Joie de (Sur)Vivre:

Germaine Tillion's Artistic Representation of Experiences in

Ravensbrck Concentration Camp in the operetta Le Verfgbar aux Enfers

Christine Holden

Abstract: A discussion of the view of camp life presented in the unfinished operetta by French
anthropologist, Resistance fighter and human rights activist Germaine Tillion. The work was
first performed more than 60 years after it was written while Tillion was a prisoner in the
Ravensbrck concentration camp in Germany. Tillions operetta reflects her deep understanding
of the process of dehumanization and the response of the prisoners in varying forms of
resistance, as well as her own hopes, expressed in varied musical and literary styles.

Keywords: Germaine Tillion; Ravensbrck; Resistance; Le Verfgbar aux Enfers; Operetta;

Women in the Holocaust; Music and Performance in the Holocaust.

Many people will no doubt recognize the French phrase joie de vivre (literally, enjoyment

of life, or joy in life) since it is often used in English to refer to an attitude of being carefree, of

enjoying life. Therefore, the use of the phrase in the title of this paper may appear jarring, as

applied to an operetta written in a concentration camp for women during World War II.

However, I have modified it above also as joie de survivre, or joy in survival, which I consider

to be a nuanced and more accurate description of the motives of the author, Germaine Tillion, in

creating this work.

Through my own research about the Ravensbrck camp,1 I had become somewhat familiar

with Tillion, a French prisoner in the camp, and a noted scholar and political activist. I later

learned about the operetta she had composed there, and even had the opportunity to see it

performed. I offer this paper as a tribute to her analysis of the system, her humane desire to offer

hope to her fellow-prisoners, her skill as a librettist and chooser of music. It is also a tribute to

Tillion and other women whose response to their terrible experiences during the Holocaust was

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 1

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
one of mutual support andin what the French prisoners considered one of their identifying

characteristics, which distinguished them from some prisoners of other nationalitiesdefiance.

The paper should be considered a reflection, rather than a deep analysis, and an encouragement

to learn more about Germaine Tillion.

As a historian of European womens history, with a particular emphasis on their experiences

during the Holocaust, I have visited Ravensbrck regularly since the early 1990s, researched

their archives, read widely about its period as a camp and later as a memorial site, and have

interviewed many survivors, including several French women who were close friends of Tillion.

After seeing her operetta for the first time in 2010, I studied the script, watched videos of other

productions and read scholarly works, interviewed the musical arranger and eventually arranged

for the first performances in English translation in 2014, watching that performance four times.

I am not a scholar of theatre or music, nor a specialist in French literature or history, and

aware of the limitations this poses. However, I am pleased to bring information about this life-

affirming scholar and her work to a wider audience, and to suggest that both scholars and the

general public will benefit from a greater understanding of the wartime experiences of women,

and of a remarkable scholar and activist.

On May 27, 2015, the ashes of Germaine Tillion (1907-2008), along with those of her

Ravensbrck colleague and friend Genevive de Gaulle-Anthonioz (1920-2002), were interred in

the Panthon, resting place for Frances most honored citizens in the arts, politics, military and

scientific affairs. The spring date was specifically chosen to acknowledge the 70th anniversary of

the end of World War II, and Tillion, de Gaulle-Anthonioz and two male heroes were

particularly honored for their Resistance activities. Tillions selection was undoubtedly also

based on her academic research and writing, and her active role as an advisor to French President

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 2

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
Charles de Gaulle during the war for Algerian independence. Her public activities over many

years also included speaking out for human rights, e.g., against the gulag system in the Soviet

Union, similar camps in China, and elsewhere. I consider that her contribution to understanding

the particular nature of the camp experience for women, demonstrated not only through a

magisterial analysis of the Ravensbrck concentration camp,2 but also her authorship of the

operetta, Le Verfgbar aux Enfers,3 was a factor in this significant (though long-overdue)

honor.4

Germaine Tillion, a noted French ethnographer (the more usual term in Europe for what in the

United States would be called a cultural anthropologist), already had a significant academic

career before the outbreak of the Second World War. Following her studies in folklore, pre-

history, archaeology, religion, and languages, she received a certificate from the Institut

dEthnologie in 1932. Beginning in 1934, she conducted ethnographic research in North Africa,

particularly the French colony of Algeria. Returning to France in 1940, she worked at the Muse

de l'Homme in Paris, and soon joined its Resistance group. Betrayed and arrested in 1943, she

was imprisoned in France, and then sent to Ravensbrck concentration camp in 1944. In April,

1945, shortly before the liberation of the camp by the Red Army, she was one of the most

seriously ill prisoners who were evacuated to Sweden by the Swedish Red Cross; she returned to

France in July.

