Terrace Books

Finalist for the 2004 National Jewish Book Awards in the categories of Holocaust Studies and Women’s Studies

“Saidel’s goal is to make visible a previously ignored aspect of women’s Holocaust history. . . . In bringing to light the experiences of the women of Ravensbrück concentration camp, Saidel adds to our knowledge of Jewish survival in the genocidal conditions created by the Nazis.”
—Rochelle G. Ruthchild, Women’s Review of Books

Located about fifty miles north of Berlin, Ravensbrück was the only major Nazi concentration camp for women. During its six years of operation, there were a total of about 20,000 Jewish women in the camp. Reclaiming the lost voices of the victims and the personal accounts of the survivors, here is the story of daily camp life with the women’s thoughts about food, friendships, fear of sexual abuse, hygiene issues, slave labor, resistance, and, most importantly, staying alive.

Rochelle Saidel is founder and executive director of the Remember the Women Institute in New York and senior scientific researcher at the Center for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of São Paulo. She is author of Never Too Late to Remember: The Politics behind New York City’s Holocaust Museum and The Outraged Conscience: Seekers of Justice for Nazi War Criminals in America. She is the curator of the exhibit Women of Ravensbrück: Portraits of Courage for the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg.

For more information about this book, see Rochelle Saidel’s web site at: www.rememberwomen.org.

“The histories of these Jewish survivors are very moving. Readers interested in visual historical materials will appreciate the wide range of photographs and illustrations depicting life in this camp.”
—Nechama Tec, author of Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust

“This book is the outcome of over twenty years of indefatigable research in archives and libraries, and of interviews in several countries with survivors of Ravensbrück. Saidel presents their deeply moving stories against a carefully constructed context of the camp’s history. . . . This book is clearly a labor of deep commitment and love.”
—Ruth Schwertfeger, author of Women of Theresienstadt and The Wee Wild One

“Brings to light for the first time the stories of the Jewish women who were imprisoned in Ravensbruck.”
—Ruth Almog, Haaretz

“Thanks to Rochelle Saidel’s sensitive interviews and meticulous research, together with the many previously unpublished photographs and haunting drawings by the inmates, this book will increase public recognition of Ravensbrück’s victims and survivors. With this, The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp takes its honorable place in the growing genre of gender study of the Holocaust.”
—Eetta Prince-Gibson, Jerusalem Post

Of Related Interest

The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto
Book One: On the Brink of the Precipice, 1939
Chava Rosenfarb, Translated from the Yiddish by the author in collaboration with Goldie Morgentaler

The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto
Book Two: From the Depths I Call You, 1940–1942
Chava Rosenfarb, Translated from the Yiddish by the author in collaboration with Goldie Morgentaler