Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Inside Concentration Camp Brothels

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Even among Holocaust researchers, this subject is taboo. Starting in 1942, the Nazis set up brothels inside some of the camps, not for the guards, but for the prisoners.What was the point of these brothels? Who were the women forced to work there? And who were the prisoners who visited them?In this episode we find out from Robert Sommer, author of 'The Concentration Camp Brothel: Forced Sexual Labor under Nazi Rule'. Over 10 years, Robert scoured 70 archives and spoke with 30 survivors to bridge this important gap in the history of the Holocaust.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwitster sheets, and I have to tell you, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things

and an adulty way covering all around all subjects and you'd be an adult too. And I know I mess around with the fair do's warning quite a lot, but I do have to give you quite a series heads up about today's episode. We are talking about brothels within concentration camps in Nazi Germany. So there is no way that this,

subject is going to be anything but a tough listen. We are going to be covering themes of rape, violence, genocide, sexual abuse, Holocaust, and for many reasons, you just might not want to listen today, in which case this is your chance to get out now and we'll catch you later for a different episode. For today's episode, we are journeying to one of the darkest points of our shared history, the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. In particular, we will be looking at the concentration camp system and we will be and one of the littlest known parts of that history, the fact that there was a system of forced prostitution and brothels within the concentration camps.

Even within the horrors of the Holocaust, this particular history has remained taboo for a very, very long time. It can complicate our understanding of the atrocities committed there. Misplaced notions of shame, haunted survivors. It complicates our understanding of power relations within the camp system, but it is still an essential history and the story needs to be told. In Auschwitz 1, the brothel was in block number 24. Outside, it looks just like a barrack and inside it had lino flooring, cream walls and white-painted

wooden doors. They used this building today as part of the museum. In the doors, though, there's a clue for what this particular building was originally used for, from 1943 until the end of the war. There are peep holes. These would have been used by concentration camp guards to supervise the prisoners in each room, usually two prisoners.

But what do we know about the prisoners who worked there? What do we know about the prisoners who visited there? Well, today, we're going to talk to a historian who has spent much of his career recovering that past. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixtor Sheets, It's a history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Today I'm joined by Dr. Robert Sommer, author of The Concentration Camp Brothel, Forced Sexual Labour Under Nazi Rule.

Robert originally published this work some years ago, but it was in German, and it has now been released in English, and he's here today to tell us all about it. Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Robert Sommer. How are you doing? Pretty good these days. Yeah, pretty good. It's fall about, you know, things as long as long as. down. Things are slowing down. I'm so, so pleased that we've managed to get you on this podcast because your research is so important and it's going to be a tough episode as anything dealing with

the Nazis in concentration camp and forced sexual labor is, but you are the author of, I'll give it its full title, The Concentration Camp Brothel, Forced Sexual Labor Under Nazi Rule. This is a translation of your work which came out in German in 2009. I am so glad that you have published this and done this research because I became aware that there were brothels within Nazi concentration camps back in, I think it was 2005 when I read Lawrence Reese's work, but there was no information about them. There was very little and I've been desperate to know more and here you are and thank God, but can I ask you what brought you to this research? What made you do this? research. Well, thanks, Kate, for having the opportunity to talk here about my book and my research.

It's interesting, and he came up with Lawrence Rees because I was actually working on the same project on the Auschwitz documentary. Yes. I was just in the beginning of my research. And so he cited some of my work and I was doing working together with the BBC, but I was just right at the beginning of, you know, what I was doing. It's interesting how things connect, these things connect. Yes. You know, it's a long story. A year ago, many years ago in 2000, I think it was also around the year 2000. I was in Auschwitz. I was still at the university. I was doing my major and I had a seminar, a course on violence. It was a very philosophical course. It was a lot about like German violence in society, whatever. And of course, it's like the elephant

in the room. You know, you can't talk about violence in Germany if you don't talk about the Holocaust. So we connected with the NGO, which actually supported Polish survivors from Auschwitz. And so we did a field trip. And during this field trip, which actually was an entire seven days trip to Auschwitz, which was very, very intense and changed my life. I have to say that. This field trip actually, we were talking with it was lots of survivors. I mean, there's all these survivors around us, like probably 10 of them. And at one point, we walked through the main gate of Auschwitz, you know, with the famous saying, Arbettmacht Frey, and we walked right there and it's, you know, right, the first block,

the first building at the left-hand side. And one of the survivors, Stanis v. Hans, he says, oh, this is where the brothel used to be. And I, you know, well, of course I heard about it. I heard it like brothels. You know, it's kind of brothels where Jewish women were forced to do prostitution for the guards. But then Stanisvath says, oh, no, no, no, it was actually for the prisoners. And I said, what? And I couldn't believe it.

And I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. And it's interesting, this same reaction. Many people get to still today when I talk about my research. It's like, you know, I had the same shock. And so it was the beginning of a lot of research. I went to 70 archives. I interviewed 30 survivors of the concentration camps.

