Secrets of Sexual Forced Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps
I have vivid memories of a school trip to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, 35 kilometres north of Berlin: the crematories, the so-called ‘Station Z’ built for the extermination of prisoners in 1942, the infirmary... I have no recollection, however, of the camp brothel.
Robert Sommer’s latest book The Concentration Camp Bordello: Sexual Forced Labor in National Socialistic Concentration Camps (Das KZ-Bordell) provides, however, for the first time a comprehensive study of this dark, hushed-up and largely ignored chapter of the history of Nazi Germany. Sommer is a cultural studies scholar based in Berlin. His study will be published in July by Schoningh Verlag, Paderborn. It is the result of a nine-year project based on the study of archives, concentration camp memorial sites and interviews with historical witnesses.
It is often believed that the Nazi regime forbade and fought prostitution. Sommer’s research reveals, however, the existence of brothels in Nazi concentration camps and of a network of state-controlled brothels, which operated across half of Europe, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War. There existed brothels in the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mittelbau-Dora and Mauthausen.
Read entire article at History Today
Robert Sommer’s latest book The Concentration Camp Bordello: Sexual Forced Labor in National Socialistic Concentration Camps (Das KZ-Bordell) provides, however, for the first time a comprehensive study of this dark, hushed-up and largely ignored chapter of the history of Nazi Germany. Sommer is a cultural studies scholar based in Berlin. His study will be published in July by Schoningh Verlag, Paderborn. It is the result of a nine-year project based on the study of archives, concentration camp memorial sites and interviews with historical witnesses.
It is often believed that the Nazi regime forbade and fought prostitution. Sommer’s research reveals, however, the existence of brothels in Nazi concentration camps and of a network of state-controlled brothels, which operated across half of Europe, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War. There existed brothels in the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mittelbau-Dora and Mauthausen.