MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: No. People were not tattooed at Ravensbrück;
but, on the other hand, we had to go up for a gynecological examination,
and since no precautions were ever taken and the same instruments were
frequently used in all cases, infections spread, partly because
common-law prisoners and political internees were all herded together.
In Block 32 where we were billeted there were also some Russian women
prisoners of war, who had refused to work voluntarily in the ammunition
factories. For that reason they had been sent to Ravensbrück. Since they
persisted in their refusal, they were subjected to every form of petty
indignity. They were, for instance, forced to stand in front of the
block a whole day long without any food. Some of them were sent in
convoys to Barth. Others were employed to carry lavatory receptacles in
the camp. The Strafblock (penitentiary block) and the Bunker also housed
internees who had refused to work in the war factories.