It was really a 10-year-s research. And I was able to kind of close this gap. And I was actually able to document most of the women, more than 85% of women by name, who were in these brothels. And I was able to talk to men also who admitted, having been to the brothel in the camps and talked about it. So it all came out in the book and I was 10 years of research a long time. But I'm happy that I could contribute to the history and to the research on the Holocaust to that and kind of also give the women a voice who never been heard before.

It's such a strange thing to say when you look at the scope of what was happening in the Holocaust and the cruelty being meted out. But the fact that there were brothels there seemed so shocking. And I'm not sure why it seems so shocking because they were doing horrendous things. Why would another horrendous thing be so shocking? But there's something about that juxtaposition of brothel and concentration camp that just blows people's minds when they learn that fact. Right.

I think it's incomprehensible. It's something which kind of goes beyond our imagination. Because we imagine, like, the concentration camps is these piles of dead bodies in Belgian bells and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. And we learn all about this. And we hear the stories of the selections and see pictures of it. But to imagine that the SS build actually brothels in concentration camps and especially in Auschwitz for prisoners,

it's something which is really hard to understand. And I think this is also one of the main reasons. There are other reasons, but this is one of the main reasons why people didn't really talk about it. They didn't understand it. And when people talked about the concentration camps, in the very beginning, in the 70s and in the 50s already,

people wanted to give the shocking parts of it and make the people understand this happen because people didn't believe it happened. And then all of a sudden, there were brothels for prisoners. How does that work? So I guess this whole thing, this whole strangeness about the subject

is something that contributed to the big silence about it for many years. The other thing that when you get to grips with the fact that there were these brothels, it seems very counterintuitive, if there is any logic to this, because the Nazis persecuted women who were selling sex. They took prostitutes and sent them to Ravensbrook Labor Camp, concentration camp. They seem to be very opposed to this, and they promoted family values and, you know, the nuclear family. And all of a sudden they've got a system of forced sexual labor. What on earth were they doing with this?

Why was it even there? It's like a general perception that, you know, the Nazis were against prostitution. But the Nazis, what they actually did instead, they're kind of made to control over the entire prostitution system of Germany and the occupied countries. So not only that the Nazis kind of imprisoned women for being prostitutes, but what they would actually do is they would register them, made them go to take SD tests at the health departments twice a week,

and they totally had a list of all the prostitutes in all entire Germany. And instead of like kidding that system, they're boosted, that system. That's one side. Women who were not wanting to be integrated in that system, who didn't want to be registered, who didn't want to be under the control of the Nazis, in special houses and whatever. And those, the women actually the Nazis would are persecuted, and those women actually ended up in prison. So, right, it's kind of, it's more taking over control of entire sexuality. So on one side, you have the value of the family. You know, women have the, you know, the duty to produce children for the Reich. And on the other side, they also have the duty

to satisfy men's sexuality. And this, doesn't go very often together, as we know. So they kind of, to control the entire sexuality of human beings, of men actually in the country, by just, you know, having women provided, provided in parentheses, and brothels for men. So that's kind of the general situation. When it comes to the concentration camps, this is another thing which we very often forget. The concentration camps were just not only places where people were tortured and killed, but also a major place for slave labor.

And the slave labor, so the SS was running the camp system. the SS. And Heinrich Himmler was in top. Henry Himmler was the leader of the SS, the Rice Fuhrer of the SS. And He kind of had an idea of getting independent from the Nazi state. He wanted to be financially independent with his projects in mind. He wanted to resettle the east. He wanted to change the entire population. And these projects were super expensive.

So he thought, why don't I find a way to make money myself? And what he does is actually, so he uses the concentration camp prisoners. He exploits them and thinks, okay, I just like take there. I mean, they're prisoners of the state of Germany, but I don't care because I I make him work in my factories. And then the money I take it, put it into my pocket. So it's kind of a massive money laundry system.

And in that system, you have to understand, there was a major contradiction. Because on one side, people were tortured and killed, and the living condition were so horrible, as you know. And on the other side, these people had to work efficiently and make money, generate money for the SS. And that was the problem. So Heinrichimler thought, let's find a system, let's find a way to make them work harder. And what he actually did is, he looked around. He looked in other countries where they had slave labor also. and the Soviet Union was the best example for that

and they had the Gullachs already for the 1920s on and they were very open about it so they wrote books about it and they wrote newspapers about it and they had also the problem of efficiency because they had the same problem. People were just starving to death and the Soviets thought,

okay, well, why we did a connect the ration, the food ration to the work a quarter? So if you work 100% of the quarter, you get 100% of your food. And Himla thought, hmm, this is force stronger than hunger. And he thought, that's male sexuality. right? And he thought, if he give men the incentives to go to a brothel, they work harder. And that was the idea behind it. He started in Mauthaus and Guz in the first camps and then extended it to the entire camp system. So in the end, we have like 10 brothels built until 9045 where women were enslaved to like boost the productivity of male slave labor in the camp. And he didn't incentivize people with food or with better living conditions or none of that that was just with sexual availability. You know what? There were some other incentives.

