Only recently, researchers found that in a dozen European concentration camps, the Nazis forced female prisoners to engage in prostitution in special brothels, writes Vladimir Ginda in the column Archive in issue 31 of the magazine Correspondent dated August 9, 2013.
Torment and death or prostitution - before such a choice, the Nazis put Europeans and Slavs who ended up in concentration camps. Of the few hundred girls who chose the second option, the administration staffed brothels in ten camps - not only in those where prisoners were used as work force, but also in others aimed at mass destruction.
In Soviet and modern European historiography, this topic did not actually exist, only a couple of American scientists - Wendy Gertjensen and Jessica Hughes - raised some aspects of the problem in their scientific works.
AT early XXI century, the German culturologist Robert Sommer began to scrupulously restore information about sexual conveyors
At the beginning of the 21st century, the German culturologist Robert Sommer began to scrupulously restore information about the sexual conveyors that operated in the horrendous conditions of German concentration camps and death factories.
The result of nine years of research was the book published by Sommer in 2009 Brothel in a concentration camp which shocked European readers. On the basis of this work, an exhibition was organized in Berlin, Sex Work in Concentration Camps.
Bed motivation
“Legalized sex” appeared in Nazi concentration camps in 1942. The SS organized brothels in ten institutions, among which were mainly the so-called labor camps, - in Austrian Mauthausen and its branch Gusen, German Flossenburg, Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Sachsenhausen and Dora-Mittelbau. In addition, the institute of forced prostitutes was also introduced in three death camps intended for the extermination of prisoners: in the Polish Auschwitz-Auschwitz and its “satellite” Monowitz, as well as in the German Dachau.
The idea of creating camp brothels belonged to the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler. The researchers' data suggests that he was impressed by the incentive system used in Soviet forced labor camps to increase inmate productivity.
Imperial War Museum
One of his barracks in Ravensbrück, Nazi Germany's largest women's concentration camp
Himmler decided to learn from experience, along the way adding to the list of “stimuli” something that was not in Soviet system, - “encouraging” prostitution. The SS chief was convinced that the right to visit a brothel, along with other bonuses - cigarettes, cash or camp vouchers, improved rations - could make the prisoners work harder and better.
In fact, the right to visit such establishments was predominantly held by camp guards from among the prisoners. And there is a logical explanation for this: most of the male prisoners were exhausted, so they did not think about any sexual attraction.
Hughes points out that the proportion of male prisoners who used the services of brothels was extremely small. In Buchenwald, according to her data, where about 12.5 thousand people were kept in September 1943, 0.77% of prisoners visited the public barracks in three months. A similar situation was in Dachau, where, as of September 1944, 0.75% of the 22 thousand prisoners who were there used the services of prostitutes.
heavy share
At the same time, up to two hundred sex slaves worked in brothels. Most of the women, two dozen, were kept in a brothel in Auschwitz.
Brothel workers were exclusively female prisoners, usually attractive, between the ages of 17 and 35. About 60-70% of them were of German origin, from among those whom the Reich authorities called "anti-social elements." Some were engaged in prostitution before entering the concentration camps, so they agreed to similar work, but already behind barbed wire, without any problems and even passed on their skills to inexperienced colleagues.
Approximately a third of the sex slaves the SS recruited from prisoners of other nationalities - Poles, Ukrainians or Belarusians. Jewish women were not allowed to do such work, and Jewish prisoners were not allowed to visit brothels.
These workers wore special insignia - black triangles sewn on the sleeves of their robes.
Approximately a third of the sex slaves the SS recruited from prisoners of other nationalities - Poles, Ukrainians or Belarusians
Some of the girls voluntarily agreed to “work”. So, one former employee of the Ravensbrück medical unit - the largest female concentration camp in the Third Reich, where up to 130 thousand people were kept - recalled: some women voluntarily went to a brothel, because they were promised release after six months of work.
Spaniard Lola Casadel, a member of the Resistance movement, who ended up in the same camp in 1944, told how the headman of their barracks announced: “Whoever wants to work in a brothel, come to me. And remember: if there are no volunteers, we will have to resort to force.”
