How she researched this story is incredible. Had it not been for her, the story would have likely been lost.
The book:
- prologue: 8 pages
- the book itself: 658 pages with a 26-page epilogue
- six pages of acknowledgements
- twenty-two pages of notes.
- bibliography: 13 pages
- index: 20 pages
Part One
Chapter 1: Langefeld (chief female guard)
- history of Johanna Langefeld, a chief guard at Ravensbrueck; single mom with one son; what she saw of returning German soldiers after WWI reminds me of the second half of the movie, Lawrence of Arabia -- and right, wrong, indifferent, explains a lot; apparently drifted away after the liberation (not sure about this) and suddenly, mysteriously reappeared at the door of a former prisoner, Grete Bber-Neumann, 1957, Frankfurt to tell her (Langefeld's) story
- history of Heinrich Himmler -- makes me think of the movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- the history of the camps -- not what most folks think
- first camp: Dachau
- Appellplatz: camp square
- how German women became infatuated with Adolf Hitler -- fascinating
- camps were not originally meant for Jews
- began with Hitler's determination to round up and crush all opposition, mostly Communists
- SS: Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary squad first formed as Hitler's personal bodyguard; by the time Hitler came to power in 1933, Himmler had transformed the SS into an elite force; one of its tasks was to run the new concentration camps
- Hitler's model for these concentration camps: concentration camps used for mass internment by the British during the South African War of 1899 - 1902. Dachau was the prototype -- designed by Himmler himself
- first commandant of Dachau: Theodor Eicke -- a monster, if there ever was one
- one of Theordor Eicke's recruits was Max Koegel, the future commandant of Ravensbrueck
- the story of the women of Jehovah's Witnesses-- fascinating
- appell: roll call
- Effektenkammer; storage room for personal belongings of all prisoners
- Konzentrationslager: concentration camp, of course -- note "lager"
- Dorothea Binz: a particularly monstrous guard
- history of the word "Kapo" ('trusty', inmate forman)
- kapo as a term not used as often in Ravensbrueck, but every much the same as that at Buchenwald, Dachau, or Sachsenhausen
- official titles of the kapo:
- Blockova; block chief
- Stubova: room chief
- in their posts to assist the SS
- new Kapo hierarchy began in 1939
- new job introduced -- Lagerlaeuferin -- camp runner
- Lageraelteste: 'head prisoner,' camp senior, prisoners called her (Margot Kaiser, Lagershreck -- camp terror
- Scheisskompanie -- the latrine gang
- January 4, 1940
- headed towards Mecklenburg Forest and on to Ravensbrueck
- Hitler never visited a concentration camp; never interested
- camps were part of Himmler's life
- Russian Jews sent to Germany, and then to Ravensbrueck
- Chapter 6: Else Krug
- groups and individuals were being referred to as the color triangles they wore
- the story of the asocials -- had it the hardest after the war
- red light district in Cologne; police files recovered after the war and stored in nearby Duesseldorf, wherethey have remained unread for nearly 70 years
- Else Krug: one of the very few prostitutes at Ravensbrueck to be given a name -- because of her kindness to other prisoners
- Himmler made a second visit; this time overnight, January 14, 1941
- his small forest estate called Brueckenthin; installed his mistress, Hedwig Potthast
- Himmler: had introduced Lebensborn ("Source of Life") homes -- institutions where SS officers could procreate outside marriage with selected Aryan women in order to produce a constant supply of perfect Aryan children -- said it was okay to do this opening, to improve the gene pool
- Walter Sonntag, the senior SS doctor
- a new concentration camp in Poland had been established, Osciecim -- in German, Auschwitz; southern Poland, to hold Polish resisters
- as of yet, no official solution has been proposed, except perhaps in private, as to what to do next wiht the Jews
- mass sterilization now being considered
- prisoner labor now being considered; war lasting longer than expected
- Hitler's T4 "euthanasia" program had been launched a year earlier
- CO poisoning on 35,000 German men, women, and children seen as a drain on the German economy
- I was completely unaware of this program; it was outside of Himmler's purview; Grafeneck Castle;
- Himmler took notice; mass murders near where Germans lived would cause local unrest
- Himmler would move the killing centers; and he would co-opt the gassing methods
- Sonntag had carried out mustard-gas experimentation at Sachsenhausen; now instructed to carry out syphilis and gonorrhea experiments
- the story of Dr Sonntag (a dentist)
- Dr Sonntag another incredible monster
- 1941: Sonntag marries Gerda Weyand; a female physician who subsequently arrived at the camp
- sometime in the middle of 1941, Dr Sonntag started killing -- cold-blooded killing
- much information comes from Olga
- by the summer of 1941, Milena Jesenska was probably the most charismatic woman in the camp
- close friend Greta Buber-Neumann
- the story of Milena; relationship with Franz Kafka -- it seems I vaguely remember this name (Milena) when I was in my Franz Kafka stage
- Dr Sonntag's list; 250 names
- Emmy Handke, a secretary in the Revier, learned a psychiatrist has been booked into a nearby hotel
- question raised whether "T4" program could be used for concentration camps; series of gassings
- Reichsfuehrer gave go-ahead
- to be directed out of Himmler's own Concentration Camp Inspectorate, located at Oranienburg, northern edge of Berlin
- a new cover name for the killings: Sonderbehandlung 14f13 -- Sonderbehandlung -- "special treatment" was thte SS and police euphemism for killing
- at the camp inspectorate the code "14f' was used to denote prisoners who died at the camps
- 14f14: executions
- 14f8: suicides
- 14f13: a new designation -- killings by gassing
- Friedrich Mennecke, a T4 psychiatrist, wrote each day to his wife Eva, telling her about his work at Sachsenhausen -- where a trial run of the 14f13 program began
- another turning poit in the escalating Nazi murder programme: the first time prisoners from a concentration camp were killed with gas; a satisfied Himmler directed his 14f13 staff and colleagues at T4 to start selecting prisoners at other camps for transport to gassing centers
- urns
- the protests across Germany
- attempt to keep gassings confidential bungled by Nazis
- Minsk, August 15, 1941: mass shooting of Jewish women and children; trenches; Hitler witnessed it personally
- if Himmler had any reservations about gassing women it all changed after Minsk
- children: poisoned or starved
- then the story of Mennecke
I honestly cannot finish reading the book.
I will scan through, noting the titles of each chapter:
Chapter 9: Bernburg
Part Two
Chapter 10: Lublin
Chapter 11: Auschwitz
Chapter 12: Sewing
Chapter 13: Rabbits
Chapter 14: Special Experiments
Chapter 15: Healing
Part Three
Chapter 16: Red Army
Chapter 17: Yevgenia Klemm
Chapter 18: Doctor Treite
Chapter 19: Breaking The Circle
Chapter 20: Black Transport
Part Four
Chapter 21: Vingt-sept Mille
Chapter 22: Falling
Chapter 23: Hanging On
Chapter 24: Reaching Out
Part Five
Chapter 25: Paris and Warsaw
Chapter 26: Kinderzimmer
Chapter 27: Protest
Chapter 28: Overtures
Chapter 29: Doctor Loulou
Chapter 30: Hungarians
Chapter 31: A Children's Party
Chapter 32: Death March
Chapter 33: Youth Camp
Chapter 34: Hiding
Chapter 35: Koenigsberg
Chapter 36: Bernadotte
Chapter 37: Emilie
Chapter 38: Nelly
Chapter 39: Masur
Chapter 40: White Buses
Chapter 41: Liberation
Epilogue
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