The overseers of Nazi
concentration camps orchestrated more than the systematic mass murder and
medical experimentation on innocent civilians and prisoners. They also ran
brothels that were forcibly worked by their woman prisoners.
Around 1942, Heinrich Himmler
and the SS began to construct brothels in concentration camps to incentivize
hard work from the prisoners who acted as informants and aided in the function
of the camp. The first ‘special building’ was built in the Mauthausen
concentration camp, but over the next years, at least nine more brothels were
constructed in places such as Buchenwald, Dachau and Auschwitz. In these camps,
prisoners who pleased the SS would receive vouchers that they could use at the
brothels for a fifteen-minute session with a prostitute.
Some women supposedly joined
the brothels willingly—for the prostitutes were well fed and housed—but if
there were no volunteers, the wardens would seize women to fill the brothels by
force. Jewish prisoners were forbidden from working in or visiting the brothel,
but political prisoners, gypsies and other ‘anti-socials’ were allowed
entrance.
- “Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution,’” episode “Exploitation.” Documentary mini-series, 2005.
- http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/concentration-camp-bordellos-the-main-thing-was-to-survive-at-all-a-632558.html
- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-nazis-brothels-idUSTRE57G45X20090817
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