Germany faces up to shame of sex slavery in concentration camps

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | January 16 2007 | Deutsche Presse-Agentur

[fishhound]

Germany faces up to shame of sex slavery in concentration camps

Date: January 16 2007

FURSTENBERG: Breaking a long-time taboo in the world of Nazi horrors, Germany has unveiled an exhibition on the "comfort women" exploited by male concentration-camp inmates.

Between 300 and 400 women were forced to provide sexual services to queues of slave labourers from the Nazi armaments factories.

"These brothels were provided as a 'performance incentive' so that the male prisoners would increase their output," said Horst Seferens of the Brandenburg Monuments Foundation, which funded the exhibition at the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp Memorial.

Most male prisoners never admitted after their release that they had exploited the women, who also kept their shame secret.

The Nazis used hundreds of thousands of Jews and political prisoners to keep their weapons factories running.

The women were selected from Ravensbrueck camp, the main Nazi site for detaining women, and sent to 10 other concentration camps.

"In the story of the concentration camps, the SS's exploitation of women inmates for men inmates has been just so covered up and avoided by everyone," said Insa Eschebach, the head of the memorial. "And what did come out was just so distorted and prejudiced against the women."

Items in the show include eyewitness interviews, some of the Nazis' index cards on the victims describing them as "brothel women", and the vouchers that were given to male inmates to be redeemed in sexual services.

Historians said the story had so embarrassed the women that the Nazis responsible were never prosecuted after the war.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

[fishhound]

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2307665,00.html

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2310208,00.html

PST the germans built a 76 + mile fence for protestors http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_imageoftheday/0,,2310885_lang_2,00.html

[tutstar]

read later

[Enterprise]

Mark

[Always Right]

I guess if they weren't shamed about killing 6 million people, now they are suppose to be shamed about forcing 400 women into prostitution.

[rmlew]

Actually its 11 million people if you include Poles, Roma/Gypsies, political opponents, the handicapped...

[SmoothTalker]

"I guess if they weren't shamed about killing 6 million people, now they are suppose to be shamed about forcing 400 women into prostitution."

I'd be shocked if the numbers of women the Nazis forced into that were not substantially higher. They were truly evil people.

[rmlew]

Neo-nazis are probably touting this to blame the inmates.

[elmer fudd]

It's kind of hard to believe that the Germans are going to be much more ashamed because of this. I mean when you've already been caught commiting murder, genocide and torture on a scale never seen before or since how much worse do a few forced brothels make things? In fact, the brothels were probably a much better place to be than the concentration camps.

[Cicero]

I imagine they greatly understate the numbers. Still, better a brothel than a death camp, I'd say. And better yet, neither.

[donna]

Maybe the male prisoners who used them could face what they did.

[donna]

In fact, the brothels were probably a much better place to be than the concentration camps.

Lay back and enjoy the rapes.

[YOUGOTIT]

The Japanese used the women of Korea as slaves for several years but I have not seen any great write up in any paper about it. About time this came out. They should also write about the 25 million + killed by the God of the Democrats Joe Stalin.

[Always Right]

Lay back and enjoy the rapes.

Oh the great wisdom of Robert Knight.

[Teacher317]

How many are left alive for us to dissect for more public outcries?

(Not that the major media trot out the Nazis on a regular basis to keep our collective hatred stoked or anything. Do they ever write anything that doesn't attempt to utlize emotional manipulation?)

[hoosierham]

I am of least half German ancestry and I thought it was a bad idea to let Germany re-unite.Better to have kept several German speaking but seperate countries.The German people have a history of too much admiration for "order uber alles",the military machine and attempted conquest.Currently it looks like the German banks are the weapon being used to dominate the EU.

[rmlew]

I imagine they greatly understate the numbers. Still, better a brothel than a death camp, I'd say. And better yet, neither.
It wasn't an either or. When found no longer useful, they were killed.

Young women raped by guards or otherwise used suffered the same fate as other pregnant "untermenschen". They were either killed outright or had their legs tided together during labor.

As for the guards, there were many homosexuals and pedophiles. Defiled children were exterminated when their tormentors lost interest. When homosexual inmates lost their looks, thye were consigned to death. All of the above were targeted by guards before they fled, as these victims were in the best position to identify the guards.

[rmlew]

OK. I happen to have like Prussia.
The problem was not German alone.

[Gunslingr3]

I guess if they weren't shamed about killing 6 million people, now they are suppose to be shamed about forcing 400 women into prostitution.

The article is saying it was hidden because of the shame of the Jewish inmates (male and female) that participated, not the Nazis.

[Scotsman will be Free]

"before or since"? Are you familiar with communism's track record on genocide, mass murder and torture?

[hoosierham]

Actually I suppose one should give the Bolsheviks (Lenin and Stalin)credit for mass murders of their own citizens first,while Hitler was still doing rabble-rousing.

And the OLd Testament has the Israelites being ordered by Moses to wipe out whole tribes and cities which stood in their way.

History is filled with examples of vile,cruel murders.

Americans killed several thousand of their own children today,and will again tomorrow,and did last week..........