The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp (review)

Abstract

The Jewish Women of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, by Rochelle G. Saidel. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. 279 pp. $21.90. As the number of Holocaust survivors who are able to tell their histories decreases, the urgency increases to leave record of their experiences. It is this that has motivated Dr. Rochelle Saidel to document the experiences of the inmates of Ravensbriick concentration camp and, in particulat, those of the Jewish inmates of Ravensbriick. In so doing, she has provided well-researched account that is valuable both to scholars of the Holocaust and to friends and descendants of the Jewish women of Ravensbruck. Dr. Saidel is the founder of the Remember the Women Institute, which is dedicated to the remembrance of the women of Ravensbriick and to the continued historical research of this unique camp and its enormously strong inmate population. This book exemplifies the purpose of this Institute. In parallel to the narratives of the survivors is the narrative of the struggle to realize the Jewish identity of the inmates through history and through recognition at the Mahn- und Gedenhtatte Ravensbruck. Dr. Saidel began making contact with the survivors at the 50th anniversary of the camp's liberation in 1995. She was able to contact other Jewish survivors with the assistance of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which provided mailing list of survivors as well as cover letter for her initial contact. From this list of 300 survivors, Dr. Saidel received sixty replies, with most women completing the questionnaire and often supplying additional names. Dr. Saidel has interviewed many of these Jewish survivors and their descendants in Brazil, Europe, the U.S., and Israel. Of the 132,000 prisoners of Ravensbriick, 117,000 were killed or died there. Jewish women were minority among the inmates of Ravensbriick, comprising about 20 percent of die population, and their story has heretofore never been told. And although there are memorials to these prisoners at Ravensbruck, they are grouped according to nationality. As recendy as 1980, the Jewish prisoners were not memorialized separately but together with their fellow inmates of nation, with often inappropriate results-the Polish Jews were memorialized as part of all Polish prisoners in room with large crucifix. It was this lack of singular identification that motivated Dr. Saidel to begin her research into the lives, and often deaths, of the Jewish inmates of Ravensbriick. Now there is Jewish memorial at the camp, and this book, too, serves as memorial to these Beginning with history of the camp, Dr. Saidel describes what she refers to as a special hell for women. Indeed, Ravensbruck was unique in that it was built for female resisters and political prisoners. …