History of Sorts

I was struggling to give this blog a title. I was thinking of naming it—Brothels in the Concentration Camp. However, I think that would not do justice to the horror and impossible choices these women had to make. 

In general, women who worked in brothels had a bit of autonomy over their lives. Some women enjoyed working there. The women forced to work at the concentration camp brothels— had no choice—it was a matter of life and death. Therefore, I thought the title Holocaust Sex Slaves was the best description.

The brothels in concentration camps had been established as an incentive, allowing prisoners to collaborate. The women forced into these brothels came mainly from the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.

The women were selected and then brought into a furnished room. It was very different from the ones the women knew from Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.

The SS opened ten brothels. The first one was at the Austrian camp at Mauthausen in 1942. The largest was at Auschwitz, where as many as 21 female prisoners worked. The women forced to work at the Auschwitz Brothel were inmates from Auschwitz Block 24.

The last brothel opened in early 1945.

One of the women testified: “They told us we were in the camp brothel, that we were the lucky ones. We would eat well and have enough to drink. If we behaved and fulfilled our duties, nothing would happen to us.”

The women were mandated to have sex with the imprisoned labourers. It was an idea devised by SS Chief Heinrich Himmler to increase productivity and prevent homosexuality from spreading in the camps.

There was no evidence that the brothels produced any noticeable increase in productivity levels. Only a handful of inmates were in physical condition to go to them. The Jewish women at the camp were not recruited to work in the brothels. The Jewish male prisoners were not allowed inside the brothels.

The women, aged 17–35, received more food and were treated less harshly than other female inmates. In return, they had to provide sex to selected prisoners every evening between 8 and 10 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons.

Inmates [clients] allowed to go to the brothels had to sign up for a specific day and pay two Reichs marks for a 20-minute session based on a predetermined schedule. A female overseer controlled the 20 female prisoners. The women were matched with clients by an SS officer. The clients were mainly inmates classified as criminals or political prisoners wearing green inverted triangles.

Himmler believed that forcing homosexual inmates to have sex once a week with the women—would cure their homosexual tendencies.

The women were replaced frequently because of exhaustion and illness, which could mean their deaths. Some underwent forced sterilizations or forced abortions, many times resulting in their death.

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Sources

Der Spiegel

The Local.de

Mail On Line

WW2 Resource

The Telegraph