Tillion, like many of the men and women who actively resisted the German occupation of

their countries, was designated as a Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) prisoner,5 a category

established in 1941 which allowed the Germans to try them in special courts, not subject to the

various procedures and requirements for treatment of political prisoners. While in the camp, as

one of the NN prisoners, Tillion took an active part in camp activities among the other French

political prisoners, at first with a small group who had been deported with her, then with others

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 3

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
from a somewhat later transport.6 Many of this group (as well as other prisoners) were also

named Verfgbars,7 who did not have specific work assignments, but were moved around as

needed. Many of the Verfgbars took advantage of their status to seek out less arduous work,

as part of the strategy of resistance against their situation and to avoid assisting the German war

effort; this strategy allowed Tillion the opportunity to create the operetta.

Tillion was writing what she termed an operetta-revue, 8 intending that it would be

performedsecretly, of courseand would help lift the spirits of the inmates. She worked

with a group of women, dressed in rags, who had the assignment of sorting beautiful

clothes and other possessions taken from the incoming prisoners, to be redistributed to female

family members of the Nazi elite. Recognizing her desire to document their experiences, her

fellow Verfgbars helped her hide in a crate or box, allowing her to write notes that were to be

the basis for her later study of the camp. Significantly, and intrinsic to the purpose of this

paper, she also wrote the words, and suggestions for the accompanying music, which formed the

work focused on here, Le Verfgbar9 aux Enfers. In the evening in the barracks, she recited

what she had written, and incorporated suggestions from her comrades. As it turned out, the

work was neither completed, nor performed, but amazingly, given all the conditions, was

preserved until after the war.10

Back in Paris in the summer of 1945, Tillion was able to recover the manuscript from one of

her friends and fellow-inmates, Jacqueline Pry d'Alincourt (1919-2009), who had had managed

to keep it hidden after Tillion had been evacuated to Sweden, and smuggled it out. The

manuscript remained unfinished and unpublished until 2005; the French first edition included the

facsimile of Tillions handwritten notes on one page and the printed text on another, and

annotations and explanations of some of the camp slang or references to persons or places.11

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 4

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
Shortly after its publication, the importance of the work was recognized, and the premiere was

given by the Thtre du Chtelet in Paris in 2007.

Why did Germaine Tillion not encourage, or permit, the publication and performance of the

operetta before this time? A significant part of the answer is that Tillion was a serious

academic. Initially, like many returning prisoners, she had to recover her physical and emotional

equilibrium after years of privation: the latter included dealing with the news that her mother

Emilie (1876-1945), who had joined her in Ravensbrck, had been executed in March, 1945, and

that her academic writings had been destroyed or lost. However, she soon returned to her job at

the museum, and her research. In addition, she was called on to observe and provide evidence in

the trials of some of the camp supervisors, held in Hamburg in 1946-1947. And, in the post-war

climate of persecution and rough justice (particularly notable in the cases of French

women who had borne children from liaisons with German soldiers), Tillion apparently

considered that performance or even publication of a work that used humor, irony and satire to

illuminate women's experiences in a concentration camp was unwise; it would detract from, and

perhaps even appear to contradict, the horrors of the camps which returning inmates, and the

trials at Nuremberg and other sites, were beginning to reveal.

Therefore, based on her notes concealed in a religious book she had been able to keep with

her in prison and in the camp, and conversations with those with whom she had shared captivity,

she wrote an impressive academic work, Ravensbrck (first published in France in 1946, and

then expanded and updated through a third edition12) which combined academic analysis, rooted

in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, and in personal experiences.

