Ravensbrück

Germany

Ravensbrück, the only major Nazi camp designated primarily for women, is situated on a small lake opposite the city of Fürstenberg, 56 miles north of Berlin. Opened in 1939, Ravensbrück held more than 130,000 women and children by the end of World War II. The camp was the site of medical experiments. Thousands were killed here, many by both shots to the back of the neck and by gas. Since most of the prisoners had been evacuated in late March, the Soviet Army found around 3500 desperately ill women when they liberated the camp on the night of April 29-30, 1945.

Though the barracks were all razed after WWII, the administration building, the SS quarters, the prison, and some labor buildings still stand. The cells in the camp prison contain national memorials sponsored by the homelands of the camps’ inmates and victims.