New book reveals horrors of brothels in Nazi concentration camps
"Das KZ Bordell" (The Concentration Camp Brothel) has been hailed as the first comprehensive account of a little-known chapter of Nazi oppression during World War Two.
Robert Sommer’s 460-page book is the result of four years of
painstaking research in all 10 former concentration camps where the
Nazis ran brothels between 1942 and 1945.
It is based on numerous interviews with a small group of survivors.
According to Sommer, Hitler’s Schutzstaffel, or SS bodyguard, was
convinced that forced male laborers would work harder if they were
promised sex.
”The women who were recruited for the brothels mostly came from the
concentration camps of Ravensbrueck and Auschwitz,” Sommer said.
The German social scientist says about 70 percent of these women were
Germans. The rest came from Ukraine, Poland and Belarus.