Tillion was unable to attend the 2007 performance of her work, but had consulted on the

production and was able to hear selections performed by the cast on May 28, shortly before the

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 5

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
premiere;13 several of her camp comrades attended the performances, and were amazed,

delighted and moved by seeing the work brought to life. Although Tillion died shortly before

her 101st birthday in 2008, she was aware of the success of her work, which was widely

acclaimed.

Since the first performances in Paris, the operetta has been performed in numerous locations,

primarily in France. Some of these performances have involved a large cast and full orchestra,

while on other occasions the production was more modest; there have even been two-person

cabaret performances. In a particularly appropriate presentation, a concert version was given on

the Appellplatz, the open area where prisoners had to stand at morning and evening roll-call, at

the Ravensbrck Memorial Site on April 17, 2010, as part of their annual commemoration of the

liberation of the camp. It was performed in French, with supertitles in German, singer-actors

from the Thtre du Chtelet, a chorus of young women from high schools in Berlin and Paris,

and a chamber orchestra.14

As a researcher who has regularly attended these commemorations, I was privileged to view

the performance, which led to my investigating further this amazing work, in both the written

text and the performed versions. As a result, I set in motion the process which led to the

premiere in English (a total of eight performances) at Russell Hall Theatre at the University

of Southern Maine (Gorham, Maine, USA) in April, 2014.

The following comments derive from my close reading of the text in the original French, as

well as from watching different performed versions, and reviewing some of the literature about

Tillion, the operetta, and camp musical and theatrical performances. Although the work follows

the operetta style in using both spoken dialogue and song, the formatand even the style of the

languageis unusual. The operetta begins with a narrator, The Naturalist, alone on stage:

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 6

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
both the title, hiding his own name, and his words, are a sardonic comment on the Nazis pseudo-

scientific justification of their racial theories and policies. Equally, however, the term might also

be a reference to Tillions own years of field work in North Africa, where her observance of the

lives of the local people contributed to her view of, and work on behalf of, the equality of all

human beings. After a lyrical discussion of his surroundings in 17th-century poetic style, the

Naturalist begins to describe the character the audience will meet: the Verfgbar. The

German word for something available or interchangeable was well-known to the camp

inmates, and was usually applied to those who did not have a specific job assignment in the

camp: some researchers consider that the NN prisoners were particularly likely to be found, or

to place themselves, in this category. As the Naturalist describes the life cycle of these creatures,

his language becomes more precise and he shows obvious contempt rather than objectivitystill

less sympathytowards his subject. Listening to his speech, the women who have begun to

creep in to listen to his remarks interrupt him, verbally and in gestures, challenging his

description that reduces them to the status of non-sentient creatures. He appears to be startled and

somewhat alarmed when they hiss their disapproval at him. During the two completed acts, the

Naturalist gradually fades into the background as the older prisoners question and instruct the

more recent arrivals in the realities of camp life, using less-exalted and at times crude language;

he disappears completely in the unfinished third act.

Returning to its more traditional operetta aspects, what is remarkable about Le Verfgbar is

that although some of the dialog was contributed or amended by fellow inmates with whom she

discussed the work), Tillion had the overarching concept, wrote most of the dialog and lyrics for

the songs, and set them to music she had chosen. This music was a fascinating combination of

popular songs from the French cabaret and operetta repertoire from the late-19th century to the

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 7

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
1930s, and classical music: it was music she clearly knew well, and assumed that her cast, and

audience, would also recognize. When the operetta was first performed, some of the songs, or

the melodies, were not known, and so music was composed for the lyrics; later research has

uncovered almost all of the unknown works.15

French musicologist and composer Christophe Maudot, who arranged the music for the

production and also composed original music to replace unidentified elements, wrote an essay

for the production at the University of Southern Maine, which was included in the program. In

it, he acknowledged and analyzed Tillions deep awareness of the musical canon, which he

considered striking even for an educated woman whose bourgeois parents were amateur

musicians. He referswith great admirationto her musicality, her knowledge of and love for

different types of music, and the manner in which she had selected music to enhance,

complement, or contrast with the action being described, or the words being spoken.16

