The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp by Lynne Olson

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp by Lynne Olson Amazon.com The extraordinary true story of a small group of Frenchwomen, all Resistance members, who banded together in a notorious concentration camp to defy the Nazis—from the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade’s Secret War “At once heartbreaking and beautifully told, this is a masterwork of nonfiction, a must-read for anyone who wants more of the incredible true story behind Lilac Girls.”—Martha Hall Kelly, author of Lilac Girls Decades after the end of World War II, the name Ravensbrück still evokes horror for those with knowledge of this infamous all-women’s concentration camp, better known since it became the setting of Martha Hall Kelly’s bestselling novel, Lilac Girls. Particularly shocking were the medical experiments performed on some of the inmates. Ravensbrück was atypical in other ways as well, not just as the only all-female German concentration camp, but because 80 percent of its inmates were political prisoners, among them a tight-knit group of women who had been active in the French Resistance. Already well-practiced in sabotaging the Nazis in occupied France, these women joined forces to defy their German captors and keep one another alive. The sisterhood’s members, amid unimaginable terror and brutality, subverted Germany’s war effort by refusing to do assigned work. They risked death for any infraction, but that did not stop them from defying their SS tormentors at every turn—even staging a satirical musical revue about the horrors of the camp. After the war, when many in France wanted to focus only on the future, the women from Ravensbrück refused to allow their achievements, needs, and sacrifices to be erased. They banded together once more, first to support one another in healing their bodies and minds and then to continue their crusade for freedom and justice—an effort that would have repercussions for their country and the world into the twenty-first century.About the author Lynne Olson is a New York Times bestselling author of ten books of history. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has called her “our era’s foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy.” Lynne’s latest book, The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler’s All-Female Concentration Camp, will be published by Random House on June 3, 2025. Her earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers: Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against the Nazis; Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941, and Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour.

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Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, this is Voss here from theecrisvossshow.com. Hello, Chris Voss. Ladies and gentlemen, the earlier season that makes the official, official welcome the big show as always the Christmas show. I love you doesn't judge you at least not as harshly as the rest of the world for over 16 years and 23 and episodes.

We bring you the most brilliant people, the smartest minds, the wonderful stories, the things you learn in life from their journeys through their research and everything they do. Today we an amazing young lady on the show Lynn Olson joins us for her new book coming out June 3rd, 2025. It is entitled, The Sisterhood of Ravensbruck, How an Interpret Brand, let me recut this, I've got a camera in front of it. The Sisterhood of Ravensbruck, How an Inter interpret band of French women resisted the Nazis in

Hitler's all female concentration camp. We're going to get into some of the details, research that she did and find out more about this story that needs to be told. She is a New York Times bestselling author of 10 books of history. She's the former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright has called her our era's most foremost chronicler of World War II politics and diplomacy. Her latest book will be published by Random House on June 3rd, 2025. Her earlier books include three New York Times bestsellers, and we're going to get into it with her. Welcome to the show,

Lynn. How are you? Lynn Hennig I am fine. Thank you, Chris. How are you? Chris Larkin I am good, if I can learn how to pronounce stuff this morning. So give us the dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Lynn Olson I have a website, www.lennolson.com, L-Y-N-N-E-O-L-S-O-N dot com. Chris And did I get the name of the institution right? Robbinsbrook? Lynn Robbinsbrook, yeah. Chris So give us a 30,000 over you. What name of the institution right? Robinsbrook? Robinsbrook, yeah.

