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Poems and artistic testimonies from the women's concentration camp Ravensbrück and subcamps

Ravensbrück, located 90 km north of Berlin, was the largest concentration camp for women on German territory during the Nazi era. From 1939 to 1945, the National Socialists imprisoned about 120,000 women from over 30 nations there - for political and racist reasons. Their inhuman ideology was backed up by brutal discrimination and did not even hesitate to murder. An inconceivable number of women from Ravensbrück and its satellite camps were executed or died of hunger, disease, exhaustion from hard labor or the consequences of medical experiments.

As far as is known, at least 1200 poems were written in Ravensbrück. In the arts, many of the women sought strengthening, consolation, and spiritual survival. This project is conceived as a metaphorical space and contextual framework to sensitively perceive the "Voices from Ravensbrück" and preserve their memory.

Thematic accesses such as ArrivalRoll CallDaily LifeForced LabourArrestLonging - ResistanceSufferingDeathHope - lead to a selection of poems in connection with drawings and objects by prisoners as well as photographs taken on site. Additional levels with biographical data, contextual information, testimonies and documents convey an impression of the inhumane conditions in the camps and the everyday struggle for survival. Afterwards, you can throw a virtual rose in the Schwedt lake in Memory of the women of Ravensbrück.

[ deutsche Version ]

[ Press release - PDF ]