In her compositional process, Tillion may have written words to fit the rhythm of the music

or perhaps vice versa: there is no specific evidence. Sometimes the words are consonant with the

mood of the melody, as in the case of a song performed while the women are working, sung to

the dirge-like, repetitive tune of the Volga Boatmen. While Tillion would surely have been

familiar with the Repin painting of Russian peasants, barefooted, dressed in rags and

dragging a boat down the Volga river by ropes attached to their shoulders, others might only

have known the popular song.17 The prisoners, however, clearly would have understood the

reference and the parallel. Another example of words and music going well together is the light-

hearted but poignant song by two women, about traveling around France enjoying local

specialties of food and drink. In this second case, we can recognize a theme which has been

noted in other works about womens camp experiences: women, distracting themselves by

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 8

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
talking about food, even reciting remembered recipes.18 While there is certainly pain in talking

about food which is unattainable, there is also the pleasure of remembering preparing and

eating certain foods, the people with whom one had shared the meal, and the anticipation of

doing so again. The two women, alternating lines, sing rapturously about their "foodie trip"

enjoying the regional delicacies of France, in Weve had a wonderful journey. The

words, which rhyme in French, are set to the lilting tune of a song with the almost-identical title,

Nous avons fait un bon voyage from the popular 1923 operetta Ciboulette (Chive), with

music by the well-known composer of operettas and lyrical songs, Reynaldo Hahn (1894-1977).

Among other delights of their trip, the women sing:

Nous avons fait un beau voyage, We had a wonderful trip

. ----
Toujours vers louest, Always heading west19

Nous avons dgust We enjoyed
Du beurre et du pt, Butter and pt,
Dla crme en Normandie, Normandy cream
Et du fromage en Brie. 20 And Brie cheese. 21

However, other songs contrast the tone or content of the words with the mood of the music:

a sardonic example is the song sung after the Naturalist has just explained to the audience that

these odd creatures have to endure being attacked by various parasitesfleas and lice, but also

the blokova, the camp term (again, the word is Slavic in origin but used by prisoners of all

nationalities) for the supervisor of the block or barracks, who was an inmate selected by the

camp administration to manage the inmates in that barracks. Some were acknowledged to

be kind, others definitely were not. The Verfgbars sing imploringly, asking the blokova to be

good to them, being sarcastically appreciative of how she helps them by her beatings. These

words were sung to the tune of a popular song of 1940, Mon ange qui veillez sur moi (My

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 9

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
guardian angel, who watches over me).22 In that year, when German forces invaded France, the

imploring words would have had yet another meaning.

A particularly poignant example of the conjunction of words, music and mood, indicative of

Tillions skill, occurs in a song which a prisoner sings to challenge the observation by

the Naturalist that the Verfgbar has only three reliable bases for survival, namely its physical

ability to move quickly, its cunning, and its cleverness in infiltrating the ranks of other groups

preferably those who were exempt from work. In the original poem, whose words are sung to

the tune of Henri Duparc's Chanson triste or Melancholy Song,23 the singer refers to the

moonlight in your heart, in whose light he/she hopes to drown, leaving behind la vie

importune, the humdrum, or monotonous, life. In contrast, in Tillion's text the chorus tell the

Naturalist that they have an additional survival mechanism in their monotonous lives, something

that is both large and light, which helps them to carry on in their monotonous, cheerless

existence. A soloist then begins to sing, rejoicing that she has in her heart a star, one of hope,

which shines every night; this promise of a return home allows her to bear the beatings,

deprivations and degrading conditions. The languid, love-sick, almost defeatist mood of the

original lyrics are thus transformed into ones of defiance, and of promise: even as the Naturalist

wonders how on earth these wretched beings can have any hope, the singer replies that its none

of his business what she hopes for, but at least this hope rises in the east, like the sun, but unlike

the sun, does not set in the westa reference to the Allied armies approaching Germany from

both sides.24 The Naturalist is clearly baffled, assuming these sentiments are proof that the

Verfgbars are nave, and not advanced organisms.

