With the first transport of women to Auschwitz in March 1942, 999 German women prisoners from Ravensbrück were brought in to form a women’s camp. An identical number of young Jewish women from Slovakia arrived on the same day. Initially, the camp authorities did not seem to know what to do with such a large number of women. It was difficult to find suitable work for them all. It was not until the summer that most of the already 17,000 women prisoners were transferred to the so-called Frauen-Lager (German: women’s camp) in Birkenau, where they were employed in construction and agricultural work. Educated women, especially those with knowledge of foreign languages, were employed in the administration, and medical staff were sent to the camp hospitals.

“The women who were incarcerated in the camp underwent physical changes very quickly,” says Teresa Wątor-Cichy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. “Already during registration at the camp, most had their heads shaved. They were losing something that is an element of beauty, of care, a recognition of being a woman. Female prisoners said that they stood in a group as colleagues who had known each other for many years and suddenly could not recognise each other. Working beyond their strength in the camp and the minimal amounts of food caused them to lose weight. The lack of sanitary facilities, and therefore the possibility to wash themselves, caused their skin to become grey and rough. Another element that was of great concern to the female prisoners were the changes related to physiology: the stoppage of menstruation, precisely because of the loss of weight, because of the fear, the traumatic experiences they went through and witnessed,” she adds.

The Museum’s collection includes a dozen or so portraits of female prisoners drawn by Zofia Stępień-Bator. The women look beautiful, have long hair and are elegantly dressed. Agnieszka Sieradzka emphasises that in this way the humiliated, deprived of identity and ailing female prisoners regained not only their beauty, but also their dignity and humanity.

The podcast was produced as part of the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Eastern Europe College project funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Public task financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2022”.  The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the official positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.