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Ravensbrück, the only major Nazi camp designated 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 experiment and of thousands of executions both by 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. Currently the camp is undergoing extensive reconstruction as the memorial there expands.
The pictures below were taken on June 29, 2000. |
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Entrance to museum exhibition entitled "The Language of Memory: On the History of the Ravensbrück Memorial 1945-1995." This exhibition, like the one at the Buchenwald monument, is a self-conscious attempt to uncover the meaning and politics of memory. Much of the Ravensbrück site is still being developed, and at the end of this exhibition they ask visitors to participate in thinking about the future of the site. | |
| Statues of two women in front of the memorial wall. Ravensbrück includes many haunting sculptures that capture the sorrow of the place and the undiminished dignity of those imprisoned there. |
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