Much of the effect of these choices of harmonizing or juxtaposing words and music would

of course depend on the audience's familiarity with the music or songs: my discussions with

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 10

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
Ravensbrck survivors confirmed that that was generally the case. Indeed, during the

presentation at the memorial site in 2010, three Hungarian survivors sitting in front of me who

were apparently having trouble following either the French dialog or the German super-titles,

began swaying in their seats and humming along as a presumably familiar waltz tune was

played. Tillion was certainly not appealing to French listeners only.

The overall structure, of trying to explain the system and operations of their new home, is in

the style of explanatory narrative familiar to audiences who attended plays or operas, but in a

more sophisticated vein. There are the explanations the Verfgbars give to the Naturalist, which

are in rather exasperated tones, there are also the meta-explanations of the older inmates to

the more recent arrivals (presumably to be interpreted as motherly gestures)and, finally, the

disclosure to the watching audience. As Tillion wrote in Ravensbrck, Mentally taking apart

and understanding a system, even one that is crushing you, and stepping back and taking a clear

view of a situation, even a desperate one, are powerful sources of consolation, composure, and

spiritual strength.25

As part of this explanation of the camp system, Tillion presents an array of camp inhabitants,

gradually allowing the Verfgbars who form the chorus (and are also listeners) to emerge as

individuals. The women of various ages who are depicted as characters, or referred to in the

dialog, include those who cooperated with the guards, lesbians (referred to as Julots,

presumably a play on the male name Jules), Jehovahs Witnesses, those who were subject to

medical experimentations (referred to as rabbits, most of them were Polish), and those

womenusually young and prettywho were encouraged by the camp officials to apply for the

job of working in the brothels in the various mens camps.26 The focus is definitely on the

female prisoners.

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 11

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
 Although there are brief references at the beginning of the work to the French police (who

were acting under German instructions) and the Gestapo in France, as explanations of how the

women had been arrested, tortured, and sent to Ravensbrck, there are only a few, indirect

references in the operetta to either the male administrators of the camp, or to the

Aufseherinnen (literally, overseers), the female guards who, like their male counterparts, were

members of the SS (Schutzstaffel), the elite Nazi force which ran the concentration and death

camps under the direction of Heinrich Himmler.27 For example, the Verfgbars speak of the

occasional kindly overseer on a work detail, who might turn her back to allow the women a

chance to rest, or to eat some of the food they were harvesting. Presumably, this is because

Tillion wanted to maintain the emphasis on the women prisoners, and therefore she points out

ways in which some prisoners, such as the blokovas, carried out similar roles, though of course

without the sticks, dogs and literal life-and-death power of the official guards. Interestingly, in

the remaining text there is no reference to any young children, though Tillion was certainly

aware that both existed in the camp; babies, however, existed only briefly.28

In some of the early songs and dialog, the women try to maintain a connection with their

previous lives, for example referencing their family members, or social position, but for the most

part they are generalized rather than individual, according with Tillion's emphasis on her

patriotism for France, "la Patrie," rather than the politics of a particular group.29

To what degree can one say that Tillion's work represents a particularly female response to

camp life? She herself had said in her analytical work It seems to me that friendly support was

more consistent, more solid, and more widespread in the womens camps.30 Sybil Milton, a

specialist in German history, and for many years a historian at the United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum, was one of the first who wrote from the perspective of an outsider31 on the

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 12

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
topic of the female experience of, and response to, camp life. She argued, on the basis of many

written memoirs and oral interviews, that for women, forming a circle or small group who were

analogous to a familyand sometimes included family memberswas key to survival in the

concentration and death camps.32 This is not to deny that men had similar networks, but in

general, memoirs by men emphasize their rugged individuality. In their writings about

friendships or associations, they tend to focus more on their national, ethnic or political

connections, which are seen as diffused and changeable; while Elie Wiesel's well-known memoir

Night stresses his relationship with his father, this emphasis might be accounted for both by his

youth during his camp experiences and their strained relationship.33

Were women actually more supportive of each other, and should this be seen as an essentially

female trait? This is one of Milton's arguments, though other writers on the Holocaust

experience, Laurence Langer for example,34 disagree. In interviews given later in her life and in

her scholarly work Ravensbrck, Tillion acknowledged that perhaps women were less

competitive than men, more inclined to cooperate for mutual benefit; however, she was enough

of a scholar and a realist to admit that there were numerous variations, in terms of age,

nationality and class background.

