RESISTANCE – REPRESSION – DEPORTATION.
EXHIBITION IN RAVENSBRÜCK
As part of commemoration events marking the 77th anniversary of liberation, an exhibition was opened at the Ravensbrück Memorial dedicated to the nearly 9,000 women deported by the Germans from occupied France between January 1942 and September 1944 as part of political repression. At least 7,000 of them were deported to the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück and often, thereafter, to various sub-camps. More than 1,500 women deported from France to Ravensbrück did not survive the incarceration.
Ravensbrück Memorial
The director of the memorial, Andrea Genest: - French women were the third-largest contingent of nationalities at the Ravensbrück concentration camp after women from Poland and the Soviet Union. Given the annual 'pilgrimages' of survivors and their families to the memorials, they still play a vital role in remembrance culture. Although the focus has been on political resistance against the German occupation, the exhibition shows that many women were also deported from France to the Ravensbrück concentration camp by the National Socialists for other reasons. We are particularly appreciative that many families of persecuted persons have made their private archives available to us and offered advice and support to the exhibition preparation team.
The majority of the women arrested fought in the resistance movement against the German occupation of France. However, the group of female prisoners from France was not homogeneous. Jewish and Roma women were also deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. About 200 French women working in the German armaments industry were also imprisoned in the camp, arrested for unexcused absence from work or similar alleged offences.
The exhibition, which focuses on 30 biographies, sheds light on the lives and experiences of these women and their different social and national identities. It shows how traditional gender roles shaped issues of resistance and persecution. Through their actions, some of the women challenged these patterns.
The women's stories are divided into the stages of German occupation in France, incarceration in the camp and the post-liberation period. Their experiences are illustrated by previously unknown historical documents and photographs. A different perspective on the camp period is provided by the featured drawings (by Violette Lecoq and Jeannette L'Herminier, among others) and literary texts by Micheline Maurel and Charlotte Delbo.
The video materials on display show some of the daughters of female survivors talking about their post-war lives with their mothers. Other video stations present excerpts from interviews with French women who survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp and are the main characters of the exhibition: Marie-José Chombart de Lauwe, Anise Postel-Vinay, Germaine Tillion and Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier.
The exhibition is a breakthrough in the approach to historical objects and documents that cannot be presented in their original form. Historical stamps were reproduced in partnership with the Ernst Litfass School in Berlin and are on display at the exhibition. They were used to forge documents in the resistance movement. In cooperation with Siemens Mobility GmbH, 3D prints of small objects that Frenchwoman Hélène Fauriat made from plastic, wood or metal as a forced labourer in the Berlin-Schönefeld sub-camp were created. Visitors can touch and see them up close.
Survivors Lili Leignel, Marie Vaislic and Jean-Claude Passerat were present at the opening of the exhibition. While both women were deported from France to Ravensbrück as children, Jean-Claude Passerat was born in the camp as the son of a French resistance fighter.
The exhibition will be presented at the Ravensbrück Memorial until September and afterwards transferred to France. During the summer, the exhibition will be accompanied by a series of events organised in collaboration with the French Embassy. Furthermore, several Franco-German youth exchange projects will address the exhibition's theme in a regional context.
The curators of the exhibition "Resistance - Depressions - Deportations" are the director of the Memorial Andrea Genest, Mechthild Gilzmer specialist in Romance studies and the historian Hannah Sprute. The project was developed with the financial support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.