Right. People could wear a haircut instead of having a hair shaved or could receive more letters and could get cigarettes, which actually was very valuable for prisoners because cigarettes was the unofficial currency in the camp. So it meant you actually got something in return which you could use. They could also like buy more food in a canteen. Food get a kind of a little kind of canteen little store in the camps where you could buy something like cabbage salad was so sour. Your stomach wouldn't hold or you could buy toilet paper. So really useless. That was absolutely useless for the prisoners. the highest incentives he said, you know, for the very best working prisoners, are going to give them the right to go to the brothel once a week. And when you say they, who is they, they prisoners, is that Jewish people? That's another thing we have to understand about the concentration camp system. The Jewish prisoners were only a minority in the Thai system.

Everybody thinks the camps were just made for Jews. No. There are some camps like slave labor camps like Modovitz, where 95% or 80% of the population used to be Jewish. But in most of the labor camps, Jews were just a minority. In Saxonhausen, for instance, near Berlin, there were never more than 10%. Dachau was the same. And the reason is because the Nazis wanted to get the Jews,

first of a were killing, right? So many of them had already been killed in mass shootings, had killed in the extermination camps. When the Nazi system, when the concentration camp system expanded, most of the prisoners were not Jewish. So we had a lot of poets in there, a lot of German prisoners, like political prisoners, criminal prisoners, anti-socials is the so-called,

Jehovah's witnesses, we had the homosexuals, we had prisons from all over the world, we had English prisoners, we had prisoners from Sweden, from Soviet Union even. So a lot of the Germans were a minority, but the major part of the camp prisoners were actually Polish prisoners, and that's most of the camps. Jewish prisoners were always a small part. And also, they means men who were not Jewish. So Jews were at any time excluded from the privilege to go to the brothel. I mean, they were there to die. I mean, there was just no way the Nazis would ever give them any incentives. They die.

That's a given, right? That's what the Nazis want. So men who actually went to the brothels were mostly prisoners and in a hierarchy of the camp. You know, you had a hierarchy. People were working in the quarry with life expectancy of a few weeks only, you know, carrying heavy granite blocks and just like falling down and dying of exhaustion of hunger afterward a few weeks only. And then you have prisoners who were in the middle stratum on the upper stratum of this camp society. The SS chose them to do like work in offices, like writing works, conduct prisoners from one camp to the other. organized food distribution,

or like people who were in a kitchen commander, like in a kitchen squad, like distributing food, cooking food, or people who were in a medical department. So those were the prisoners of higher value for the SS. Those were the ones who were kind of the experts inside of the camps that SS needed them. And the system was more or less wasn't originally designed for them, but those were the primary group of people

who actually went to see the woman in the camp later on. We have to say this is only a very small group. And the total number, and I can say this pretty clearly because I put a lot of calculations on that. In a camp of like 30,000 people, Buchanwald, probably like maybe less than a thousand people would go to the camp, maybe 100 only. So you always had a population

which was less than 1%, some of even 0.1% of the camp population were actually going to the camp brothels. So that's why it's another reason why nobody talked about it because so many prisoners did not care about it. They didn't know about it. They never got in contact with these brothels.

So because that was in another world, that was for prisoners who were fed. Well, I mean, prisoners who were fed well, I mean, prisoners who talked. sometimes really were heavy, like, you know, I had a big belly because they had access to food. While thousands of them died every day, they, you know, they managed to be in a position where they could, you know, actually survive. And they also showed their power through going to the brothel. They showed it openly.

They showed, you know, hey, I'm a man. I'm, you know, I'm physically and sexually still a man, which was not the case for most of the prisoners in the camps. So this was something that, I don't know if this is even the right word, elite prisoners. I'll just use that. I know that that's very complex, but these are the prisoners who had, they're still prisoners, but they have the most privileges from the Nazis. Yeah, elite is actually the right word. I mean, they use the word elite sometimes among historians.

We call them the prisoner of functionaries, those who had special functions in the camps. That's kind of the turmoil officially used. They were definitely the ones who were visiting the most. There's actually a list from the camp of Mountausen, where the SS put a list of every prisoner who went to the brothel. They had to register for that. The name was and actually all on the list. and then SS put a little cross for any time they went to the brothel.

And then some prisoners who went there twice a week, and like frequently. What I mean, this is like, we're talking about probably the camp of Mounthausen was like 30, 40,000 people, five people. It's a very, very small number, right? But those were the people, you know, that sometimes they had the camp elder who was the highest prisoner in a camp hierarchy. The SS would never stand in front of the camp at the roll call and say, I hear where I give you this order. They would give past the order to the highest prisoner. prisoner and he would like pass it down, top it down. So basically it was the camp elder who was the equivalent to the pamp leader on the SS side. And the camp elder, he was, I mean, dressed well.

I mean, we still had stripes and, you know, striped pyjama, but clean. He was able to take showers. He slept in separate beds, not in a bunk, but in a bed, and so on. So there's definitely a hierarchy inside of the camp. And the SS wanted that. They wanted that because they never really wanted to get the hands dirty. You know, it's like kind of, you know, let somebody else do the dirty word, right? that then decide who's going to get the food. Not we, we just give you so much food, and then you have to decide who's going to get it. That's the way the interior was designed by the SS.

