“And then We Were Taken to Ravensbrück.” Early Oral Testimonies About Ravensbrück and Its Sub Camps

Abstract

This article focuses on the analysis and interpretation of 15 testimonies collected immediately after the war by David Boder and by the Polish Historical Institute in Sweden with women deported to Auschwitz, evacuated to Ravensbrück in its last two phases and then to Malchow. The study of their statements can provide both a historical overview of Ravensbrück and its sub camps in 1944 and 1945, and help identify the effects of the camp, an overthrown social context, on individuals, women in this case, and groups. The comparative exam of the interviews allows to identify the crucial events and experiences which constitute the core of the interviewees’narration and representation of the events. The situations and episodes they chose to recall may explain their perception of the events and reveals a gendered perspective which affected their memories in terms of the selection of the events and their focus on specific issues. The memories were recalled in relation to social frames, which were different from those the survivors were previously used to and pertained to the context of the camp. These coordinates constitute a net which can provide an insight into the mechanism of memory construction and early representation of the Holocaust.

Keywords

• holocaust
• oral testimonies
• memory
• deculturation
• malchow
• ravensbrück