If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women (131 page)

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Authors: Sarah Helm

BOOK: If This Is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

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Chapter 38: Nelly

563	smuggled out letters : Wanda Hjort says today that Bernadotte was well aware of the content of Sylvia’s letters by this time. Author interview.
564	‘not only grave, but nervy’ : Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain .
565	Before joining the ICRC : On Meyer’s role, see his report and personal file, AICRC, BRH 1991 000.491/DP 4066; also author interview with Loulou Le Porz.
566	‘The sick were sent …’ : Cited in Les Françaises à Ravensbrück .
567	‘She asked Binz …’ : Author interview.
568	‘ bon voyage ’ : According to Denise Dufournier in La Maison des Mortes , before Suhren bade farewell the German camp staff handed each departing prisoner half a pound of butter, a packet of cake and a large piece of cold sausage.
570	also become lovers : Heger, Tous les Vendredis . Wanda and Bjørn Heger were married in the summer of 1945.
571	The next day we came out : Author interview.
573	‘A Doctoresse Le Porz …’ : See reports of the ICRC escorts Dr Auguste Jost and Mademoiselle Jung, who met the arrivals at the Swiss border and accompanied the train to France, in AICRC, BRH 1991 000/390.
573	‘some high-up person …’ : Author interview.
574	‘a convoy of martyrs …’ : Special Agent Edward A. Chadwell was assigned to a US war crimes investigations unit in Lyon, France when he was sent to report on the Ravensbrück arrivals. Chadwell noted that the women recounted the horrors with ‘a complete absence of emotion and feminine sentiment’. He reported: ‘It is impossible to feel their emotion when they speak of the death of their mothers or sisters who were there with them or of the death of their husbands.’ They still seemed to be in a state of shock he said but the majority had ‘splendid morale and were still determined to fight for their country; some of them have even asked how they can go about volunteering’. NARA war crimes file.
574	‘conduct herself loyally’ : Letter from SS General Ernest Kaltenbrunner to the President of the ICRC, 2 April 1945, reproduced in Lanckoroń ska Those who Trespass Against Us .
575	‘They are under threat of death’ : Lanckoroń ska, ‘Report of the Camp of Ravensbrück’, AICRC.

Chapter 39: Masur

576	‘After the gas chamber …’ : Nedvedova, Prague statement.
577	‘I stood with my eyes closed …’ : BAL B162/9814.
578	‘When the first warm rays …’ : Ottelard, WO 235/310.
578	rambling depositions : WO 235/317.
583	As the Allied planes : Author interview.
583	‘When mother saw us …’ : Author interview.
585	Eisenhower had told : On the Americans at the Elbe see Beevor, Berlin .
585	Suhren revealed later : WO 235/318.
586	‘So that’s what thanks …’ : Sokulska, WO 235/318.
586	‘“But that’s a scandal …”’ : Les Françaises à Ravensbrück .
587	‘One was a woman …’ : Salvini, WO 235/318.
588	‘orderly evacuation’ : Kersten, Memoirs .
588	commando missions : These were to be carried out by special forces of Operation Vicarage and the SAARF (Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force) teams who would drop by air into camps to warn the SS that the Allies were approaching in the hope of preventing more atrocity. One or two such missions to POW camps had limited success. See Foot and Langley, MI9 .
588	refuse safe passage : The Swedes provided the British with routes and timings of the convoys. On 5 March the British promised that their planes would be instructed to avoid attacks on the Swedish convoys, but no concrete guarantees came. On 8 March the British told the Swedes the government was ‘in principle in agreement with the action but was unable to give a safe-conduct’, saying Swedes entering Germany did so ‘at their own risk’. Cited in Persson, Escape from the Third Reich . Also see correspondence in FO 371/48047.
589	When the Swedes protested : See FO telegrams, FO 371/48047.
591	‘prepared to bury the hatchet …’ : Kersten, Memoirs .
591	‘these gentlemen’ : Masur report, 23 April 1945, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.
592	‘very tired and weary’ : Bernadotte, The Fall of the Curtain .

