Clandestine photograph of a Polish political prisoner and medical experimentation victim in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.
Overview
- Caption
- Clandestine photograph of a Polish political prisoner and medical experimentation victim in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp.
Pictured is Barbara Pietrzyk. Her prisoner number is visible on the sleeve of her coat. Maria Kusmierczuk is standing in the back. - Date
-
October 1944
- Locale
- Ravensbrueck, [Brandenburg] Germany
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anna Hassa Jarosky and Peter Hassa
- Event History
- Prisoners in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp succeeded in taking several clandestine photographs in October 1944. The Germans sent a large transport from Warsaw to Ravensbrueck concentration camp following the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in the fall of 1944. While waiting to be processed as a new prisoner, one woman wanted to get rid of her camera and traded it to one of the victims of medical experimentation, a so-called "rabbit" in exchange for a piece of bread. The "rabbits" wanted to take photographs to document their mutilated legs. Joanna Szydlowska secretly took pictures of Maria Kusmierczuk and Barbara Pietrzyk from behind a barracks. If she had been caught she would have been subject to a death sentence. The women then discarded the camera but kept the film hidden in their barrack. All of the "rabbits" stayed in Barrack #32. On April 23, 1945, the Swedish Red Cross rescued a French prisoner named Germaine Tillion. She brought the film with her and developed it for the first time in Paris after the war. The French prisoners stayed in touch with their Polish comrades, and after the war, Germaine Tillion sent the negatives back to the victims of the operations. Two pictures were first published in the book titled "Ravensbruck " by Wanda Kiedrzynska. Helena Rafalska (Hegier) kept the film in her possession until she gave it to Anna Jarosky, the daughter of Jadwiga Dzido, another one of the "rabbits".
[Source: Anna Jarosky, email dated 02/09/05]
See https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188.
See Also https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005199.
See Also "Ravensbruck Main Camp" in Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos Volume 1 Part B.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Anna Hassa Jarosky and Peter Hassa
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Barbara Pietrzyk was send to Ravensbruck from a Warsaw prison on September 23, 1941. In November 1942 , she underwent the first of five bone operations on both legs. She was then only 16 years old. Nazi physicians made incisions in her legs and then purposely infected them with bacteria, dirt and slivers of glass, in order to simulate the combat wounds of German soldiers fighting in the war. Barbara died two years after liberation in 1947 at the age of 21 as the result of the operations, postwar conditions and a lack of proper medical care.
- Record last modified:
- 2017-02-23 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1156939
