Forced sex work in camp brothels
At least 200 women were sexually exploited in brothels within concentration camps. Luise, Martha and Hedwig were three of them.
In September 1944, the SS transported nineteen women from Ravensbrück concentration camp to Buchenwald. The youngest was 21 years old, the oldest was 44. The group included Luise, Martha and Hedwig. At Buchenwald, the SS forced the women into prostitution.
The camp leadership had been operating an official brothel there since July 1943. It was established as a reward system for male forced laborers. But here, too, the Nazis distinguished between different groups of prisoners: only a few – mainly the privileged prisoner functionaries – were able to pay for brothel visits with “bonus vouchers.”
The Nazis registered women who actually or allegedly worked as sex workers and subjected them to official medical examinations. They categorized them as “anti-social” and referred to them as “Dirnen” – a historical term generally used pejoratively to refer to female sex workers. At the same time, the very women the Nazi regime discriminated against as social outsiders could, in its eyes, be considered “useful” for the brothels it operated. This reveals the Nazis’ double standards: they officially fought practices they deemed harmful to society while organizing those selfsame practices themselves when it served their interests.
Camp brothels in the concentration camp system
In July 1943, the SS had the so-called Sonderbau (literally “special building”) built at Buchenwald concentration camp, a euphemistic term for the camp brothel. It was set up on the orders of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.
Women had been forced into sex work in the barracks of the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps since 1942. The SS used the sexual exploitation of women as a “reward” for prisoners who performed particularly well at work. The National Socialists hoped this would increase the inmates’ productivity. The Nazis calculated one woman for every 500 to 600 prisoners. The brothels were organized and run by the SS Chief Economic Administration Office. This office set up a total of ten brothels in camps including Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Auschwitz. The last brothel opened in Mittelbau-Dora in February 1945. However, right from the start, political prisoners in particular rejected the system of incentives created by the SS and boycotted the camp brothels. As the war progressed, living conditions in the concentration camps deteriorated, and the number of brothel visits declined.
Most of the women the SS sent to the camp brothels came from the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp. Initially, the Nazis primarily selected women who had been targeted for persecution because of their actual or alleged involvement in prostitution. A letter from Heinrich Himmler to Oswald Pohl, the head of the SS Chief Economic Administration Office, illustrates the inhumanity of the SS in this regard: “The only prostitutes to be selected for the camp brothels are those about whom it can be assumed from the outset, based on their prior life and attitude, that they are beyond saving for an orderly life later on, so that upon rigorous examination, we need never reproach ourselves for having spoiled someone who could have been saved for the German people.” Women who “volunteered” for this work were promised early release and other benefits by the SS. These promises were often broken, however, and the number of “volunteers” was small.
Luise: Deported to Buchenwald
Luise was transferred from Ravensbrück to Buchenwald at the start of July 1943, just when the camp brothel opened. She was 23 years old. In 1939 she had contracted gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease that had to be reported to the authorities at the time. The police in Düsseldorf listed her as a person with “frequently changing sexual partners” and required her to undergo regular medical examinations. When she failed to appear at these appointments, the Nazis arrested her in 1942, categorized her as “anti-social,” and deported her to Ravensbrück. One year later, she was considered to be cured of the sexually transmitted disease – and the SS forced her into sex work.
Every evening, Luise had to wait for the men in a small room in a separate barrack. She was expected to be sexually available to male inmates for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. The SS exerted control over the most intimate details. SS guards used a peephole in the door to monitor whether the Nazis’ standards of “sexual morality” were being upheld.
In the first 21 days of the brothel’s existence, the camp leadership documented a total of 2018 brothel visits. On some evenings, Luise was forced to engage in sexual acts with up to nine inmates. The male prisoners paid two Reichsmarks per visit – the young woman received 45 pfennigs. According to documents from the Arolsen Archives, Luise sent her destitute father money on several occasions.
Martha: Persecuted by the Nazi authorities
The 44-year-old Martha, who was forced into sex work by the SS in Buchenwald just like Luise, also sent money home. She supported her sister in Berlin. Martha herself had most recently lived in Frankfurt, where she allegedly worked as a prostitute, according to the Gestapo. The Nazis arrested Martha at the end of 1938 and took her to Lichtenburg concentration camp a few weeks later. In May 1939, she was transferred to Ravensbrück. Some documents list Martha’s profession as Kontrollfrau. This term indicates that she had to comply with official requirements and that her compliance was monitored by the authorities. Her prisoner registration card from Ravensbrück identifies her as a Dirne, a derogatory German term for a prostitute.
Hedwig: Never returned
The SS regularly swapped out the women in the brothel. Martha and Luise were returned to Ravensbrück in 1944, but they were already back in the camp brothel in Buchenwald in September of the same year. Their names are on a list of 19 newcomers to the Sonderkommando or “special detail,” as the camp leadership referred to the brothel. Hedwig’s name is on this list, too. The 27-year-old had only recently been interned. The Gestapo had arrested her in the East Prussian city of Insterburg in March 1944 and deported her a short time later to Ravensbrück concentration camp, which was 700 kilometers away. Nazi records refer to Hedwig using the discriminatory term “work-shy.”
Hedwig was unmarried and had two young children. Her parents had died, so she had no support. Every evening, Hedwig had to make her body available to male inmates. Three months later, Hedwig was pregnant. A camp doctor in Buchenwald applied for an abortion. We do not know whether the procedure was ever performed or whether Hedwig may have died as a result. There is no further trace of Hedwig. After the war, her son’s legal guardian searched for her through the International Tracing Service (now the Arolsen Archives). Nothing was found, and in 1952 she was officially declared dead. Martha and Luise survived and were both released in January 1945. Other women who had survived until then continued to be subjected to sexualized violence and exploitation in the ten concentration camp brothels – until the camps were liberated by the Allies.
Stigmatized even after the war
The liberation did not end the suffering of the women from the camp brothels, however. People who had been categorized as “anti-social” by the Nazis and deported to concentration camps were not compensated after the war. Instead, they continued to be stigmatized and marginalized. After 1945, many of them never spoke of the sexual violence they had endured. Shame had a role to play in this, as did the fear of renewed stigmatization and marginalization. This is one of the reasons their stories still remain largely unknown today.