Prisoners freed from Concentration Camps?

I just watched the movie 'The hiding place' and some prisoners were released from Ravensbrück.

Why ?

I dont see why they would do that, because they could tell the world of what they did there etc etc..

Can someone give me more insight on this please?

PS: One of them was Tenenbaum.

 

Wege nach Ravensbrück: Vorwort
scroll down to 1944, angelo.

http://www.tournemire.net/jeannie.htm

 

Thanks Ray, it says at the end of the war, but in the movie it says something about September 1944, oh well, movie got it wrong I guess.

 

The name you are referring to is Corrie ten Boom

History

and some videos of her speaking and about her are here corrie ten boom - Google Search

Corrie ten Boom was a woman of strong religious faith - whose family tried to save Jews from the Nazis. Her story is The Hiding Place. If you read up on her for her descriptions of what happened you will also have to accept that she was also an Evangelist and it will be within the Christian community of websites where you will most likely find her story. I remember hearing about her when I was a teenager attending church with friends, most interestingly Evangelical churches whose primary roots were with German families.

I found a thumbnail description here: Article the big book of secret hiding place, boom corrie picture ten, the hiding place movie.

" THE TEN BOOM FAMILY was from the small city of Haarlem in Holland. the center of their work was a small shop for repairing watches, run from home by the elderly ten Boom father and two daughters, Betsie and Corrie. Their triumphant story was documented a quarter of a century ago in the book The Hiding Place. This ever popular story of the ten Boom family's accomplishments has been reprinted many times.

The ten Booms were the unlikeliest of heroes. At the time, Corrie was 50, her sister was seven years older, and father ten Boom was 80.

Yet heroes they were. The ten Booms lodged numerous Jews on a temporary basis. They then spirited them out to safe houses throughout the Dutch countryside. A brother, Willem, and another sister, Nollie, also participated in helping Jews. Ultimately, some 80 dutch citizens - from elderly women to teenage boys - participated in the ten Boom 'cell'. It was called, affectionately, 'God's underground'.

Beginning in May 1942 - and for more than a year and a half - they led, as Corrie put it, 'double lives'. On the surface, the ten Booms ran a struggling shop for repairing watches. But the shop was the hub of an underground organisation whose spokes radiated throughout Holland.

The ten Booms knew it would be only a matter of time before the Nazis would discover them. On 28 the February 1944, their worst fears came true.

The Gestapo raided the watch shop. Willem, Corrie, Betsie, Nollie, their elderly father and others were arrested and taken to the police station. The ten Booms were then transported at Scheveningen, Holland.

Happily, Willem and Nollie were released within a few weeks. But father ten Boon - 'Opa' as the 80-year-old gentleman was affectionately known - died in prison 10 days after his arrest. When Corrie received the news, she scratched the following on the prison wall behind her cot: '9th March 1944. Father released.'

Concentration Camp ​

In September of 1944, Betsie and Corrie were transported to the German concentration camp for women at Ravernsbruck, Germany. Here they suffered the same terrible privations and fears so movingly portrayed in the film Schindler's List. Betsie and Corrie were dehumanised into mere numbers, Prisoner 66729 and Prisoner 66730.

Betsie died in the camp at Ravensbruck in late December 1944, an eerie shell of skin and bone. Corrie described her sister as she lay on a cot:

'It was a carving in old yellow ivory. There was no clothing on the figure; I could see each ivory rib, and the parchment cheeks. It took me a moment to realise it was Betsie' (The Hiding Place, page 218). Corrie's life was saved when she was released on New Year's Day in 1945 because of a clerical error. One week after her release, all women her age at Ravensbruck were sent to the gas chambers."

From the reading I've done looking for an answer for you, I've developed a possible theory for why any releases happened at a time when they had built Gas execution chambers at Ravensbruck. In December 1944 there was a large influx of Polish prisoners which may have had some impact. Prisoners from Ravensbruck were also shipped elsewhere for desperately needed slave labour and there were many cases when the women were shipped to other camps to be sex slaves. Corrie ten Boom was shipped to Berlin and then onwards to the Netherlands. Other than the comment about a clerical error, and divine intervention, I've not come across a reason for why she made it back to safety in Haarlem. Perhaps the clerical error was similar to the clerk of Oscar Schindler's who created a list of those to be saved and the train was misdirected on through......


Some interesting information on Ravensbruck on the American exposure to information on Ravensbruck immediately post-WWII. http://www.cairn.info/revue-histoire-politique-2008-2-page-7.htm

This also lists more about Ravensbruck and who committed the crimes http://tripatlas.com/Ravensbr%C3%BCck

The medical crimes commited upon the women at Ravensbruck is difficult to read. There testimonies here. http://www3.ub.lu.se/ravensbruck/interview228-1.html

There are many sites about Ravensbruck - most horrifying.

 

Thanks for the answer Michelle, much apreciated.