So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside the new book? It's a story of a group of French women who were very prominent in the French resistance during World War II, who were captured by the Gestapo during their resistance activities and were sent to the only German concentration camp designed for women and that was Ravensbruck. It was about 80 miles south of Berlin. And the book talks about what they did in the resistance in Paris and the other parts of France that they were in, but it focuses on what happened to them at Ravensbruck. And it's really the story of how these women came together, formed a sisterhood there in order to keep each other alive, first of all,

but then also to stand up against the Germans. They actually resisted the Nazis in the camp itself. Pete Wow. There's a lot of great stories that we've seen come out in a lot of different interviews. We've done different book authors of resistance and, you know, the Poland ghettos, the Jewish ghettos that they threw all the Jewish people into, and, you know, how they would resist, how they would, you know, they would transport different, you know, things people needed. And sometimes the Nazis help carry carry in whatever sort of like bombs and stuff they're like thinking they're carrying bread. Yeah, there's a lot of stories of survival and hope and the thing that carries humans

through just about everything. And of course, these French women, the French resistance of course was a big narrative from the war. How did you discover this story? How did it come to you? Dr. people who have, you know, have contributed greatly in terms of the war to their country and the world, but who for some, for various reasons have fallen into the cracks of history. My initial books, my first few, I don't know, five or six books really focused on England during the early days of the war, but my, I've switched my focus to France.

And my last three books have been about women in, in the French resistance, various women. And so my, the idea for this book, the Robbins book, book did come out of, of things I had learned in my search for the previous books. So what, what book really led to another? And I've read that, you know, being, I've read that, you know, survival in the camps sometimes depended upon a lot of moxie and being able to either negotiate or hide or, you know, because they would round up people and dispose of them, sadly. And so, yeah, it's, were you able to, I saw some video before the show that I was watching on some of the different

stuff and saw some, some, the older ladies that were being interviewed. Did you get a chance to sit down and interview some of the people that were, you talk about in the book? No, excuse me, unfortunately, I really focus on four women and even though the group of French women was obviously much bigger than that, but no, all four of them unfortunately have died, but they died, you know, actually it's very interesting, they died all of them in quite old age, but I did get a chance to talk to relatives of them, one particular, the granddaughter of one of them. And, you know, I was able to talk to people who knew them, but unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to talk to them themselves. But there was so much material, Chris. I mean, all of these women wrote memoirs of some kind or another.

And so you got a really good sense of who they were and what they had gone through. But there was also a young American documentary filmmaker who interviewed these women, like they're more than 30 years ago. And she, I think she had, it was like about 30 hours of interviews with them, you know, together and also separately. So she made a one hour documentary, but there are these 28 hours of interviews and I got a chance to look at the transcripts and use the transcripts of what they said. And it was astonishing.

I mean, they were really open about what it was like to go through this, how important it was, how much their friendship meant to them. So even though I didn't get a chance to talk to them, I felt like I almost did, you know, because I got so much information in other ways. You know, there's so many stories throughout history and a lot of them get lost. Tell us about this camp.

I was listening to the details of this camp and it was just sheer horror. Well, it was, as I said, the only camp designed solely for women. About 130,000 women from all over occupied Europe were sent there. Most of them had been members of resistance groups in their countries. And it was, you know, I write about France, but it was also women from Belgium, women from the Netherlands, a lot of women from Poland, a lot of women from Russia and Germany. So it was made up mostly of women who had rebelled Against the Germans and about I said about 130,000 women went there and at least probably well over

40,000 died there in various ways. It was not a it was not a an extermination Catholic Auschwitz Where you know the people who went there, who were mostly Jews, were killed almost as soon as they got there. This was a labor camp, and it makes it sound like, okay, that's not as bad, but basically the same, the Germans had the same goal. These women were going to die. They would die later. They would be worked to death, basically.

They would be worked to death or they would be killed in some other way. But, you know, the Germans didn't plan to have any of them leave that camp alive. But so we know a lot about some of these camps, right? We know about Dachau, we know about Buchenwald, but history has really forgotten Ravensbrok. And one of the main reasons is that in Buchenwald, for example, were both liberated by American troops, American troops or British troops. And so as a result of that they were American troops, there were American journalists along the ride. They were covering the troops. They entered those camps with the troops. They saw what was going on.

They took photos. They wrote stories. There were, there's film footage in newsreels, you know, and we've all seen them. You know, it's horrific. Images of stacks of dead bodies and skeleton-like survivors. Robinsbrook was not liberated by the Americans or the British. They were liberated by the Soviets, by Soviet troops. And there were no American journalists with Soviet troops.

