Dehumanization and sorting
On arrival in the camp the women were stripped of their identity. The Nazis sorted the prisoners into different groups and marked them with numbers and symbols to show what the prisoner was accused of and thus how she should be treated by the guards. The symbol key here was used in Ravensbrück and other camps.

The colours and symbols on the chart show the Nazi categorization of the prisoners. The symbols had the following meanings:
red = political prisoner
green = professional criminal
blue = emigrant (i.e. a German captured in exile)
purple = Jehovah’s Witness
pink = homosexual
black = Roma and asocials (designated by the Nazis as work-shy,
            prostitutes, alcoholics and mentally ill individuals)

A horizontal bar over the triangle meant a recidivist.
A black circle with a dot under the triangle = prisoners of the
     penal company (prisoners with particularly severe punishment
     including isolation and torture).
The Star of David with a yellow base combined with triangles of
     different colours above = Jews placed in one of the categories
     above.
Black and yellow triangle = Jews who mixed with non-Jews.
Red circle in a white frame = particularly escape-prone
     individuals.

The letters stand for the country from which the prisoner came:
P = Poland, T = Czechoslovakia.
Bottom right, an example of a sleeve with designations.