They were forced to live in what were called brothels, i.e. special buildings inside the concentration camps, where access was meticulously controlled. There were shifts, rates and entry times reserved only for the Funktionshäftlinge or the prisoner-functionaries, the inmates who carried out surveillance tasks inside the concentration camp, such as deans or kapo.
Not simple internees, therefore, but men who could pay the two Reichsmarks required by the SS to access the brothel that had not only been set up in Auschwitz, but also in other concentration camps.
A sad reality that took place between the barbed wire that fenced off the concentration camps, yet another symbol of the Nazi horror that treated women as a bargaining chip and which is well documented in Das KZ-Bordell (The brothel in the concentration camp), a book by Robert Sommer that well describes the hell of those who lived in the Sonderbauten.
The idea came from the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler who in 1942 had thought of establishing the brothel to increase the productivity of the internees, recruiting the women he deemed suitable to become prostitutes.
The rules followed the German climate: the inmates submitted an application, were placed on a list, underwent a medical examination and if they passed the process they had access to the brothel.
The woman had to appear well dressed and made up, she had to never meet the man’s gaze, woe betide her to utter a word. He had to lie down and wait for the 15 minutes to pass. Sexual intercourse was monitored through the spyhole by the SS.
As if that wasn’t enough, women were sterilized before becoming prostitutes, which is why there were very few cases of pregnancies and when it happened there was immediate abortion.
Some direct testimonies were collected by the German writer Helga Schneider who in one of his novels gives voice to these victims. ‘The shack of sad pleasures’ for example talks about women who became automatons who, after being objects in the hands of men, became alcoholics in the evening to survive.
Apart from the rapid physical and mental brutalization, for a certain period something moved in my unconscious that had nothing to do with my nature (…) I felt the urge to kill any bastard affiliated with Himmler. One would have been enough, as if that murder could have avenged what the SS had done to me, by deceivingly confining me to a brothel (…), we read in the book.
Precious and rare testimonies because very few women left the camp alive. In fact, when they became ill, exhausted by a life of degradation and humiliation, they were sent back to other concentration camps, where they met their death with gas and crematoria or became guinea pigs for medical experiments.
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