Ravensbrück : Life and Death in Hitler’s Concentration Camp by Sarah Helm Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton, Ph.D. Ravensbrück offers an organized collection of women’s voices documenting the diverse ways individuals and tribal groups of European women responded to Nazi enslavement, violence, and murder. The collection of stories is organized chronologically. But themes emerge because policies and war events change. Changes in policy sometimes mean changes in leaders. But changes in policy also reflect changes in the war, which in turn, result in changes in the size and character of the camp’s victims. We have heard stories of the brutality of Nazi leaders in the death camps focused on the extermination of Jews. But at Ravensbrück we learn that Nazis, governed by superiority myths and emboldened by conquest, systematically destroyed the lives of European women after extracting every ounce of strength as they labored for the Reich on the trail
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