And, in perhaps the best explanation of why she chose to write in the operetta format, she

wrote (in notes for a pamphlet which ceased operation before her words appeared):

Nous pensons que la gat et lhumour constituent un climat intellectuel plus tonique que
lemphase larmoyante. Nous avons lintention de rire et de plaisanter et nous estimons que nous
en avons le droit. [We felt that high spirits and humour were a more invigorating intellectual
climate than moaning. We wanted to laugh and joke, and we believed that we had the right to do
so.]35

Although some might consider that memoirs dealing with the subject of the concentration

camps of World War II should be serious, perhaps even grim, Tillions operetta-revue is a

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 13

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
reminder that even in the darkest circumstances humor, friendship and compassion can flourish.

She certainly chose to express the view at that time in a deliberate effort to encourage her fellow-

prisoners to confront and challenge the situations that confronted them. Even so, she was not so

nave as to consider that a Panglossian view that everything would be for the best was

appropriate. Her experiences in prison and in Ravensbrck had led her to revise her previous

views, and to acknowledge that some people were capable of behaving in an evil manner. In a

filmed recording of conversations between Tillion and three of her closest friends (both in

Ravensbrck and continuing the rest of their lives), she remarks that during their time in the

Resistance and in Fresnes prison in France, they had endured relative evil, but in the

camps, they had come face to face with absolute evil.36 The beauty of Le Verfgbar aux Enfers

is that it allows us both to acknowledge the evil, yet also marvel at how its victims could endure,

challenge, and sometimes overcome it, with grace, humor and determination, reminding us of the

power of the human spirit and of friendship.

Unfortunately, the text of the operetta is currently only available in French, but I hope that

this discussion of its themes and approach will encourage readers to learn more about Germaine

Tillion: a woman who could create an entertaining and thought-provoking treatment of life in a

concentration camp and was a scholar and public intellectual of the highest order.

=========================

Acknowledgments

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 14

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference, Exploring Womens
Testimony: Genocide, War, Revolution, the Holocaust, and Human Rights, held at the Klahr
Center, Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine at the University of Maine at Augusta,
and Colby College, Waterville, Maine, October 8-10, 2014. I am grateful to the conference co-
organizers, Audrey Brunetaux, Associate Professor of French, Colby College, and Robert Katz,
Professor of Art, University of Maine at Augusta, for their invitation to participate in what was
an excellent conference. I am also appreciative of the generous assistance provided by former
colleagues of Germaine Tillion, the Association Germaine Tillion and its executive director,
Genevieve Zamansky-Bonin, Christophe Maudot, the current and former directors of the Mahn-
und Gedanksttte Ravensbrck, Dr. Insa Eschebach and Dr. habil. Sigrid Jacobeit, and the
librarians and archivists at the site. Financial support was provided by a grant from the Dimmer-
Bergstrom Foundation.

Notes

1 Ravensbrck, about 50 miles northeast of Berlin, was opened as a prison camp for women in
the spring of 1939, and liberated by the Red Army in late April, 1945. Since 1959, under both
the German Democratic Republic and the reunified Federal Republic of Germany, it has been a
memorial site: http://www.ravensbrueck.de/mgr/neu/

2 Ravensbrck (Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press, 1975); a paperback English translation of
Ravensbrck (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973), which is an expanded version of Ravensbrck
(Paris: Les Cahiers du Rhne, 1946).

3 The title is both a reference to the classical story of Orpheus, seeking his dead wife Eurydice in
Hades (Hell), and the 1858 operetta Orphe aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) by
composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) and librettist Ludovic Halvy (1834-1908).

4 Before the two Resistance and humanitarian heroines, only two other women had been interred
in the Panthon: Sophie Berthelot, buried with her husband Marcellin, a famous chemist, and
Marie Curie, the Polish-born Nobel prize-winning scientist.

5 The term had been used by the famous 18th-century German poet, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, to refer to the use of darkness to carry out illegal or unauthorized activities. It was also
an incantation used by Alberich, a character in Das Rheingold (music and libretto by the equally
famous 19th-century German composer and writer Richard Wagner) to make himself disappear.
Both senses of the term apply to the unfortunate prisoners who were in this category. For further
information, see the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
www. ushmm.org.