The threat was not empty: as Sheina Epshtein, a Jewish woman from the Kaunas ghetto, recalled, in the camp the inhabitants of the women's barracks lived in constant fear of the guards, who regularly raped the prisoners. The raids were made at night: drunken men walked along the bunks with flashlights, choosing the most beautiful victim.
“Their joy knew no bounds when they discovered that the girl was a virgin. Then they laughed out loud and called their colleagues,” Epstein said.
Having lost honor, and even the will to fight, some girls went to brothels, realizing that this was their last hope for survival.
“The most important thing is that we managed to break out of [the camps] Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbrück,” Liselotte B., a former prisoner of the Dora-Mittelbau camp, said about her “bed career”. “The main thing was to somehow survive.”
With Aryan meticulousness
After the initial selection, the workers were brought to special barracks in those concentration camps where they were planned to be used. To bring the emaciated prisoners into a more or less decent appearance, they were placed in the infirmary. There, paramedics in SS uniform gave them calcium injections, they took disinfectant baths, ate, and even sunbathed under quartz lamps.
There was no sympathy in all this, but only calculation: the bodies were prepared for hard work. As soon as the rehabilitation cycle ended, the girls became part of the sex assembly line. Work was daily, rest - only if there was no light or water, if an air raid alert was announced, or during the broadcast of speeches by the German leader Adolf Hitler on the radio.
The conveyor worked like clockwork and strictly on schedule. For example, in Buchenwald, prostitutes got up at 7:00 and took care of themselves until 19:00: they had breakfast, did exercises, underwent daily medical examinations, washed and cleaned, and dined. By camp standards, there was so much food that prostitutes even exchanged food for clothes and other things. Everything ended with dinner, and from seven in the evening the two-hour work began. Camp prostitutes could not go out to see her only if they had “these days” or they fell ill.
AP
Women and children in one of the barracks of the Bergen-Belsen camp, liberated by the British
The very procedure for providing intimate services, starting from the selection of men, was as detailed as possible. Mostly the so-called camp functionaries could get a woman - internees who were engaged in internal security and guards from among the prisoners.
Moreover, at first the doors of brothels were opened exclusively to the Germans or representatives of the peoples living on the territory of the Reich, as well as to the Spaniards and Czechs. Later, the circle of visitors was expanded - only Jews, Soviet prisoners of war and ordinary internees were excluded from it. For example, visit logs of a brothel in Mauthausen, meticulously kept by administration officials, show that 60% of the clients were criminals.
Men who wanted to indulge in carnal pleasures first had to get permission from the camp leadership. After they bought entrance ticket for two Reichsmarks - this is slightly less than the cost of 20 cigarettes sold in the dining room. Of this amount, a quarter went to the woman herself, and only if she was German.
In the camp brothel, clients, first of all, found themselves in the waiting room, where their data was verified. Then they underwent a medical examination and received prophylactic injections. Next, the visitor was told the number of the room where he should go. There the intercourse took place. Only the “missionary position” was allowed. Conversations were not welcome.
Here is how one of the “concubines” kept there, Magdalena Walter, describes the work of a brothel in Buchenwald: “We had one bathroom with a toilet, where women went to wash themselves before the next visitor arrived. Immediately after washing, the client appeared. Everything worked like a conveyor; men were not allowed to stay in the room for more than 15 minutes.”
During the evening, the prostitute, according to the surviving documents, took 6-15 people.
body in action
Legalized prostitution was beneficial to the authorities. So, in Buchenwald alone, in the first six months of operation, the brothel earned 14-19 thousand Reichsmarks. The money went to the account of the German Economic Policy Department.
The Germans used women not only as an object sexual pleasures but also as a scientific material. The inhabitants of the brothels carefully monitored hygiene, because any venereal disease could cost them their lives: infected prostitutes in the camps were not treated, but experiments were performed on them.
Imperial War Museum
Liberated prisoners of the Bergen-Belsen camp
The scientists of the Reich did this, fulfilling the will of Hitler: even before the war, he called syphilis one of the most dangerous diseases in Europe, capable of leading to disaster. The Fuhrer believed that only those peoples who would find a way to quickly cure the disease would be saved. For the sake of obtaining a miracle cure, the SS men turned infected women into living laboratories. However, they did not remain alive for long - intensive experiments quickly led the prisoners to a painful death.
