In May 1939 a phalanx of 800 women - housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes - were marched through the woods fifty miles north of Berlin.. Their destination was Ravensbru¨ck, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Nazi genocide. For decades the story of Ravensbru¨ck was hidden behind the Iron Curtain and today little is still known. Uses testimony unearthed since the end of the Cold War, and interviews with survivors who have never spoken before.