There's none of the evidence that came out of Bakhau and Buchenwald. There are no photos. There's no footage. In that way, the women were forgotten. And so basically, and that's still true,, it was women, the women were forgotten. And so basically, you know, and that's still true. You know, people don't know about the atrocities that happened at Robinsburg. They don't even know about Robinsburg. They don't, but they also don't know about the courage that these women,

many of these women showed when they were there and they don't know particularly the story of, you know, the women who actually rose up against the Germans in that camp. Pete They also were doing, I guess, according to your book, medical experiments as well. And she's just insane. There was one gal I watched in one of the videos I saw, and she talked about how they remove one of her bones. I didn't stick around long enough to find out what your research. Yeah. Yeah, and I was you know, I Was like I don't want to know what the rest this goes, you know

Might get a joke in there too It but you know not to not to discount the horror of all this It's just the brevity of seeing you know And the horror of just hearing some of the stories that I heard. And of course, the stuff you recount in your book, it's just overwhelming. But it's a story that has to be told. And the one thing man can learn from his history is man never learns from his history.

And thereby, we go round and round. And so, when you see the same sort of horrors popping up in today's world, you know, you see what's going on with the Uighurs in China, et cetera, et cetera. We just seem to never learn. So it's important these stories get told for that reason. Absolutely. You brought up the medical experiments and they were horrific. They really were. They were mostly performed on young Polish prisoners. The Poles actually had the best organized resistance movement in all of occupied Europe. They were by far the best. And so there were a lot of young Polish women

who were taken, sent to Ravensbrück, and they were used as guinea pigs in these experiments that you were talking about. A lot of them died almost immediately after them, but a lot of them survived but were crippled for but a lot of them survived, but were crippled for the rest of their lives because they had had these. But that's just horrible. But there's also part of the story is the fact that they were saved. At the end of the war, the Germans were planning to kill the survivors of the experiments to get rid of all the evidence there so that the world would know what had happened.

The whole camp of Ravensbruck knew that this was about to happen. In February 1945, the word circulated among the camp that the SS was about to execute these polls. And what happened is that the whole camp rebelled. I mean, the whole camp just kind of stood up and said, we are not going to let this happen. And in fact, they succeeded in that, that there was a camp by the SS to execute these young Polish girls. But it's a long story, but it's such an incredible triumph

that these women, this is toward the end of the war, obviously, it was just about three months, four months before the war ended. The women of all nationalities, the French led the way, but the Russians, the Germans, everybody came together and hid these young Poles and they were never found. I mean, in other words, they all survived at the end of the war. And that was extraordinary. Nothing like that had ever happened. But it just shows that the courage and the ability,

when you're faced with that kind of awfulness, if you come together, you know, if there's solidarity, if there's a sisterhood, then you can, in fact, you know, do things that you couldn't do on your own. In your view, what were the key strengths or characteristics that allowed these women to maintain their resistance efforts and through the hardship of it all? That's a really good question. They all, they didn't let people tell them what to do. I mean, they all, virtually all the women, the resistance kind of grew up not accepting the role

of women, for example, in French society. I mean, perhaps back then, and to some extent still is, a very patriarchal, traditional conservative society. And most of the women I write about, you know, from the time they were young said, no, you know, I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm not going to, you know, confine my life to being a mother and wife. I have plans. I have ideas. I am smart. I'm as smart as men. And I'm going to do ideas. I am smart. I'm as smart as these as men, and I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm not going to let men tell me what to do. And I think that that was not just for the women I write about,

but that was kind of an overriding, an overarching quality that especially women had. And because I mean, in all these countries, and we're talking about the thirties and forties, you know, women were in virtually all the countries that, you know, France, Poland, Germany, you know, the women were not cons, were second-class citizens. And, and, but women who, who joined the resistance and who were active, basically were rebels. And they said, no, we're going to, we're going to be our own people. And we are going to, you know, we'll fight for our country just like the men do. And you know, and they did.

