If this is a woman - Sarah Helm

Ravensbruck Concentration Camp is the worst atrocity ever committed solely against women, but today the name of the camp is barely known. From Ravensbruck's earliest days, when Himmler offered his own land for the camp, this book follows every stage of the story through to the camp's liberation by the Red Army. Based on meticulous research, If This Is A Woman lays bare the systematic brutalisation of mothers, pregnant women, children and babies. It details the extremes of cruelty enacted by SS guards and of suffering experienced by the prisoners, who were themselves reduced to inhuman acts.

But at the heart of If This Is A Woman are stories of heroism and survival. The narrative centres on the experiences of women - from the farmer's wife to the aristocratic intellectual - who had the resilience, the mental and physcial strength to withstand their ordeal and to emerge from the camp alive.