Himmler therefore ordered male prisoners from the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, on the edge of Berlin, to start building at Ravensbrück as soon as possible. Meanwhile the male concentration camp at Lichtenburg, near Torgau, which was already half empty, was to be cleared and the rest of the men there taken to the new men’s camp of Buchenwald, opened in July 1937. Women earmarked for the new women’s camp could be held at Lichtenburg while Ravensbrück was built.