Chapter 40: White Buses

593	‘at the last minute’ : KV 2/98.
592	‘… liquidate them all’ : Ibid.
595	On entering Suhren’s office : Dreams . What happened next and when is not always clear; the sequence of events reported here is pieced together from accounts of Swedish drivers cited in Persson, Escape from the Third Reich , Fritz Göring’s report to MI5 (TNA KV 2/98) and testimony of prisoners including Buchmann, Vaillant-Couturier and Nedvedova, as well as ICRC delegates and those leaving on buses.
597	He could not get close : The delegate, Albert de Cocatrix, eventually reached the camp and gave a surreal description of its last days as he was shown around by Suhren, who pulled the wool over his eyes with consummate ease. ‘Before I left the camp I thought of asking Suhren to show me the gas chamber and crematorium. I didn’t do it …’. Report on visit to Ravensbrück between 20 and 23 April 1945 (precise date unclear), AICRC, G 44/13-0.02.
598	The Red Cross is coming : Diary of Jean Bommezijn de Rochement, IWM 06/25/1.
598	‘Die Engländerin! …’ : Wynne, No Drums, No Trumpets .
599	This sounds too good : IWM 06/25/1.
600	‘ghostlike men’ : Les Françaises à Ravensbrück .
603	and suddenly we are machine-gunned : In his report on the attacks (and the second on the Wismar road) the Swedish mission leader Sven Frykman said they followed reconnaissance flights by the aircraft and both were ‘entirely intentional, the planes probably British’. Frykman called for ‘energetic protests’ to be sent to the British, Americans and French. Cited in Persson, Escape from the Third Reich .
604	After a further Swedish protest : FO 371/48047. On 1 May Mallet wrote to the Swedes expressing ‘regret’ at the attacks ‘claimed’ to be British, and reminding the Swedes of warnings previously issued (i.e., that safe passage could not be guaranteed). Letter to C. Günther, 1 May 1945, SRA/UDA, HP 1619.
605	So I looked : Cited in Tillion, Ravensbrück .
605	‘We were suddenly told …’ : Lund.
605	‘we took everybody we could …’ : Persson, Escape from the Third Reich .
606	‘We were placed …’ : Lund.
606	‘all Jewish women …’ : Lund.
607	Maisie handed over : Renault, La Grande Misère .
608	sent for Mary Lindell : Wynne, No Drums, No Trumpets .
608	Sven Frykman : Sven Frykman’s role in identifying and collecting up the British prisoners who would otherwise have been left behind is also set out by British diplomats’ reports in FCO 371/50982.
609	I just remember : Author interview.
609–10	I believe that : WO 235/308.

Chapter 41: Liberation

611	‘Everything is on fire …’ : Grossman, A Writer at War .
612	‘I could hear them …’ : WO 235/318.
615	The Russians were a few miles : Author interview.
616	‘All around …’ : Maurel, Ravensbrück .
617	They were not bad people : Author interview.
619	In Fürstenberg we walked : Author interview.
622	‘Girls, let’s kill a pig and eat’ : Author interview.
622	‘Our submachine gunners …’ : Mednikov, Dolya Bessmertiya .
622	After fighting all the way : ‘A la Guerre Comme à la Guerre’, interview with Michael Ivanovich Stakhanov, now a retired colonel, by journalist Natalia Eryomenkova in Russkaya Gazeta no. 17/2005.
623	‘I remember celebrating …’ : Author interview.
625	There were many : Author interview.
625–6	Then a major : Author interview.
626	They allocated a house : Author interview.
626	‘handsome men’ : Dreams .
627	Suddenly we were walking : Author interview.
627	‘A big burly fellow …’ : Maurel, Ravensbrück .
628–9	I remember we were burying : Author interview.
629	Yes, everything happened : Author interview. Odette’s flight with Suhren is described in Tickell, Odette , and in her May 1946 statement (WO 235/318).
631	We began to wonder : Author interview.

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