How does it work then that this was set up to incentivize prisoners if such a small percentage of prisoners were actually using the service? Was it like dangling it like it's a reward? You know what? I think the way it was designed. Himla kind of had the idea, you know,

let him see women and let him have women and they're going to work harder. He thought it was kind of a great incentive. Him himself, he was kind of a strange character. He's kind of an organic. He started as an organic farmer and had really weird ideas. I mean, he wanted to reduce the number of radio people in the army and replace him with like pigeons, you know, message pigeons and whatever.

So it's kind of really strange stuff. He also wanted to have a special diet for prisoners so they work harder. So they wouldn't have extra herbs like in their food, which is ridiculous. But anyway, so bizarre, absolutely. But what actually happened in the end is it was kind of designed for the middle. majority of the prisoners, but in the end it was kind of an elite, which only was able to go to the brothels. I mean, there was also other people. Like, for instance, like, I talked to people who were like 18 years old in a camp, you know, in 1940, 18 years old, and they were kind of

gotten into a camp and the situation worse and worse. And then I thought, you know what, I'm not going to survive this. I will not survive this. And I will at least have one chance in my lifetime to have sex with a woman, one time, because, you know, I was going to die without it. And it's kind of, so they would go to the brothel too. I mean, there were different kind of motivations, but those people only went once or maybe twice. But also there were people who actually fell in love with women. I mean, you imagine, you know, this whole world of horror, terror, and torture. I mean, there's nothing nice about it.

It's every day, it's survival, every second of it, right? And then all of a sudden you see a woman, she smells good, has long hair, and it's just like her presence. You don't even necessarily have to have sex, and not everybody had sex with women, of course. I mean, not everybody was able to have sex even. I mean, it's like, you know, as we called it, like Eric Tiles is, you know, obviously men were, whereas for so long in camps, there didn't even, there was just no way. But also the situation or the way the camp brothel worked, I mean, I will tell what is

in a moment. Even that is kind of very, very unerotic and unsexy. There were different kind of motives of people. And also, that's kind of surprising, but we even have people who married each other after the liberation. She was a prostitute for sex labor in the camp, and he was one of her clients and he kind of blackmailed other people or like bribed other people and taught him not to have sex with her and they agreed and he gave him extra pieces of bread so they kind of became friends even lovers and then in the end they married each other I mean this even existed so and I even talked to a prisoner who who actually after the war he still went to visit her and you know he was in love with her he said you know he was truly in love as her and I totally see that

because in a camp in you know in those days where you know you could die every second you know obviously emotions, love is something which is so valuable to you, but also the few women who talk about it, who were sex force workers, they also say, you know, some men came to them and they were their friends. They called them friends even, so. I'll be back with Robert after this short break.

Can we talk about the women? Because the whole book and all of your research is incredible, but the fact that you've managed to get some of their voices and hear some of their stories and give names about them is just unbelievable. So who were the women? who were working in these brothels? So these women were mostly from Rabinsbrook. Rabersbrook was a main place where the SS selected women for the brothels.

In the very beginning, they tried to find women or would do it on a voluntary basis. So they kind of would ask, you know, you can sign up for this work squad. And of course, there was nothing voluntary about it because the SS also gave them the false promise that they would be released after half a year in the brothel. And if you talk to any prisoner in there,

I mean, people would do anything for just being released from the camps. I mean, that was the worst thing on earth. So if you managed to get out of there, we would do anything. My good friend, Stanisov Hans, the one I've also talked about, the brothels, he said, if anybody gave you a knife and said, cut your hand off and you get released tonight, he would not hesitate a second to do this. And this kind of shows you the situation, like the circumstances as created for women being so desperate, for a volunteer for this. I wouldn't even use a volunteer, but to sign up for that. The SS would use mostly German women,

because also most of the clients were actually German. The SS also tried to find. Not Jewish women then. No, and that's another thing. But another, a big group of women were actually Polish women. There were some Eastern European women like Soviet women and there was one Dutch women, but there's actually no Jewish women, actually, none of them. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm 99.9% sure.

Because the SS raised defiance was a problem for themselves. So they couldn't have a Jewish prisoner having sex with a non-Jewish prisoner. It was illegal. They created the laws. And even the camps, right? Even the camps. I mean, if the SS men shot women in the fields of like in Ukraine

or in the theater of war and someone in Eastern Europe and raped them before them shut him. That's a different story. But in the camps, it was kind of more organized. So the SS didn't let Jewish prisoners have sex with non-Jewish prisoners. And so I told you that I have about 85% of the women's names. And then some camps I have like 100% of a women's names. And none of them is Jewish, none of them.

So they're mostly German antisocial prisoners or Polish political prisoners or Polish anti-social prisoners as well. And these were the majority of women. The total number, I estimate about 214 women where is the number who actually is selected for the brothels. The SS also selected women in Auschwitz. So Auschwitz had a women's camp as well. And Auschwitz had two brothels, one in the main camp and one in Monovitz. Two brothels.