Researchers have found a number of cases where even healthy prostitutes were given to be torn to pieces by sadistic doctors.
Pregnant women were not spared in the camps either. In some places they were immediately killed, in some places they were artificially interrupted, and after five weeks they were again sent “into service”. Moreover, abortions were performed on different terms and different ways- and this also became part of the research. Some prisoners were allowed to give birth, but only in order to experimentally determine how long a baby could live without food.
Despicable Prisoners
According to the former prisoner of Buchenwald, Dutchman Albert van Dijk, other prisoners despised the camp prostitutes, not paying attention to the fact that they were forced to go “on the panel” by cruel conditions of detention and an attempt to save their lives. And the very work of the inhabitants of brothels was akin to daily repeated rape.
Some of the women, even being in a brothel, tried to defend their honor. For example, Walter came to Buchenwald as a virgin and, being in the role of a prostitute, tried to protect herself from the first client with scissors. The attempt failed, and, according to the records, on the same day, the former virgin satisfied six men. Walter endured this because she knew that otherwise she would face a gas chamber, a crematorium or a barracks for cruel experiments.
Not everyone was strong enough to survive the violence. Some of the inhabitants of the camp brothels, according to researchers, took their own lives, some lost their minds. Some survived, but remained a prisoner for life psychological problems. Physical liberation did not relieve them of the burden of the past, and after the war, camp prostitutes were forced to hide their history. Therefore, scientists have collected little documented evidence of life in these brothels.
"It's one thing to say 'I worked as a carpenter' or 'I built roads' and quite another to say 'I was forced to work as a prostitute,'" says Inza Eshebach, director of the memorial at the former Ravensbrück camp.
This material was published in issue 31 of the Korrespondent magazine dated August 9, 2013. Reprint of publications of the journal Correspondent in in full prohibited. The rules for using the materials of the Korrespondent magazine published on the Korrespondent.net website can be found .
The Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many have lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will consider the concentration camps of the Nazis and the atrocities that took place on their territories.
What is a concentration camp?
concentration camp or concentration camp special place intended for the conclusion of persons of the following categories:
- political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
- prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).
The concentration camps of the Nazis were notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Contained there, mostly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system.
Life in the camp
Humiliation and bullying for the prisoners began already from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water and a fenced-off latrine. The natural need of the prisoners had to celebrate publicly, in a tank, standing in the middle of the car.
But this was only the beginning, a lot of bullying and torment was being prepared for the Nazi concentration camps objectionable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.
The conditions of detention can be judged from the letters of the prisoners: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry ... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured ...”, “They shot, flogged, poisoned with dogs, drowned in water, beaten with sticks, starved. Infected with tuberculosis ... strangled by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. Burned ... ".
The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was later used in the German textile industry. Doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, from whose hand thousands of people died. He investigated the mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they transplanted organs from each other, transfused blood, sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. He did sex reassignment surgery.
All fascist concentration camps became famous for such bullying, we will consider the names and conditions of detention in the main ones below.
Camp ration
Usually daily ration in the camp was as follows:
- bread - 130 gr;
- fat - 20 gr;
- meat - 30 gr;
- cereals - 120 gr;
- sugar - 27 gr.
Bread was handed out, and the rest of the food was used for cooking, which consisted of soup (given out 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150-200 gr). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for workers. Those who for some reason remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a serving of bread.
List of concentration camps in different countries
Nazi concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. The list of them is long, but we will name the main ones:
- On the territory of Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
- Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
- France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
- Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
- Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
- Czechoslovakia - Kunta-gora, Natra, Glinsko;
- Estonia - Pirkul, Parnu, Klooga;
- Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
- Latvia - Salaspils.
And it's far from full list all the concentration camps that were built Nazi Germany during the pre-war and war years.
Salaspils
Salaspils can be said to be the most terrible concentration camp fascists, because, in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept in it. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and functioned from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).
Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and massacred, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.
Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were driven to gas chambers and then burned their corpses. It was sent to medical research, during which more than 100,000 people died. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. The torture of children here was a routine affair that proceeded according to a schedule with meticulous records of the results.
Experiments on children
Testimony of witnesses and results of investigations revealed the following ways extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beatings, hunger, arsenic poisoning, injection hazardous substances(most often to children), holding surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (only in children), executions, torture, useless hard labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity has seen in the New Age. Such an attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.
