Paul Nesselroade

Holocaust Studies Tour – Day 5 (Group 2)

Ravensbrück

The group spend several hours traveling north of Berlin by regional train to the idyllic German city of Fürstenberg-an-der-Havel. Sitting across a lake from this beautiful northern German city are the tortured grounds of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp – where we learned that the Holocaust is not merely a masculine phenomenon, it is a human one. Here are some pictures from the day:

Signpost to the camp
Meeting our tour guide
At the kommandant’s home
Inside the nice quarters of the kommandant
Talking inside the camp
Hearing a quote from Corrie Ten Boom by our guide, words she had never read before. She seemed moved….we all were.
The first memorial, in 1959, featured a “woman with burden” looking across the lake to the city of Fürstenberg. (Notice it is also shaped like the steeple that highlights the skyline of the city.)
Another view of the soviet era memorial almost mocking the steeple
Soccer field in the midst of the repurposed female guard apartments? Moral questions everywhere
One of the crematoria
One of the new displays featuring the female guards…so many questions

Here are some thoughts a put together related to this camp: https://paulnesselroade.com/blog/ravensbruck-and-the-nature-of-evil/

Tomorrow is “free Berlin.” On Sunday we will make our way to Kraków.

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