Resistance Behind Barbed Wire
Listen to the podcast episode for this article now! ANTI FASCIST HEROINES
“In Ravensbrück I saw women prove that solidarity, friendship, and compassion can survive even in the kingdom of death.” - Margarete Buber-Neumann (German political prisoner, survivor)
The Women of Ravensbrück:
When we talk about Nazi concentration camps, most people immediately think of Auschwitz, Dachau, or Buchenwald. But far fewer have heard of Ravensbrück — the largest concentration camp built for women. Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 women were imprisoned there. They weren’t just prisoners of war or political opponents — they were teachers, mothers, nurses, students, communists, Jews, Roma, lesbians, sex workers, resistance fighters. In other words: anyone the Nazis considered expendable.
And yet, even inside a place designed to strip away humanity, the women of Ravensbrück found ways to resist.
Resistance in the Shadows
Some resistance looked like sabotage. Women forced to sew uniforms for German soldiers sometimes stitched the seams wrong on purpose. Others assigned to munitions factories “accidentally” weakened weapons. These tiny acts of defiance risked execution if discovered, but they gave women a sense of agency — and slowed down the Nazi war machine.
Other resistance was about survival and solidarity. Prisoners hid sick women during roll calls, smuggled scraps of bread to one another, and even set up secret “universities,” teaching languages, poetry, and history in whispers. As one survivor said: “Knowledge was a weapon they couldn’t take from us.”
Women Who Fought Back
- Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz: Niece of Charles de Gaulle and a member of the French Resistance, she survived Ravensbrück and later dedicated her life to telling the stories of women who didn’t. She recalled how women would lock arms during beatings so no one had to suffer alone.
- Margarete Buber-Neumann: A German
communist who had already survived Stalin’s gulag before being handed to the Nazis. At Ravensbrück she risked her life to record the names of women who died, preserving their memory when the regime wanted them erased. - The French SOE women: Members of Britain’s Special Operations Executive — like Violette Szabo, Denise Bloch, and Liliane Rolfe — were captured, tortured, and executed at Ravensbrück. Their bravery in the face of certain death became a rallying cry for postwar resistance movements.
- Escapees: Though rare, escapes did happen. Polish women smuggled out letters hidden in laundry and even managed to flee during transfers to forced labor sites. Locals in nearby villages sometimes risked everything to shelter them. These escapes were dangerous, but they meant that the outside world could not ignore Ravensbrück forever.
Why Haven’t We Heard of Ravensbrück?
Ravensbrück’s story has often been overlooked for a few reasons:
- Gender bias in history: Resistance stories were written by and about men, while women’s experiences were dismissed as “domestic” or “secondary.” 😡
- Uncomfortable truths: Survivors included not only resistance fighters, but also lesbians, sex workers, and Roma women — groups postwar societies preferred to forget. 😡
- Silencing survivors: Many women who survived returned to countries where no one wanted to hear their stories. Trauma was minimized; their resistance, ignored. 😡
Why It Matters Now
Ravensbrück reminds us that fascism doesn’t just target political opponents — it targets anyone who dares to live outside the lines of a rigid, hateful system. Remembering Ravensbrück is about reclaiming women’s place in the history of resistance and refusing to let their courage be forgotten.
“What we had to do was to hold on, to resist. Even in the camp we had to resist, otherwise we would no longer be human beings.” Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz (French Resistance fighter, survivor)
Because fascism thrives on silence. And these women refused to be silent — even behind barbed wire.
So — next time someone tells you women only “waited at home” during the war, tell them about Ravensbrück. Tell them about women who sabotaged Nazi weapons with crooked stitches, who smuggled hope in scraps of bread, who faced firing squads with more courage than most generals. Tell them that fascism tried to erase them — and failed.
Remembering these women isn’t just history…It is resistance. ✊