Children did not stay long with their mothers, usually they were quickly taken away and distributed. So, children under the age of six were in a special barracks, where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died in 3-4 days. In this way, the Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year. The bodies of the dead were partly burned, and partly buried in the camp.
In Act Nuremberg Trials“about the extermination of children” the following numbers were given: during the excavation of only a fifth of the territory of the concentration camp, 633 children's bodies aged 5 to 9 years were found, arranged in layers; a platform soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children's bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.
Salaspils is truly the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because the atrocities described above are far from all the torments to which the prisoners were subjected. So, in winter, the children brought in barefoot and naked were driven to the half-kilometer barracks, where they had to wash themselves in ice water. After that, the children were driven to the next building in the same way, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. At the same time, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. All who survived after this procedure were also subjected to arsenic etching.
children infancy kept separately, gave them injections, from which the child died in agony in a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children per day died from the experiments. The bodies of the dead were taken out in large baskets and burned, dumped into cesspools or were buried near the camp.
Ravensbrück
If we start listing women's concentration camps fascists, then Ravensbrück will come first. It was the only camp of this type in Germany. It held thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were kept, Jews accounted for about 15 percent. There were no written instructions regarding torture and torture; the overseers chose the line of conduct themselves.
Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Also, the clothes indicated racial affiliation. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in the post-war years, 2-3 refugee families lived in them) about three hundred prisoners were kept, who were placed on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were driven into these cells, who had to sleep seven of them on the same bunk. There were several toilets and a washbasin in the barracks, but there were so few of them that the floors were littered with excrement after a few days. Such a picture was presented by almost all Nazi concentration camps (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).
But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and hardy, fit for work, were left, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.
Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared already at the end of the war. The ashes from the crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.
Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barrack called the "infirmary", German scientists tested new medications, pre-infecting or crippling test subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered for the rest of their lives from what they suffered. Experiments were also conducted with the irradiation of women with X-rays, from which hair fell out, skin was pigmented, and death occurred. Genital organs were cut out, after which few survived, and even those quickly grew old, and at 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out by all concentration camps of the Nazis, the torture of women and children is the main crime of Nazi Germany against humanity.
At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there, the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks for the settlement of refugees. Later, Ravensbrück turned into a stationing point for Soviet military units.
Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald
The construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, who became the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the "hellish" concentration camp.
The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately outside the gates began "Appelplat" (parade ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite the office was located, where the camp leader and the officer on duty lived - the camp authorities. Deeper were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were arranged in the rest.
The Nazi concentration camps left behind a terrible memory, their names still cause fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. by the most scary place considered to be a crematorium. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot, and the body was sent to the oven.
Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number on German which had to be learned in the first day. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.
Continuing to describe the concentration camps of the Nazis, let us turn to the so-called "small camp" of Buchenwald.
Small Camp Buchenwald
The "Small Camp" was the quarantine zone. Living conditions here were, even in comparison with the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when the German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiègne camp were brought to this camp, mostly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were placed in tents. The closer 1945 was, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the "small camp" included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in the concentration camps of the Nazis was not only specially planned or for scientific purposes, the very life in such a place was torture. 750 people lived in the barracks, their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread, the unemployed were no longer supposed to.
Relations among the prisoners were tough, cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. It was a common practice to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The clothes of the deceased were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions in the camp, infectious diseases. Vaccinations only exacerbated the situation, as injection syringes were not changed.
The photo is simply not able to convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. Witness accounts are not for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to take a step forward - there were not so many experimental people in any country in the world. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, those inhuman sufferings that these innocent people endured.
Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated and organs were cut out, sterilized, castrated. They tested how long a person is able to withstand extreme cold or heat. Specially infected with diseases, introduced experimental drugs. So, in Buchenwald, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed. In addition to typhoid, the prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.
Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the "Buchenwald witch" for her love of sadism and inhuman abuse of prisoners. She was more feared than her husband (Karl Koch) and the Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshade". The woman owes this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of the killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.
The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945 by the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and ran the camp for two days until the American soldiers approached.
Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)
Listing the concentration camps of the Nazis, Auschwitz cannot be ignored. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead have not yet been clarified. Most of the victims were Jewish prisoners of war, who were destroyed immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers.
