Ravensbrück concentration camp

Welcome to the Ravensbrück Memorial and Museum. We are standing on the site of what was once the largest concentration camp for women in the Nazi Reich. …

Our tour begins at the main gate, the point of first confrontation for every woman arriving at Ravensbrück. For many, the journey ended here after a grueling march from the Fürstenberg railway station, where they had been…

A short distance from the prisoner blocks were the spacious living quarters of the SS staff and the female guards. These buildings, many of which still stand, provide a chilling look at the 'perverse normality' of the…

Ravensbrück was also a vital part of the Nazi war economy. To the east of the main camp sat an industrial complex where inmates were forced into grueling slave labor. …

The 'Rivier,' or infirmary block, was perhaps the most feared place in Ravensbrück. Instead of a place of healing, it became a site of torture and medical crime. …

Next to the administration building is the 'Bunker,' the camp's internal prison. This T-shaped brick building contained 78 cells and was a place of absolute horror. …

In the final months of the war, as the Nazi regime collapsed, the killing at Ravensbrück accelerated. A crematorium had been built on-site by 1943 to dispose of the bodies of those who died from disease and starvation, but in…

On April 30, 1945, Soviet troops reached Ravensbrück. They found around 2,000 sick and dying women left behind by the SS, who had forced the remaining 20,000 prisoners onto 'death marches' into the Mecklenburg forests. …