Transport of the Female Prisoners
A prisoners’ detail of 24 female Bible Students was assembled in Ravensbrück concentration camp at the beginning of May 1943.1Corstiaantje Pronk mentions 4 May 1943 as the date of departure from the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück for St. Lambrecht. According to her statement the prisoners passed two days at a railway station before being taken to the sub camp (WTA Emmen, data on C. Pronk from 13-02-1958; Pronk, Cobie, video interview, 10-09-1999). Considering a journey of about two days the prisoners likely arrived in St. Lambrecht on 8 May 1943. Jans Hoogers-Elbertsen also remembers they were imprisoned in Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp until 4 May 1943 and that she arrived at St. Lambrecht on 8 May 1943 (WTA Emmen, Hoogers-Elbertsen, Jans, report 12-02-1953). Therese Schreiber says that she was transferred to St. Lambrecht on 05-05-1943 and that she arrived there on 09-05-1943 (DÖW, 20100/10676, Eidestattliche Erklärung, Schreiber, Therese). Probably on 4 or 5 May they were transported by train from Fürstenberg to Styria, to the sub camp at St. Lambrecht. The prisoners’ detail consisted of women from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Poland who had been imprisoned for a shorter or longer time period. Especially the German and Dutch Jehovah’s Witnesses had suffered long years of imprisonment and had endured the living conditions in various prisons. As evidenced by their low registration number, some of them had also been made acquainted with first generation concentration camps, such as Lichtenburg or Moringen.
With a rucksack for the most essential necessities such as clothing, cutlery and a blanket, the 24 Jehovah’s Witnesses arrived totally worn out at the station of Mariahof on 8 May 1943. The first impression they got and which they later still remembered was the cold. Although it was already May, the mountains around St. Lambrecht were still covered in snow.2PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002; interview Hoogers-Elbertsen, Jans, 16-10-2002.
At the Mariahof station the group of female prisoners saw soldiers of the Wehrmacht who had been given soup to eat. The Bible Students received no food but immediately had to climb on the trailer of a tractor. They were driven to the SS estate.
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