Yeah, I mean, there were three camps. And Monovitz was one of the IG Farm and then the other one was the main one, was the main one was Stamlager, the first camp, the Auschwitz one. And the SS would select women in the women's camp in Berkenau, which is Auschwitz two. And the Auschwitz brothels were the biggest ones. So the brothel, the main camp brothel was the biggest one in the entire camp system. Well, than 60 women were in there. Even there, I have their names, most of them.

because the SS would test women for sexual transmitted diseases, STDs, regularly. And these test tubes had a little kind of accompanying sheets with that. And somewhere in the laboratory, this massive amount of these sheets were found. And among them were also the women actually were tested for STDs for the brothel of Auschwitz. So we can know for sure the majority of them were kind of half German, half Polish. But again, there's no Jewish women in there. You know, it wouldn't make sense because, I mean, the prisoners, the Jews were not allowed to go to the brothelphids anyways. So the whole story of brothels built for guards.

And filled with Jewish women. It's actually a myth. That's not true. And is it true that they were known as the Joy Division? I've heard that. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's what Katzetti came up with this word. Like Katzetti in a house of dolls and, you know, Joy Division, the band took the name from that. And it's, you know, it's a fictional book.

It's, you know, everybody thinks it's true, but it's not. And he says, he claims that his sister, she was in a brothel of Auschwitz. And she gives her name. And I have the names of the women in Auschwitz. and she was certainly not there. And I know for sure also talking to men who were visitors of the brothels in Auschwitz, is that there was no Jewish women in a camp brothels. So I guess it just kind of became a myth because, you know, Jewish women who were victims of the Nazis,

they were raped, they were shot, they were killed, and all these families were destroyed. And so kind of makes sense that, you know, the Nazis would also force them in prostitution. Maybe they did do this outside of the camps. Maybe they did do this in occupied areas, you know, horrible conditions there, but not inside of the concentration camp system. What would the conditions be like inside the brothels? Because you said there that they would try and get women to enlist for this on the idea that they'd be released earlier. But were there other incentives?

Was there more food? Was there, I guess it's some protection even being indoors is better than being outdoors in forced labor? Women very soon understood that not all of them, some kind of try to get out of it as soon as they could. They could not handle it. Most of the women I actually found by name, they did not try to get out of it because the conditions were much better than in other. camp sites on other work squads. So for instance, in Auschwitz, women were working in particular in the fields, doing

heavy work, like hard labor, physical labor, like, you know, digging trenches, cleaning ponds. And when you do this in fall, I mean, the water, when the water gets pretty cold, you know exactly that you're not going to survive this. This is going to be your last winter. And so the conditions inside of the camp brothel on the other end side were

very different. You had women who could have a shower, real showers. They had their own bed. They had civilian clothing. They had warm rooms, they could have their hair grow long, also they get food from the SS kitchen. So that was definitely much, much better conditions than the other ones. Problem is you had to

accept that you were a sexual slave. And not everybody can do this, but some people, they do everything for survival, and I totally think it's a way of survive, and we should acknowledge that, and you know, it's their way to survive. And so, you know, some people criticize that, and I don't. I just think it's wrong because

they found a way to survive and everybody who will survive the camp is a resistant fighter, because surviving the camp is resistant to the Nazis. And did they all survive, all the names that you found? I can definitely say that there's no women who died inside of the camp brothel of any of these 10. No one. Never ever died. Wow.

Some women died like maybe two or three after they got out of the camp brothel and the Redux transport to another camp and then they were killed there and some, you know, because the camp process didn't last until the very last day of the war because often the SS would evacuate camps and then transfer their prisoners to some other place. So they mostly survived that because the conditions. conditions were much better. Also, you have to think men, if some men who actually fell in love with some of these women, they would do anything to make them feel better. So they would give them extra food and they organized protection for them. And, you know, it's conditions were actually much better. It's kind of hard to say that because it's like you have to go back into the camp and see, you know, when you say better. I mean, what is better? Being a sex slave, is that better than, you know, but it's a way to survive and the logic of a camp prisoner was. Comparatively better. Comparatively, right? I guess. Right. And the logic is like you do anything for,

survival. Some of them couldn't do it. Some of them couldn't not. I mean, they're a Catholic Polish woman that would say, you know, I'd rather die than this and say, so they're, you know, refuse being, you know, taken to the brothel. But DSS made sure to select in particular women who were in really bad conditions. So they would kind of fit in a volunteer and understand that if they don't obey, they're going to be sent out into another camp or until the other work squad back into the fields, shoveling ditches and cleaning ponds, and it's going to be your end. So how does this work then day to day. Could you just like take me through it?

Like it's a brothel system, but it's a system that the Nazis are using as a reward. So was it just that any prisoners could go there? They had to be given permission. And when they went there, what was, do we know what, oh, God, it sounds awful, what the routine was? Yeah, well, we actually do this and know this.

