DOCUMENTARY
Art Informs Humanity in Saving the Rabbits of Ravensbrück By Ca ro l Bada r acco Padge t t
M y own great-uncle John helped liberate a women’s concentration camp during WWII and had asked that I tell others about the ‘women in the barracks’ and what he had seen ‘with his own two eyes’,” says producer and director Stacey Fitzgerald. “After doing some research, I realized that many of the women that my great-uncle had helped liberate likely started their journey at Ravensbrück.” Fitzgerald is an independent filmmaker in Atlanta, and she sat down with Georgia Hollywood Review to talk about the project currently in post- production. More than a critically important documentary on the events at Ravensbrück, the largest women’s-only concentration camp in the Third Reich, Saving the Rabbits of Ravensbrück will prove to be a powerful commentary on overcoming the differences that continue to divide humankind. The documentary focuses on the true story of 63 women prisoners, mostly high school and college students—former Girl Scouts, in fact—that survived the concentration camp from September 1941 to April 1945. The 63 were called “Rabbits” in reference to laboratory animals, and were maimed by Nazi soldiers in harrowing medical experiments. The Nazis were trying to recreate war wounds in the women’s legs, and infected those wounds with aggressive bacteria, wood chips, and glass in an effort to cause gas gangrene. They also experimented with damaging the leg’s nerves, muscles, and bones. Heroically, a number of the Rabbits’ fellow prisoners: Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish women from over 20 nations; united and risked their lives to help the Rabbits survive and find freedom. As a documentary on this dark period, as well as a testament to the human spirit, the film focuses on how the Rabbits and the other women in the camp overcame the brutality at Ravensbrück, as well as their own cultural, political, and religious differences to resist the Nazis. And amazingly, they accomplished their rescue operation armed only with courage, intellect, and compassion for one another. “Despite the determined efforts of German leaders to eliminate all evidence of their war crimes, the women of Ravensbrück ensured that the Rabbits lived to testify at the Nuremberg trials against their Nazi doctors,” Fitzgerald states. She credits Martha Hall Kelly (author of the New
to despair if it were not for the fact that those times also demonstrated that man can become in some sense superhuman—a hero. If he can become a monster, he can also become a saint, and this is as true today as it was then.” Georgia Hollywood Review asked Fitzgerald how the histori- cal account stacks up as a lesson today for women: particularly in the midst of the Me Too move- ment. She notes that just as women were crucial to the war effort in WWII, they were also instrumental to the resistance movement in all of the countries. “The women in France—who did not even have the right to vote—were the pioneers of the French resistance,” she notes.
Future resistance fighters, “Rabbit” Wanda Pòłtawska and her Girl Scout troop
“Partially in recognition of their contributions dur- ing the war, French women were given the right to vote after the liberation of Paris. But the advance of wom- en’s rights in Europe and abroad remained uneven… [and] women remained silent about the extensive sexual abuse many had endured during, and after, the war.”
Photo courtesy of Muzeum Martyrologii Pod Zegarem
Fitzgerald with Ravensbrück survivor Michèle Moet-Agniel Photo by Chelsea Hudson
Director Stacey Fitzgerald
Photo courtesy of Remember Ravensbruck LLC
York Times bestseller Lilac Girls ) for unearthing the forgotten story during a visit to the former home of Caroline Ferriday, an American philanthropist. Ferriday had helped the Rabbits after the war by bringing them to the United States, where they received medical treatment and the chance to join a PR campaign designed to pressure the West German government to pay reparations to the Rabbits. More than a documentary to preserve the historic story, Fitzgerald notes that one of the film’s greatest contributions may be to encourage current generations and the ones to follow. She believes that ‘Rabbit’ Wanda Półtawska summed up the legacy of Ravensbrück best in these words: “My generation survived the shock of finding out that man can become inhumane, and this discovery might have led
It would be the daughters, the granddaughters, and the great-granddaughters of that “greatest” generation who would, 75 years later, find a way to break the silence, Fitzgerald stresses. “We are the beneficiaries not only of the hard work and sacrifice of the pioneers of the women’s movement, but of the insight and experience gained by the women who fought and worked and lived through WWII. Their courage and resistance was the legacy that they left for all of us. They have now passed the baton, and like them, we still have real and vital work to do.”
Donors may contribute funds to the f ilm’s post-production at www. rememberravensbruck.com. @rememberravensbruck
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