Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

by Sarah Helm

The gulf between theory and reality was as clear to see at the camp in early 1944 as anywhere else in Himmler’s empire. The Reichsführer had ordered death rates reduced to keep good workers alive, but instead the rates were rising and a new crematorium furnace was being built to cope. Himmler’s dietary theories were being confounded at every turn. He had recently issued new rulings on nutrition with a view to improving production. Up to 50 per cent of vegetables added to the prisoners’ soup were to be raw, and added shortly before distribution; the amount of food at midday should be one and a quarter to one and a half litres of soup – not clear but pureed. Himmler had also insisted that the prisoners should have time and ‘calm’ to eat, so that digestion could happen properly. However, as was clear from the camp’s emaciated bodies, the raw root vegetables were wreaking havoc, causing scabies and sores. As for the mealtime calm, so crammed were the blocks by now that there was never room to sit. The Siemens workers marched back from the factory for lunch barely had time to eat at all. Other orders issued by Himmler and designed to improve camp hygiene, and hence production, had also proved futile. Prisoners should have time to wash their hair, supposedly to help prevent lice, but washing of any sort was almost impossible, and anyhow the recycled clothes coming from the gas chambers invariably had lice already breeding in the hems. Coupons were still on offer as an incentive ...