The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name has become a household name. Above the camp gates were engraved following words: "Work sets you free."
This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:
- Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
- Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called the death camp;
- Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.
Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived in the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. So, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. Gas "Cyclone B" was used. For the first time, the terrible invention was tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners with a total number of about nine hundred people.
Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments began on women and men for sterilization and castration.
Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners were kept working in factories and mines. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. About ten thousand prisoners were kept here.
Like any Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with outside world were banned, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.
On the territory of Auschwitz, five crematoria were continuously operating, which, according to experts, had a monthly output of approximately 270,000 corpses.
January 27, 1945 Soviet troops The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated. By that time, about seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year before that, mass murders in gas chambers (gas chambers) began in the concentration camp.
Since 1947, a museum and a memorial complex dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi Germany began to function on the territory of the former concentration camp.
Conclusion
For the entire duration of the war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. They were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It's hard to imagine what these people went through. But not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps was destined to be demolished by them. Thanks to Stalin, after their release, when they returned home, they received the stigma of "traitors". At home, the Gulag was waiting for them, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity was replaced by another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.
Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after their release was not advertised and hushed up. But the people who survived this simply should not be forgotten.
The Second World War went like a skating rink through humanity. Millions of dead and many more crippled lives and destinies. All the belligerents did truly monstrous things, justifying everything with war.
Of course, in this regard, the Nazis were especially distinguished, and this is not even taking into account the Holocaust. There are many both documented and frankly fictional stories about what the German soldiers did.
One of the high-ranking German officers recalled the briefings they went through. Interestingly, there was only one order regarding female soldiers: “Shoot.”
Most did so, but among the dead, the bodies of women in the form of the Red Army are often found - soldiers, nurses or nurses, on whose bodies there were traces of cruel torture.
Residents of the village of Smagleevka, for example, say that when they had Nazis, they found a seriously wounded girl. And in spite of everything they dragged her onto the road, stripped her and shot her.
But before her death, she was tortured for a long time for pleasure. Her entire body was turned into a continuous bloody mess. The Nazis did the same with female partisans. Before being executed, they could be stripped naked and for a long time keep in the cold.
Of course, the captives were constantly raped. And if the highest German ranks were forbidden to join intimate relationship with captives, then ordinary privates had more freedom in this matter. And if the girl did not die after a whole company used her, then she was simply shot.
The situation in the concentration camps was even worse. Unless the girl was lucky and one of the higher ranks of the camp took her to him as a servant. Although it did not save much from rape.
In this regard, camp No. 337 was the most cruel place. There, the prisoners were kept naked for hours in the cold, hundreds of people were settled in the barracks at once, and anyone who could not do the work was immediately killed. About 700 prisoners of war were destroyed daily in the Stalag.
Women were subjected to the same torture as men, and even much worse. In terms of torture, the Nazis could be envied by the Spanish Inquisition. Very often, girls were bullied by other women, such as the wives of commandants, just for fun. The nickname of the commandant of Stalag No. 337 was "cannibal".
08.10.42: In one village, liberated from the Germans, there were monuments of a civilization that was mysterious to us. Around the hut where the officers lived, birch trees were planted, and among the trees there was a toy gallows: on it the Fritz, having fun, hung cats - there were no people, people. ("Red Star", USSR)15.09.42: Dark animal malice lives in the Germans. “Lieutenant Kleist came up, looked at the wounded Russians and said: “These pigs must be shot right away.” “The woman was crying that all her beets were taken away from her, but Hitzder beat her.” “Yesterday we hanged two scoundrels, and somehow it became easier on the soul.” "I would not leave Russian children either - they will grow up and become partisans, they all need to be hanged." "If you leave at least one family, they will divorce and take revenge on us."
In impotent rage, the Fritz dream of gases. Feldwebel Schledeter writes to his wife: "If it were in my power, I would poison them with gases." Mother writes to non-commissioned officer Dobler: “We are told that the Russians need to be suffocated with gases, because there are too many of them, and too much.” ("Red Star", USSR)
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When it comes to wars and the horrendous conditions in which the captives had to exist, more often only men are meant. Meanwhile, around the world, women often found themselves in the camps of the warring parties. Many of them went crazy with despair and were ready to commit suicide, as their situation sometimes turned out to be even worse than that of the captive men.
