Gender

The lower the forced labourers were in the racist Nazi hierarchy, the greater was the proportion of women among them. At the end of August 1944, around a third of the 5.7 million forced labourers in the German Reich were women; among those deported from Eastern Europe, they even made up around 87%.

The regulations and laws governing forced labour in the Nazi state did not differentiate between men and women. However, in reality, there were many additional burdens for Eastern European women, both in comparison to Eastern European men and Western European women. This was already evident in the large transit camps through which all foreign forced labourers had to pass. Here, men, women and children were assessed for their ability to work. Eastern European women and girls were also subjected to forced gynaecological examinations to check for lice, a process that many described as degrading.

Forced Labour

Western European women did not usually have to do hard physical labour, whereas Eastern European women did. The Nazis regarded Soviet women as unexpectedly efficient and less politically minded than Soviet men and, therefore, less of a security risk. As they were usually employed in low-paid, manual factory jobs, they were also particularly cheap from the point of view of German companies. They were severely punished for the slightest offence and were more likely than Western European women to be sent to concentration camps or work education camps.

Many young female forced labourers worked in agriculture. They were often housed alone on a farm, so there was a lack of interaction and support from other forced labourers.

This was also true of forced labour in private households. Higher-ranking Nazi officials were able to request domestic servants and nannies, who were usually young Ukrainian women. Living conditions in these households were often better than in the camps, work was not as hard as in the factory, and friendly relationships were possible, primarily with the children. However, these supposedly safe private spheres were also places of (sexualised) abuse and violence.

Sexualised violence and forced sex work

Sexualised violence was a constant threat to female forced labourers, both in the workplace and in the camps, from other forced labourers, but above all from German men: camp managers, supervisors, and foremen. The women had no legal recourse. If they reported assaults and rapes, they could be sent to a concentration camp. To this day, very little is known about sexualised violence against male forced labourers.

The German security authorities wanted to prevent relationships between Eastern European men and German women at all costs. By November 1943, 60 brothels for forced labourers had been set up, in which mainly Eastern European women were forced to perform sex work.

Treatment of pregnant women and children

Many women became pregnant during their forced stay in Germany, through voluntary relationships with Germans or other forced labourers, as well as through rape. As the forced labourers were only valuable to the Nazi administration as long as they were able to work, the Nazi administration considered pregnancy as “sabotage in the workplace”. However, pregnancies among Western European women were usually tolerated. Soviet and Polish women who were pregnant were returned to their home countries until the end of 1942. When the number of pregnancies increased because the women saw it as a way of escaping forced labour, pregnant women from the Soviet Union, in particular, were pressed to have abortions, even at an advanced stage of pregnancy. The aim was to prevent the birth of children who were unwanted for racist reasons and to get the mothers back to work as quickly as possible.

For women who gave birth, the focus was still on exploiting their labour. The break after giving birth was to be as short as possible, and there was no maternity leave or protection for Eastern European women. The Nazi authorities judged Polish babies in particular based on racist ideology: Children who met the Nazis’ racist criteria as “fit for Germanisation” were separated from their mothers and given to German parents for adoption. The others were placed in so-called nursing facilities for children of foreigners (Ausländerkinderpflegestätten), where many died due to systematic neglect and starvation.

Liberation and Repatriation

As much as the forced labourers desired liberation, in many cases, it was a disillusioning and even violent experience. Female Soviet forced labourers were demeaned by many Red Army soldiers, and some were even raped by Soviet liberators. The women were seen as doubly suspect: they were accused of having worked for the enemy and of having had sexual relations with German men. Many women who returned suffered for the rest of their lives and often faced considerable disadvantages in their professional and private lives.

Further Reading:

Tamara Frankenberger, "Wir waren wie Vieh". Lebensgeschichtliche Erinnerungen ehemaliger sowjetischer Zwangsarbeiterinnen, Münster 1997.

Wolfgang Frobenius, Abtreibungen bei "Ostarbeiterinnen" in Erlangen. Hochschulmediziner als Helfershelfer des NS-Regimes, in: Andreas Frewer/Günther Siedbürger (Hg.), Medizin und Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus. Einsatz und Behandlung von "Ausländern" im Gesundheitswesen, Frankfurt/M. 2004, S. 283–308.

Raimond Reiter, Tötungsstätten für ausländische Kinder im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Zum Spannungsverhältnis von kriegswirtschaftlichem Arbeitseinsatz und nationalsozialistischer Rassenpolitik in Niedersachsen (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen. Bd. 39), Hannover 1993.