The Nazi concentration camps hid a still little-known horror: “brothels” where dozens of prisoners were sexually exploited and in which other victims, their fellow captives, were the rapists.
(We recommend reading: Ninety years from the night the Nazis showed their true face).
This Sunday marks the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, the first in which the SS, the feared Nazi paramilitary force, opened a “brothel” to encourage the productivity of the prisoners.
These brothels, installed in a dozen Nazi camps in Europe, operated from 1942 to early 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.
Some 200 women were conscripted with the promise of release after six months of service.something that never happened.
This dark chapter, long taboo, has been investigated by the German writer Robert Sommer in his book “Das KZ Bordell” (The Concentration Camp Brothel).
After the war, the author explains to EFE, many of these women had to endure the stigma despite having been victims of the violence of the Nazi system.
“The vast majority of these women, many of them German, were classified by the Nazis as ‘asocial’ and they were never recognized as victims or compensated,” says Sommer.
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The Nazis defined as “asocial”, for example, the homeless, alcoholics, traveling musicians, prostitutes or any woman who did not fit into the ultra-conservative vision of the Nazis. They were generally people from very poor backgrounds.
In Mauthausen, about 160 kilometers west of Vienna, there were the worst working conditions of all the camps, and the Nazis applied the motto of “extermination through labor” there.
The inmates were prisoners of war, mainly Poles and Soviets, but there were also homosexuals, Jews and German political opponents, as well as French and some 7,500 Spaniards.
Mauthausen was the first camp in which the Nazis opened brothels, andIn hut 1 and in a building in the Gusen subcamp, where there were a total of 35 women.
In addition to racist policies, another of the bases of Nazi thought was that women were subservient to men and could be mistreated and abused without further ado, says the expert.
The Nazis tried to recruit the women into the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp, where they also sought victims for other brothels for German soldiers and the SS.
“The prettiest went to the SS brothels, the slightly less pretty to the soldiers’, and the last ones to the concentration camps.” recounts Antonia Bruha, an Austrian prisoner who was held in Ravensbrück and whose testimony is collected in the book.
(Also: Anna Essinger, the teacher who fled with an entire school from Nazi Germany.)
The brothels in the concentration camps followed the racist laws of Nazi Germany, which barred Jewish men and women, but Russian prisoners were never allowed access either.
In Mauthausen, German and Austrian inmates were the first to have access to the brothel, and later other groups, such as Czechs, Spanish and French, were allowed.
Prisoners who enjoyed privileges in the camp hierarchy, such as kapos, used the brothels the most, according to the book of records used by the Nazis.
Sommer explains that there were also inmates who they refused to visit brothels on principle, and in some camps, such as Dachau and Buchenwaldpolitical prisoners, especially communists, tried to prevent others from going to brothels.
The sexually exploited women were locked in their barracks almost all the time.
“At night was when the sexual abuse took place. And that started at eight and lasted until ten at night. And then there was Sunday, which was all afternoon and it was the worst day for them,” explains the author.
Although conditions in the brothels were very difficult, female prisoners there often fared somewhat better in terms of food, accommodation, and access to water and hygiene products.
The men who went to the brothel had to pass a medical examination to detect possible venereal diseases and were assigned 15 minutes with a woman in a room.
“It was a very humiliating situation for the women, first of all, of course, but also partly for the men.. The SS showed that they had total and utter power over them,” Sommer notes.
(You might be interested in: World War II: The balance of an era of totalitarianism).
On many occasions, the prisoners, greatly weakened by the brutal conditions of the camp, more than sex, they were looking for a brief time of company and conversation with someone alone.
The researcher recalls that sentimental relationships were common between women locked up there and prisoners, and that he has even documented several cases of marriages contracted after the defeat of the Nazis.
EFE
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