What should you answer when the children ask: "Who are the women of Ravensbrück?"
"They are the mothers and sisters of all of us.
You could neither learn nor play freely today, no, you would probably not have been born,
if such women had not used their delicate and slender bodies like shields of steel to protect you and your futures through the long years of fascist terror.
The captives in this camp were those whom Hitler thought to be the weakest and easiest to crush, those whom his vassals believed they could torture at will:
Women and girls from resistance groups among the peoples he had conquered and among his own people. Working women, housewives, artists, mothers and loved ones.
In Ravensbrück, however, he had to face the invincible strength ot the weak.
That is why every woman who survived Ravensbrück until liberation is a lesson for every child in Germany on what the power of fascism can mean,
when it weighs down unrestricted on human beings, but also on what the power of freedom can mean when it triumphs over terror and the fear of death.
Children, listen therefore to what these women can tell you. Listen to what your teachers tell you about them so that in a happy future you will be able to tell your own children who the women of Ravensbrück."
