80th anniversary of the liberation of the Ravensbrück concentration camp

 The largest women’s concentration camp in Nazi Germany was located in Ravensbrück (Brandenburg) from 1939 to 1945. Over 130,000 warnen were imprisoned here. Tens of thousands died of hunger, disease, ruthless exploitation and directly through the guards. The memorial celebrates the day of the liberation of Ravensbrück concentration camp by the Red Army on April 30, 1945 every year.

Lesbians in the church and remembrance in Ravensbrück

From the early 1980s at the latest, the Protestant church in the DDR became a meeting place for many oppositional people and groups, as it was the only institution that was relatively independent of state control. A group of lesbians also used the church premises for their meetings.

The program of the lesbian groups was characterized by activities of varying scope and significance. The lesbian women had their most incisive experiences in March 1984 and April 1985 when they attempted to commemorate the homosexual victims of National Socialism at the memorial site of the former Ravensbrück concentration camp. In both years, their plans were sabotaged by the state. After the memorial event in 1984, the wreath laid by the women was removed, as was the page of the memorial book on which the group had articulated their remembrance. In response to the women’s petition, the Minister of Culture replied that commemorative publications by “groups not recognized by the state will be removed”.

Despite this experience, the lesbians wanted to take part in the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp in April 1985. But as soon as they arrived in Fürstenberg, the women were detained by the police and their identity cards got confiscated. They were interrogated individually for hours and sent back to Berlin without the opportunity to visit the memorial site.

The photos presented here from the Archive of Schwules Museum document their activism with powerful images. At the center is the image of one of the four memorial spheres that were produced between 2015 and 2022. The spherical memorial bears the inscription: “In memory of the persecuted and murdered lesbian women and girls. You are not forgotten.” Since 2017, this memorial sphere has been on permanent loan to Schwules Museum and has found its place on the grounds of the memorial site.

Visual: “Gedenkkugel zur Erinnerung an die lesbischen Gefangenen im Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück 2017”, Photo: Paul Sleev, Schwules Museum archive