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Lakocinski’s collection of artifacts was entrusted to Kulturen in Lund. By interviewing the people who had been imprisoned at the camp, we have great knowledge about the meaning of the artifacts.
Far from all prisoners had opportunity to create things. Prisoners who worked in the textile factories, or who worked sorting through the clothes and personal belongings of the newly arrived prisoners, had the possibility to “organize” bits and pieces, which could be used to make things. Those who worked in the office could “organize” paper and pens. They used the word “organize” because they saw what they did as an act of resistance and not theft. They put themselves at great risk to get what they wanted.
Where did they hide the things they made or obtained? They hid them under their dresses, in their shoes, the dug holes in their hay mattresses, under floorboards, in the roof. In an environment whose purpose was to annihilate personal identity, where a person was a mere number among thousands, the object became a confirmation that you really were someone. “To own something was a fortune,” said one former prisoner
The objects were links to the time before the camp. They carried the memories of normal life where celebration o f b irthdays, name days, and other holidays were a normal part of the course of life. The items also came to symbolize hope of a life after the camp in the future.
The objects from Ravensbrück remind us of a dark chapter in European history, but also attest to personal courage, resourcefulness, and the will to survive.
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introduction
Ravensbrück, the camp
the White Buses
reception in Sweden
Lakocinski
collecting artifacts
the artifacts
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