Well, it was an interesting thing. I mean, hope springs anew with human nature and to see it sometimes at its best and in our worst of times is definitely an homage to who we are sometimes when we're better human beings or better angels, I suppose, might be a way to say it. What was the most challenging aspect of researching it and telling the stories of the survivors? Oh, one of the challenges for me is, and you've indicated, this is a very tough story to write and research. And, you know, I did a lot of research about what happened, and it was difficult.

I mean, there were times when I thought, oh my, and I'm just writing about it. I clearly didn't go through it, but it was just very, very difficult. And the only thing that kept me going was to know that the women who did have to undergo the horrors managed to tough it out, managed to, as I said, come together, managed to form these incredibly strong friendships and worked to help each other throughout the

whole time they were there, and then worked with each other to fight back. And so that kind of, that sense of hope, that sense of courage, that sense of whatever, kind of overrode the difficulties of writing about the evils that they went through. I mean, you were talking about today, and I think it's very timely what these women did. I mean, by themselves, they could women did. I mean, by themselves, they could do nothing. By themselves, if they didn't have the other people,

they would have died probably very soon after they got there. But because they knew that they had to stick together, the power of coming together was incredible. And I think that's true now. I mean, by yourself, you can't really do anything if you see something that you see is wrong. But you come together, there's a lot you can do. Pete Slauson Rising tide lifts all boats. I mean, when we work together as human beings

is one, we do amazing things when we're in fight with each other and stuff. It doesn't work out so well. I think in your book, you talk about what their journey was after, do you want to, after the war and, and how they handled their stories and et cetera, et cetera. Can you tease out a little bit of that? Sure. To me, that was one of the most interesting parts of writing the book. You know, it wasn't, I think, you know, a lot of books, there've been a lot of books, as you know, written about resistance in France and in other places, but definitely in France, but they tend to focus almost solely on what these

people, whether they were men or women, did during the war, you know, their acts of resistance, and not so much on what happened after the war. But these women basically decided that they were going to continue that kind of work after the war. They came out of the war as an afterthought. Basically the men in the resistance, the histories and the initial reaction after the war was that men were the main actors in the resistance and that women were an afterthought.

And that came from General Charles de Gaulle down, that only men had played important roles in the resistance. And in fact, you know, women were the lifeblood of the resistance. They did everything that men did and more. They have organized the first resistance networks in France. They ran scape lines, they collected intelligence, they transported arms, they did everything. Pete Slauson Still carried out assassinations and other things. Dr. Couture Yes, absolutely. Right. Without them, the resistance,

without women, resistance could not have functioned at all. But as I said, when it was over, the resistance could not have functioned at all. But as I said, when it was over, the men took the credit and basically relegated women to the sidelines and to the shadows. These women, the survivors of Robbinsbrook, would have none of that. They had done the same things. They had resisted just as much as the men. They had undergone the brutal treatment in the concentration camps just as much as men. And they were not about to let men put them in the shadows.

And so they formed their own, they formed an activist organization after the war. Made up only of women, former women prisoners in concentration camps and German prisons. And they again, just as they had done at Robinsburg, they banded together to help each other survive because most, many if not most survivors were in really bad shape, psychologically and physically. I mean, many, many, many died very shortly after they came back from the war. So this organization actually had a hospital, it had rest homes, it had this incredible

network of social services that were available for women, not just for their physical health, but for their mental health too. And they also did not stop their work in terms of fighting injustice and fighting against equality. It continued for the rest of their lives until they were old women. One of them, I should mention one of them was the niece of, of de Gaulle, General de Gaulle. Her name is Jean-Bierre de Gaulle. And even though his own niece had been incredibly important in the resistance movement, he just ignored what women had done. But they had done extraordinary things and they kept doing extraordinary things until they died. And there's one kicker that kind of shows

the importance of them. In 2015, 10 years ago, there was a ceremony inducting four people who had been involved in the resistance into the pantheon, the French pantheon. French pantheon is where French heroes are buried in Paris. And up to that point, up to 2015, only 71 people had been judged worthy of that honor, including great heroes of French history, but only one woman. So there were 71, 70 were men, one was a woman that was Marie Curie.

