Jewish women prisoners of Ravensbrèuck

In May 1939, the Ravensbruck labour camp for women was founded in Germany.

The only camp of its kind, Ravensbruck was designed to hold 15,000 prisoners, and eventually housed over 42,000 women from 23 countries.

But who, Judith Buber Agassi asks, were they? "Jewish Women Prisoners of Ravensbruck" offers insight into the identities of the women within Ravensbruck's walls, presenting original research from major archives in Germany, Israel and the USA.

The author has recovered the identity of over 16,000 Jewish women over the six year history of the camp, drawing data from transport and death registration lists, as well as from records that were smuggled out of the camp before liberation, all double-checked, where possible, with personal testimonies.

Unlike many Ravensbruck memoirs, these testimonies are intended to corroborate details, rather than produce an impressionistic account of camp life. And yet, Buber Agassi's laboriously constructed data is no dispassionate array of facts: at the very heart of her work is the quest to give the dignity of an identity - a memory - to thousands of women.