Female soldiers of the Red Army in German captivity
During the Great Patriotic War in Soviet army many women served, and at the very first battles this came as a big surprise to the Germans. They took prisoners, and then they found among them not only men. Private German soldiers it was not entirely clear what to do with women in uniform, so they clearly adhered to the orders of the Third Reich: the enemy is not worthy of the honor of appearing before a fair military court and can only be shot.
Women who miraculously survived were waiting for bullying, cruel torture and violence. They were beaten to death, repeatedly raped, obscene inscriptions were carved on their bodies and faces, or parts of their bodies were cut off, leaving them to bleed.
There were women prisoners of war in every German concentration camp. Over time, keeping in separate barracks and a ban on communication with men became an obligatory item. Throughout the detention there were no minimum sanitary conditions. O clean water and fresh linen was out of the question. Food was given out once a day, and sometimes with long breaks.
How do they survive in the captivity of the Islamic State?
The brutality of militants fighting for the Islamist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State (banned in Russia) knows no bounds. Jihadists kidnap people, torture them in a sophisticated way and rarely agree to exchange the freedom of captives for a ransom. All those who voluntarily did not join them are considered enemies. Women and children are no exception.
On the contrary, building a just society of "true Islam", jihadists pay attention to the issue of interaction with women increased attention. According to Sharia law, they are obliged to devote all their time to the family: to raise children, take care of the household, and fulfill the orders of their husband. Accordingly, if women think otherwise, Islamists do not disdain to impose their rules by force.
Anyone who professed another religion before the arrival of IS will automatically be recognized as traitors. And they treat them accordingly: they are taken into slavery, bought and sold, forced to do hard and dirty work. The rape and mutilation of enslaved women has long been recognized by theologians " Islamic State» one of the Sharia laws.
The life of the unfortunate captives has no value. They are used as human shields, forced to dig trenches and cover in crossfire, and sent to crowded places as suicide bombers.
German women in Eisenhower's "death camps"
Escorting their husbands to the Second world war, German women did not suspect what it would turn out for them in case of defeat. Immediately after Victory Day, millions of Germans were captured: both military personnel and civilians. And if those who got to the British-Canadian troops were relatively lucky - most of them were sent for restoration work or released, then those who ended up in the Eisenhower camps had to endure real atrocities.
Women who had never taken part in hostilities were kept in equal conditions with men. These were one of the largest prisoner of war camps: tens of thousands of people were herded into groups and kept for months right under open sky by fencing the area with barbed wire.
There were no shelters for the prisoners. They were not given warm clothes or basic hygiene products. In order to somehow protect themselves from heavy rains and frosts, many dug holes and tried to build makeshift huts from tree branches. However, that wasn't really terrible. Both women and men in the Eisenhower camps were effectively starved. The American general himself signed an order stating that this category of prisoners does not fall under the Geneva Convention.
The American army reserves had a huge supply of food, but this did not prevent the victorious enemy from halving the rations of the prisoners, and after a while, cutting the portions by another third. People were so hungry that they ate grass and drank their own urine. The death rate in Eisenhower's "death camps" was more than 30%, and the bulk of them were women, pregnant girls and children.
Captured by Somali terrorists
Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries, because for almost two decades there has been Civil War. Most of of this state are under the control of the Islamist group Al-Shabaab. The abduction of women, especially foreign women, has long been a common thing here.
Girls are taken prisoner for ransom, or used as "bait" in ambushes. The attitude towards captives is appropriate: they live in cramped rooms or pits, more like coffins, are forced to endure endless beatings and exist in a half-starved state. It often happens that women are subjected to gang rape. The only chance to get free is to wait for the help of the authorities. Even if the terrorists agree to the exchange, there is a real risk of ending up in jail for transferring funds.
Renouncing their own religion and converting to Islam is seen by many captives as a way to save their lives. This, in particular, happens because the kidnappers often talk about the commandments of the Koran, which forbid one Muslim to kill or rape another. However, in reality, even after the adoption of Islam, hostages are not treated better. But to all the already standard bullying is added the requirement to pray five times a day.
Many years after the war, it became known.
