"Dear Jadzienko1 Little Rabbit, For Christmas I wish that baby Jesus will grant you health and hope and that you will get back home
Ravensbrück, 1942"
The Nazi regime opened Ravensbrück concentration camp in May 1939 to imprison women in Germany who did not fit the Nazi ideal for the so-called German “national community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”).1 The first prisoners of the camp included Jews, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other so-called “outsiders.” Following Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, Polish women who resisted the German occupation were also sent to Ravensbrück. German authorities deported about 130,000 women from more than 30 countries to the camp between 1939 and 1945.2
In 1942, a Polish political prisoner in Ravensbrück created this Christmas card for a young Polish prisoner named Jadwiga Dzido. Dzido had lived in Łukow, Poland, before attending university in Warsaw. After the German invasion in 1939, the twenty-one-year-old Dzido joined a Polish resistance organization. She was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo before being sent to Ravensbrück in September 1941.3
At Ravensbrück, Dzido was forcibly subjected to unethical medical experiments by SS doctors. Seventy-three other female Polish political prisoners were also forced to become part of a series of tests of antibacterial drugs.4 These women were moved into Barrack 15 together. During the experiments, they began calling themselves “rabbits” because they were being treated like laboratory animals. SS doctors gave the women wounds similar to those that soldiers received in battle, and then they deliberately infected them with bacteria. Half of the “rabbits” received the anti-bacterial drug sulfa and half received no medication. Dzido was selected for the control group and was denied any medication for her injuries.
The women in Barrack 15 had different experiences than most prisoners at Ravensbrück. This included a reduced forced labor detail as well as access to certain materials for comfort and writing. The author of this card referenced their shared experience with a drawing of a rabbit and with the nickname króliczka, or “bunny.” The card offers a message of health and hope for Dzido’s recovery and her future.
Dzido’s wounds took over five months to close and she endured constant pain. Nevertheless, she managed to survive. After the war, she recounted her experiences at Ravensbrück during a trial of Nazi doctors.5 She testified that she had not regained full mobility, and she even showed her injuries to the tribunal.
Various organizations sought reparations for survivors of concentration camps in the years after World War II.6 The “rabbits” were at first denied any compensation.7 However, following years of advocacy, international media coverage, and political pressure, the United Nations decided that the surviving “rabbits” should receive payment for the suffering inflicted by illegal and unethical medical experiments in Nazi camps. Fifty-three victims of Ravensbrück jointly received more than 2.5 million German Marks (roughly $100 million today) as reparations in 1961.8