6 There were about 6,500 French women among the 132,000 women, children and men who
passed through the camp between 1939 and 1945.

7 A German term, roughly equivalent to available or interchangeable.

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 15

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
8 A term referring to a lighter work than a traditional opera, usually including spoken dialog and
a contemporary or humorous topic in addition to sung dialog and exposition. The revue term
suggests a music-hall performance.

9 Most prisoners used the German term, though with the pronunciation of their own language.

10 In spite of the difficult conditions, many prisoners were able to conceal papers or drawings;
the Ravensbrck archives include many examples of cards, drawings and poetry which were gifts
to friends.

11 Germaine Tillion, Le Verfgbar aux Enfers, Une oprette Ravensbrck (Paris: Editions de
La Martinire, 2005 ; annotations by Anise Postel-Vinay (a fellow NN and Verfgbar).

12 Ravensbrck (Paris: Les Cahiers du Rhne, 1946; Garden City, NY: Anchor Press
[paperback, English translation], 1975). Expanded and revised editions of Ravensbrck (Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 1973, 1988).

13 Thanks to Christophe Maudot, I was able to see a private video of this occasion and that of
May 30, when she received various congratulatory messages, including from French President
Franois Sarkozy, for her 100th birthday, filmed by La Todorov and Olivia Colin. It was
wonderful to see Tillion mouthing the words as the performers were singing them; her big smile
gave some indication of what she must have been experiencing, seeing her work finally coming
to life.

14 There is a DVD available of this performance, including interviews with the cast and some
survivors: it is produced by Axe Sud, co-produced with France Tlvisions and Thtre du
Chtelet.

15 Information from Nelly Forget and Anise Postel-Vinay, associates of Tillion, and musical
contributor Christophe Maudot, in conversations in Paris and Maine in 2014.

16 Christophe Maudot, Some comments on a musical reconstruction-creation, in the program

for the USM production; my translation.

17 Ilya Repin (1844-1930), Russian painter and sculptor, noted for his naturalistic works.

18 For example, In Memorys Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin, ed. Cara de Silva
(Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1996). Certainly men also focused on food: a well-known example
is Elie Wiesels discussion in Night of choosing whether to eat ones bread ration right away, or
save it for periodic bites.

19 Ravensbrck was in north-eastern Germany, so west towards France would be the desired
direction.

20 Tillion, Le Verfgbar, 154.

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 16

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
21 All English translations from French texts are mine.

22 Tillion, Le Verfgbar, 92.

23 Tillion, Le Verfgbar, 108-110. Henri Duparc (1848-1933) composed the music for the poem
by Jean Lahors (pseudonym of Henri Cazalis [1840-1909]). There are many performances of the
original by well-known opera singers, both female and male.

24 In the University of Southern Maine production, the song was used to striking effect, though
not one referred to in the original directions: at one point, it is used to lift the spirits of the
group, and then reprised at the end, as the prisoners, now free, one by one silently leave the front
of the stage to walk behind and out of the barbed wire, towards a glowing sun.

25 Tillion, Ravensbrck (1975), 49.

26 The brothels were set up to provide a reward system, to encourage the male prisoners to
work harder! For an account of the Ravensbrck connection, see Christa Schulz, Weibliche
Hftlinge aus Ravensbrck in der Bordellen der Mnnerkonzentrationslager (Ravensbrck
women prisoners in the brothels in the concentration camps for men), in Frauen in
Konzentrationslagern: Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrck, eds. Claus Fllberg-Stolperg, Martina
Jung, Renate Riebe, and Martina Scheitenberger (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 1994); an account
of the various nature of mens responses is in Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1950).

27 Ravensbrck was the training ground for female guards who served at concentration and
death camps. There is a rare interview with a former female guard, Anne Hepp, in Alison
Owings Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich (Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University
Press, 1993).

28 The few young children and babies generally arrived in late 1944 and early 1945, some
directly from Hungary, and others in transit from Auschwitz, which was being evacuated as the
Red Army approached. When the buses of the Swedish Red Cross evacuated many seriously ill
women in April, 1945, the groups included some mothers with newborns, and some babies were
even born on the journey. As a rule, babies born in the camp were killedsometimes by the
guards, sometimes even by the prisoners themselves.

