GmbH.

In mid-1944, she is transferred to the Waldbau subcamp near Neubrandenburg. In 1944 and 1945, about 7,000 women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp had to perform forced labor for the same company in the construction of underground factory halls and in production. During this time, Maria Rutkowska participates as a teacher of history and Polish literature in classes organized secretly in the camp. During the dissolution of the camp, she manages to escape.

On 15 May 1945 she returns home. She learns that her husband, Tadeusz Rutkowski, who was arrested three years after her, was shot in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. After the end of the war, she gives up her journalistic profession and works as an economist in the construction industry. Maria Rutkowska died in Katowice in September 1999. (C. Jaiser)

Photo: Polish Women in Ravensbrück (polkiwravensbruck.pl)

Text in original language


Veröffentlicht in: Winska, Urszula: Zwyciezyly wartosci
[Die Werte siegten]. Gdansk 1985

Images and documents

Nina Jirsíková

Prisoner Ravensbrück
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V778E1

Biographical data

Violette Lecoq

Dénuement
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V814-19E1

Biographical data

France Audoul

Robbed and shaved
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück

Biographical data

Nina Jirsíková

To není to orientální tanec, undatiert
Colored pencil on paper
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V776BE1

Depiction of a lice control with the ironic comment, "This is not oriental/belly dance."

Biographical data

Unknown

Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V777bE1

Violette Lecoq

Les âmes n'y sont plus (Detail)
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück

Biographical data

Elsbeth Zedner

Arrival at the camp
November 1941
Archive photo
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück

Camp badge

Identification number of a prisoner in the concentration camp
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V387B3