And we know it from both sides, from women and men actually went to the brothels. So what happens actually is, first of all, you had to get the voucher, the called the premium china, which bonus vouchers, which were passed out the prisoners who worked better in the camp, technically. In reality, they were actually passed to from friend to friend. So kind of the foreworker got the stack of him and says, well, in the S, I says, give it to

the people who work the hardest, and he gives us to his friends and keeps the most to himself. And, you know, you need to have these. And that means you have the currency to pay for the brothel, these bonus vouchers. Then you had to go to your block elder and say, I would like to go to the brothel. And then they gave you a little form. You have to fill up the form. Very German. It filled up the form and says, I hereby, like to prison an arm, this is this from the

block licenses, nationality listeners, like to ask the camp commander for permission to visit a brothel. And then he had to go through medical examination. The SS was kind of afraid of, you know, STDs. His STD spread through like saliva. So prisoners who would share of spoons and like, you know, they would also, you know, get syphilis, you know, that's also possible. Basically, the doctor had to approve that this person doesn't have any contagious diseases. And then the camp commander got a piece of paper and he put a stamp on it and signed it. And, you know, obviously check if the person was able, was kind of in a group who was allowed to.

So Jewish prisoners were never allowed. Some other minor people were not allowed. For instance, like Spaniards were not allowed in the beginning and then later on there were, dependent on the camp. So then also the camp commander checked if they do anything wrong in a camp. I mean, it's kind of a weird thing. But anyway, in the end of the day, there was a roll call. So the roll calls in the morning,

all the camp has to appear at the Rock Coast Square and then the evening is also one. The prisoners stand there, and then the camp commander says, okay for the brothel today are and then reached out a bunch of numbers and these people have to wait everybody disappears all these other prisoners go into their barracks and those people

that just march in the columns to the brothel of barrack which is usually a separate barrack end of the camp kind of hidden almost so they march to there and then there the SS checks again the numbers because sometimes people trade bread for the privilege to go to the brothel so maybe like some I don't know some Polish prisoner is not allowed to go to the brothel but he says I want to go there

so he gives them a piece of bread and then one signs in the name and then it changed positions in the column. I mean, it's a very weird things happen. And then I go to the brothel, and then inside the brothel, there's also a doctor. They have to, like, lower their pants,

show their genitals to the doctor, and then often they get some cream put on it. Nobody knows what that was. And then I had to stand, actually in line, waiting in front of the brothel rooms. Very often was their pants down already. So they were waiting in line in this corridor of this barrack

where the left and right these rooms were. And then the door opens, and then the door, as Edmund kicks them inside and closes the door, and inside of the door, Inside of the room was the woman waiting, half undressed. There was a spy hole in the door in which the ESPet made sure that all the rules were obeyed. And there were certain rules like only the missionary position was allowed, no shoes on the bed, no talking and so on.

And after 15 minutes, you know, they opened a door and got the prisoner out of him. And the women had to wash herself. No shoes on the bed. Yeah, it's ridiculous. No, something's not talking even. And then the next prisoner came. And that's the way it worked. So I can see, like, as I was saying before, there's nothing erotic about it.

It's like. Would they use condo? They would not use condoms because for the SS, if the women got pregnant, it was just like, proponent an abortion. It was easy for them. It's the logic.

Condoms were too expensive for them, I think. Okay. Is there any record of who came up with this 15-minute window? This is horribly organized, bizarrely organized. Yeah, yeah. And some of the camps was even 10 minutes only. And sometimes they even had the bell, which rang, like, you know,

if you have 10 minutes and then the bell rang, and the door opens, and then you got thrown out of the bruffel. I mean, that's the way it works. I don't know how they came up in 15 minutes. I think they thought men need 15 minutes only. I don't know. And there'd be somebody looking at them the entire time.

Right, exactly. They were SS men. There was so Garish actually patrolling in this main corridor. So the men were standing there was a pence down waiting to get inside of the room. And his Sman would go by and then they also make jokes about it. Look to the spy. Oh, can you see this guy? Oh, ho.

Look at this. It's funny, isn't he? The SS also used it for their own amusement. I have to say the SS was never allowed to, visit the brothel of the women themselves. They're never where. I know this from all the camps. They never do this.

I've never heard about any case where it happened. Because also that would have been, probably the SSR would have been punished was probably themselves being sent to a concentration camp for that. Because there was a rule you could never talk to prisoners and you're never allowed to touch even prisoners for that. So even men were not allowed to do that. Also, I mean, of course, I mean, this is a prisoner,

a female prisoner and he's an SS man. So that wouldn't have worked for the SS either from the hierarchy themselves. So in your research you've spoken to some of the survivors, and I mean, we could spend hours and hours talking about what their experiences are, but I'm just like, when they look back on it, like there's obviously there's the horror of the Holocaust, but is it complicated by the fact that there was forced sexual labour as well? Because there's a shame and a stigma that goes with that. I'm thinking about in France, after the Second World War, when they went round the brothels and found the women who had been working. in there and seeing German clients and they shaved all their heads publicly and there was this extra layer of shame. How have they understood their experience? Well, the thing is, rarely any woman ever talked about this after the war. They tried to keep its quiet. Some went back to Poland, like Polish prisoners and she, they kind of totally ignored it. They never talked

