Historians of the Second World War came across the name Ravensbrück for a long time, but did not know what was going on in the German concentration camp.
All the documents about Ravensbrück, the camp for women, were burned before the end of the war. After the war, the area was under the control of the Soviet Union. Now, after researchers tracked down survivors and visited the site, we know that it opened in 1939 and housed women who were prostitutes, criminals, minorities or who were opposed to Hitler.
One survivor wrote in her report, “Among the prisoners were ‘the cream of Europe’s women’.”
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She continued, “They included General de Gaulle’s niece (pictured above), a former British women’s golf champion, and numerous Polish countesses.”
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However, Ravensbrück was mostly known for his medical experiments on the women, most of whom were Polish.
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One medical goal was to test sulfonamide drugs. This was done by deliberately wounding a prisoner and injecting viral bacteria into the wound. Death or permanent injury was usually the end result.
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Another goal was to see if muscles and bones could regenerate or be transplanted. Prisoners’ bones were broken, dissected and grafted, leaving subjects in excruciating pain.
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One group of women filled their wounds with splinters of wood, another group with shards of glass, and the third group had both implanted.
Some women were experimented with no pain medication just to see how effective the tested drugs were.
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Nazi doctors shared the results of their experiments at a 1943 medical conference in Berlin. None of the civilian German doctors dared to question the experiments on the grounds of cruelty.
(via Neatorama and Ravensbruck experiments)
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