29 During the war, and even continuing to the present day, there are strong animosities between
Gaullist and Communist French prisoners.

30 Tillion, Ravensbrck, 38.

31 There are, of course, literally hundreds of memoirs in dozens of languages by women.

32 Sybil Milton, excerpt from Women and the Holocaust in Donald L. Niewyk, ed., The
Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 17

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
2003); the article was originally published in Carol Rittner and John Roth, eds., Different Voices:
Women and the Holocaust (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 1993).

33 Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill & Wang, 1960; originally published in French, La Nuit
[Les ditions du Minuit, 1958]).

34 Laurence Langer, professor of English at Yale University, has written extensively on

literature and memoirs of the Holocaust: his disagreement on women's unique experiences,
Gendered Suffering? can be found in Niewyk, The Holocaust, 3rd. ed., reprinted from Dalia
Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman, eds., Women in the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1998).

35 Quoted by Tzvetan Todorov, Les Valeurs de la Rsistance, Le Monde [Paris], 21 February

2014.

36 Video, Sisters in Resistance, 2000.

References

Performances and Videos

Personal viewing of the performance by the Thtre du Chtelet production of Le

Verfgbar aux Enfers at Ravensbrck Memorial Site, April, 2010; Video, axesud production,
July, 2010 and fall, 2014.

Personal viewings of the University of Southern Maine Theatre production of Le Verfgbar aux
Enfers, Gorham, Maine, April, 2014.

Video of Germaine Tillion at her home outside Paris, 2007, by La Todorov and Olivia Colin:
not publicly available. Viewed Gorham, Maine, April, 2014.

Video, Sisters in Resistance, which features a conversation among Germaine Tillion,

Jacqueline Pry dAlincourt, Genevive de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Anise Postel-Vinay.
Director, Maia Wechsler, sponsored by the New York Foundation of the Arts, 2000. Viewed
Lewiston, Maine, September, 2014.

Personal conversations and correspondence

Personal conversations with Tillion's friends and fellow prisoners Anise Postel-Vinay and
Dr. Annette Chalut, President of the International Ravensbrck Committee, Paris, France, April,
2014.

Personal conversations and correspondence with Tillions assistant Nelly Forget;

musician/musicologist Christophe Maudot, composer of music for various performances of
Le Verfgbar; and Genevive Zamansky-Bonnot, secretary of the Association Germaine

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 18

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1
Tillion, whose mother and grandmother were friends of Germaine and her mother Emilie,
Paris, France, and Gorham, Maine, April 2014.

Published works

De Silva, Cara, ed. 1996. In Memorys Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin.
Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1996.

Kogon, Eugen. 1950. The Theory and Practice of Hell. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.

Loselle, Andrea. 2010. Performing in the Holocaust: From Camp Songs to the Song Plays of
Germaine Tillion and Charlotte Salomon. The Space Between VI, no. 1: 13-38.

Niewyk, Donald L., ed. 3rd ed. 2003. The Holocaust: Problems and Perspectives of
Interpretation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Ofer, Dalia and Lenore J. Weitzman, eds. 1998. Women in the Holocaust. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.

Owings, Alison. 1993. Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.

Reid, Donald. 2007. Available in Hell: Germaine Tillions Operetta of Resistance at

Ravensbrck. French Politics, Culture & Society 25 no. 2: 141-150.

Rittner, Carol and John K. Roth, eds. 1993. Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust. St.
Paul, MN: Paragon House.

Fllberg-Stolperg, Claus, Martina Jung, Renate Riebe, and Martina Scheitenberger, eds. 1994.
Frauen in Konzentrationslagern: Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrck. Bremen: Edition Temmen.

Tillion, Germaine. 2005. Le Verfgbar aux Enfers: Une operette Ravensbrck. Paris: ditions
de La Martinire.

________. 1975. Ravensbrck. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press.

Wiesel, Elie. 1960. Night. New York: Hill and Wang.

The International Journal of Conflict & Reconciliation 19

Spring 2017, Volume 3 Number 1