Fuerstenberg, Germany - Breaking a long-time taboo in the
world of Nazi horrors, German history officials unveiled Sunday an
exhibition on the 'comfort women' exploited by male concentration-
camp inmates.
Between 300 and 400 women were forced to provide sexual services
to queues of slave labourers from the Nazi armaments factories.
'These brothels were provided as a 'performance incentive' so that
the male prisoners would increase their output,' said Horst Seferens
of the Brandenburg Monuments Foundation, which funded the exhibition
at the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp Memorial.
Most male prisoners never admitted after their release that they
had exploited the women, who also kept the story of their shame
secret. The Nazis employed hundreds of thousands of Jews and
political prisoners to keep their weapons factories running.
The women were selected from Ravensbrueck camp, the main Nazi site
for detaining women, and sent to 10 other concentration camps.
'In the story of the concentration camps, the SS's exploitation of
women inmates for men inmates has been just so covered up and avoided
by everyone,' said Insa Eschebach, head of the memorial. 'And what
did come out was just so distorted and prejudiced against the women.'
Items in the show include eyewitness interviews, some of the
Nazis' index cards on the victims describing them as 'brothel women,'
and the vouchers that were given to male inmates to be redeemed in
sexual services.
Historians said the story had so embarrassed the women that the
Nazis responsible were never prosecuted after the War. The camps were
run by the SS, the Nazi Party's own paramilitary organization.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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