about it. Even the German woman never did. Just silence. Because as you just explained it, the shame of like being in a brothel, there's some women actually talked about it after the war, like right after it because I felt this is part of my camp experience. I'm honest enough to talk about it because I'm a prisoner. I was treated as a noble prisoner by you other prisoners too. So yes, I want to talk about it. But very soon the society kind of shut their eyes on it. And then I mean, the post-war societies, we talk about Eastern Germany was the communist

memory of the Holocaust, which was very kind of politicized. And of course, there was no room for that, especially also since in Eastern Germany, prisoners, a lot of the communist prisoners who later on had higher positions in an East German state, right, in a communist state. And some of them actually were visitors of the brothel. And so it was another reason why they didn't talk about it. In the Western Germany, they didn't talk about it, the Holocaust at all until the 1970s, right? I mean, that was a very particular situation.

But what's also actually a little more extreme, you have to understand that many of the women in the concentration camp, brothels, especially with German women, had been brought to the camp as so-called antisocial women. The SS tried to find antisocial women in particular, because first of all, many of them sterilized already. On the other side, women were also like antisocials already like stigmatized as like weird people and kind of excluded from the people society. Excluded from the folks' community. And the so-called antisocial people came prisoners were excluded from compensation after World War II. So there weren't even victims considered of victims of the

Nazi state, of victims of the Nazi atrocities. So many of the women after World War II just never got any compensation. And it was just actually four years ago that the German government finally acknowledged him as prisoners four years ago. years ago. Right. I mean, it's absolutely incredible to imagine this. But, I mean, I also have to say that it's not a decision the German state made after the war is actually what the Allies imposed on.

The Allies said, you know, we denazify Germany. The new German state has to compensate political prisoners, prisoners who were imprisoned for racial or religious reasons, but they excluded all the criminal and antisocial prisoners, all of them. And the British did it, the Americans did it, and the Russians and the French all agreed on that. And that was the basis of the German commemoration politics. And as I said, just four years ago, finally, you know, they broke with that and included the antisocial prisoners.

So many of those women, and I can say that most of the German women actually were so-called mostly like antisocial prisoners. They never got any compensation because they're never even more seen as victims by the post society. And when you can look at, for instance, at other countries like Poland, I mean, Poland is the Catholic country, of course. The communist country was the Catholic kind of religious background. Of course. I mean, that would have been the end of their story if they talked about it. I'll give you an example. I know of a woman who married one of her friends.

She was in a brothel in Noingame, which is the camp near Hamburg. And after the war, they had a son. And the son never knew about this. And a few years ago, I was asked by researchers from a serious TV station, if I can help him find someone. And then I, you know, contact said, you know, I have this case here. I mean, do you know anybody? And he's, yeah, we have the son and the son.

I can contact the son. And they contacted the son and said, oh, by the way, your mother, as you probably know, was in a brothel in Norendama. and he didn't know it. Of course he didn't know it. And he was shocked. It was kind of, it was, I mean, shocking experience. And a lot of it actually also has to do with the fact that we never acknowledge those people, especially the antisociality. I mean, it's like, you know, if you remember, like antisociality was even a crime in the UK under Tony Blair, right? You know, the antisocial behavior became a crime. So it's like, our society is not even aware, you know, that people with that kind of background should be kind of victimized or should be victims. And that's part of the problem. with Robert after this short break. And the men that visited the brothels, how do they understand that experience? Now, I mean, it's very difficult in it because we're not there

and in those particular situations, those circumstances, I don't know how anyone makes any moral judgment about how people survive this, but do they look back at it with shame or how do they understand what happened? Each man is different. The men I talked to were mostly Polish prisoners, survivors of Auschwitz,

and they went to the brothel. I talked to four of them. And it's interesting that each one has a very different approach to. The one was, he went one time. He said, I only took to the women. I couldn't do anything. I wasn't physically able. And he left.

That's it. The second one was I kind of was bragging about it. It's like, oh, my goodness. You know, I went to my friends. Oh, look at this. I went to this girl. Isn't she beautiful? And the guy said, oh, wow, you got the most beautiful one.

So he was really bragging about it. Some other people talked about badly about the women. I mean, not only the visitors, but also like some women got a pretty bad reputation in some of the camps. because, you know, the communist prisoner said, oh, you're kind of your horrors and, you know, we want to deal with you. And also, there was a lot of jealousy, you know, because of the living conditions. Women inside of Auschwitz would, I could have gone all of a sudden see these women passing by.

And there's a dress and hair and perfume and civilian clothing. And they even know how to fill their stomach in the evening. So it's a very, very different world. And so in this case, they were seen a kind of negative view. But it depends on really. And it's kind of the society and prisoners in camps are very different. I mean, some men were talking positive about women. Some fell in love with women and some just talked badly about them.