So in 2015, four more people were judged worthy of being put in, to be added to the pantheon. Two of them are women. So two of them, and they were going to join Marie Curie as the only woman. And those two both were women that I write about in this book. Both of them were survivors of Robin's book. And one was Jean-Bierre de Gaulle and the other was Germaine Tillion. It shows the importance of not only of them, but what they did, you know, in French history. I mean, we've had authors on the book that have talked about one of the things that the Jewish women in the Jewish Poland ghettos, the Jewish ghettos, I think they called them,

they were able to get by the guards and do all sorts of stuff to subvert the will of the German people. And the German guards just kind of discounted them. They would flirt with them. And I think there were stories of them carrying grenades or bombs or bomb making equipment in baskets that the women would ring back and they would actually get the carts to carry the stuff in, you know, in chivalrous nature. And it was just, it was funny to hear in stories of assassinations. And so they were kind of discounted and not seen

as, well, you know, they're not men, they're not going to fight us or kill us. But yet, they were pretty good at it. Yeah, absolutely. That happened in France too. Especially in the beginning of the war until the Germans caught on to the women actually were fighters. But it's the same thing. As you say, they discounted women. They thought, oh, pretty young girl, she's not going to be carrying a grenade, or she's not going to have a revolver, or she can't possibly be a spy. And the women did just as in Poland, women in France played on that. Absolutely.

Pete So, what do you hope people come away as they read the book? What do you hope they learn from the stories that you've told in there? Julie I think what I referred to earlier, that when you feel like there is nothing you can do, when you see something that some injustice or whatever and you feel I am just alone, you know, I can't do anything. You read this book and you'll see how you along with other people can change the world. And that's what they did. You know, these women in this horrific place where, you know, the least little thing could get you killed, had the courage to test that. And the reason why they were successful is because they joined together. You know, as I said, they became a sisterhood. And by doing that, by helping each other, they were able to, they obviously weren't able to bring down

the camp, but they were able to help themselves and other people survive and to make their mark to rebel against the Germans. Pete The one thing man can learn from his history is that man never learns from his history. Thereby, these historical books are so important for us to read, for us to learn the human condition of people. It's just, you know, I really get tired of history repeating itself. I totally agree. You know, as a historian, you see it happen and you say, you keep telling people, look, look, you know, this is what happens if you do X, Y, and Z. And you're right.

You know, nobody pays attention. And I think it's the further away we get from World War II. Yeah. Because, you know, most of the people alive today in this country and elsewhere were certainly not alive. And in fact, probably their parents, their parents were alive during World War II. They're probably gone. So they really have no connection at all with this horrific war.

And, and it's what happened as a result of it. And so you're absolutely right. It is really, really depressing that we don't learn from our history. Yeah. Yeah. If I could get more people to read the federalist Papers and the Constitution these days, that would be great. So, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. And thank you for telling your story. Give us your dot coms as we go out, please, where people can find you on the interwebs. Lynn Olson It's www.linnolson.com.

Pete Thank you very much for coming on the show, Lynn. We really appreciate it. Lynn Thank you, Chris. This was fun. Pete Thank you. And for coming to the show, Lynn. We really appreciate it. Lynn Thank you, Chris. This was fun. Pete Thank you. And thanks for tuning in. Order of the Book where refined books are sold. It's out June 3rd, 2025. It is called The Sisterhood of Robbinsbrook, How an Interpret Band of French Women Resisted

the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp. Definitely the stories we need to learn about in the history so that we don't repeat them anymore. Can we start doing that? That'd be great, folks. Let's start today. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, everyone. Go to Goodreads.com, Forzus, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Forzus, Chris Voss, Chris Voss 1, On the

Tiktokity, and all those crazy places. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should have us out. Great show.