Code Name: Lise

by Larry Loftis

“Be regular and orderly in your life,”

“that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Those who were considered risks to public security—and subject to unchallenged arrest—were “antisocial malefactors” such as career criminals, Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and prostitutes.

Though not designated a death camp, Sachsenhausen became one. Through starvation, hard labor, and a myriad of tortures, some forty thousand would die here, including Stalin’s son.

Ravensbrück. Created by Heinrich Himmler himself, the notorious labor camp for women had been opened in May 1939 to house up to 4,000 political prisoners. Now it held more than 36,000, including criminals, prostitutes, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Resistance agents.