Women's Concentration Camps
During the Holocaust, the Germans moved their "inferior race" to camps, which are commonly called Concentration Camps. Some of these camps were designated for women only. For example, Ravensbruck was the largest all-female concentration camp within German rule. Other women's concentrations camps included Auschwitz II and the women's compound in Bergen-Belsen. At these camps, the women were subject to hard manual labor and separation from their families.
Within the concentration camps, women were subject to cruel and harsh treatment. They were consistently forced to work against their will, by doing things such as lifting heavy objects or working in German factories. Each women was given a job based upon her ability and age. The oldest and youngest female captives were gassed immediately upon arrival to the concentration camps. Otherwise, the women were forced to work within the camp, and they were given little nourishment by the Germans. |
Primary Source
Mass Murder At Belsen "A train arrived from Lemberg [Lvov]. There were forty-five cars containing 6,700 people, 1.450 of whom were already dead. Through the gratings on the windows, children could be seen peering out terribly pale and frightened, their eyes filled with mortal dread...The train entered the station, and two hundred Ukranians wrenched open the doors and drove the people of the carriages with their leather whips. Instructions came through a large loudspeaker telling them to remove all their clothing, artificial limbs, glasses, ect. They were to hand over all objects of value to the counter...Shoes were to be carefully tied together, for otherwise no one would have been able to find shoes belonging to each other in s pile that was a good eighty feet high. Then the women and girls were sent to the barber who, with two or three strokes of his scissors, cut off all their hair and dropped it into potato sacks..." |