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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)
Prisoner Ravensbrück
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V778E1
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."
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V777bE1
Arrival at the camp
November 1941
Archive photo
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Identification number of a prisoner in the concentration camp
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Signatur: V387B3
Violette Lecoq
1912 - 2003 France. Worked for the Red Cross as a nurse from 1939 on. She was active in the French Resistance and helped French soldiers to escape, but she was betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo, and then deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1943. Because she spoke German, she worked as a nurse at the Tbc-block. In April 1945 she could be evacuated by the Swedish Red Cross. The drawings she had made in Ravensbrück were used as evidence in court after the war, for example in the Ravensbrück Trials in Hamburg in 1946/47 against members of the security staff of the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Dr. phil. Constanze Jaiser
Literature scholar and theologian
Publications on the subject, include:
Poetische Zeugnisse. Gedichte aus dem Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück. Stuttgart/Weimar 2000
Europa im Kampf 1939-1944. Internationale Poesie aus dem Frauen-Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück. Berlin 2009
Ein Schmuggelfund aus dem KZ – Erinnerung, Kunst und Menschenwürde. Berlin 2012
Subcamp Neubrandenburg
The city of Neubrandenburg in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was an important armaments production site during the Nazi era. In the Mechanischen Werkstätten (Mechanical Workshops MWN), around 6,000 prisoners had to perform forced labor for German military production. As part of the inclusion of female concentration camp prisoners from Ravensbrück, the first subcamp was built on Ihlenfelder Strasse in 1943. In 1944, a second underground camp was built in the forest south of Neubrandenburg's city limits so as not to endanger production during bombing raids. In the confined space of the "Waldbau," there were six to seven factory buildings, some above-ground structures and about five prisoner barracks, some of which were dug into the ground, in which about 2,000 female concentration camp prisoners had to live and work.
© Photo: Carsten Büttner, zeitlupe | Stadt.Geschichte & Erinnerung
Nina Jirsíková-Gurska
1910 - 1979. Dancer, costume designer and choreographer at the theater in Prague. After the ballet piece "The Fairy Tale of Dance", which the German occupiers considered a provocation in 1941, the theater was closed and Nina Jirsíková was arrested. She was deported to Ravensbrück, where she had to work in the furrier's shop and in the Siemens factory. In the camp, Nina Jirsíková drew satirical sketches and even a fashion journal, which was supposed to strengthen the will to live of the female prisoners. She also danced in secret and staged performances and plays. After 1945 she returned to Prague and worked in the theater again.
France Audoul
1894 - 1977. Francine Jeanne Etiennette Audoul-Martinon was born in Lyon, where she studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. As a member of the Résistance, she was deported to Ravensbrück (No. F 27.933). With stolen scraps of paper and pencils, she was able to make 32 sketches of camp life and portraits, which she was able to hide with the help of some friends and take back to France after liberation. After 1945 she resumed her artistic activity and participated in numerous exhibitions. In 1966, the camp drawings were published in the book Ravensbrück - 150 000 femmes en enfer.