I guess especially that many of the or some of the male prisoners of the camps would talk badly about the women. Even that also kind of hindered us from making the subject public because, you know, they already had a better reputation in the camps. So why should we talk about it even? Are there any of the women who were there? Are they still alive today or have they all passed? So the last one, I tried a contact in 2009, which is about, 15 years ago. I don't think there's anyone to still alive. The men actually, I mean,

even if you see survivors today, I mean, they were mostly 14 or 15 when they were like in 45. So women in the camp brothels were mostly in the early 20s. So the chances are very low. I try to investigate on some people. And I'm actually in contact with the woman. She's a granddaughter of a woman who was in a brothel in Dachau, and she lives in Australia right now.

She was very interested about hearing the story. So she knew that her grandmother had a bad life after the war, especially. I think she even killed herself. So a very tragic story. but you want to find out about it. And when she found out about it, she was kind of, I don't think it had a negative impact on her. She saw her as victim and, you know,

understand the trouble she went through in the camp. There were women's camps as well. I think I know what you're going to say here. But there was never any kind of incentive, sexual incentive provided for them. I don't sound like a mad question when I've just said that out loud. But like it's all focused on the men and the male prisoners.

Or was there any kind of equivalent for the women? Or is it just, this is just something for men? What do you think? I think it's just something for men. Absolutely. Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, Kate, absolutely.

You're right. Because, I mean, it's like, you know, you also just logically, think of the logic of the Nazis. For the Nazis, the men were everything. Hitler even, you mean, Hitler even, the word woman in the book, in Hitler's book, Mein Kampf only appears like 10 times. He doesn't even talk about women. It just doesn't exist for him. And at one point, he says, you know, he talks about sexuality and how do you deal with STDs.

And he says, you know what? women, they don't even have their own sexuality. So why should we talk about women? I mean, they kind of state it. Wow. I don't know if you know this, but homosexuality among men was a crime, was an offense. Homosexuality among women didn't exist for the Nazis. Because

how can two women who don't have an old sexuality even have a sexual relationship? Then also like in a logic can only happen through penetration. So if you can't do this, I mean, it's like, you know, and so the Nazis kind of stated women don't have their own sexuality. Women don't even have to talk about this period, end of the

story, right? And so they had to produce children or they had to satisfy men, right? And of course, in the Ravensburg, where the women were selected, homosexuality among women actually happened. I mean, it was seen and it was actually punished also. But of course, there was never any intention to do brothels for women. I mean, how many brothers are there for women today? Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, there are people that provide sexual services for women, but I'm going to struggle to think of a brothel for women. But it just, my God, this is such a complicated history. And you've been so amazing to talk to us. But as a final question, although I could keep you here for hours and hours, honestly, I could. How do we remember this

history today? Is this integrated into how we understand the Holocaust yet? Or is it still something that is approached with a certain, even within the history of the Holocaust, there's still a taboo around this? I mean, I think it's our duty as historians and as adults today to talk about it. It's part of the Holocaust. You can't deny it. And if you want to, want to talk about the Holocaust, you have to include the women. You have to give in a voice. You have to speak about their fate about them, they're torturing. You have to understand it as a part of the Nazi system of killing people, of destroying people.

It's part of the ideology. We see cases, and I'm working actually really closely together with NGOs to put like memorials at the camps for women who were in a brothel. I don't know. In December this year, on the 70s of September, we put one of the stumbling blocks. I don't know if you know this. Maybe you have the new case. Well, stumbling blocks are houses where people who are victims of the Nazis. and it says her name and then and what happened to the people.

And we put them for the first time ever in the history of Germany or probably in the world, a stumbling block for women who was a forced sex labor in Buchanbaid, actually. So there's a lot of people who are active and it's also like on a university level people talk about it. But I think the problem is maybe a little broader, a bigger problem, as we like to have them included in like the discourse of the Holocaust. The discussion, the talking about the Holocaust gets less and less. It doesn't really be not talking about the subject of forced labor, sex labor and the camps. The problem is we don't talk about the Holocaust anymore.

And I don't know if you know the situation in Germany, but even though it was a far right rising quickly in Germany, do you know how many professorships we have in Germany on the Holocaust? One, right? I mean, this is the situation in Germany. We do have memorials and we have, you know, in schools, it's mandatory to visit a concentration camp, but it stops at a certain moment. And it stops at the point where we have to continuously talk about the Nazi atrocities and remind people that we should never, should do anything possible to never have happened again. But unfortunately, it doesn't happen. And that's the problem. You know, it's like the current situation in the world

is kind of goes into a different direction. I mean, of course, you know, we do everything possible to as historians also and as NGOs and women who actually are very strong about this fear we have to integrate the history of those women into the narrative of the Holocaust. And of course they're very strong doing this. But then on the other side, we're facing the society, which just becomes less and more and more conservative and less aware of talking about the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

I'm so glad that you are talking about it, Robert. give the full title of the book again because it's out now. You can go and buy it now. The Concentration Camp Brothel, forced sexual labour under Nazi rule. And are you available on social media if anyone wants to follow you to learn more about your work? Yeah, I'm available on Facebook, which is kind of old school. I will create an account very soon and let you know how to follow me. Well, thank you so much for coming by. You have been fascinating to listen to. Thanks. Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Robert for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like review and follow along whatever it is you get your podcasts.

If you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. This podcast was produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.