2017: "Asocial" during National Socialism and the continuities of discrimination in post-war Austria. The female inmates of the concentration camps Ravensbrück and Uckermark

With this project, we continued an emphasis of 20 years at the Institute of Conflict Research, its focus on women and National Socialist persecution. In this study, we addressed a rather neglected victim group: the women stigmatized as "asocial".

The research report focuses on three topics: Firstly, on the documentation and analysis of Austrian female inmates of two National Socialist concentration camps, Ravensbrück and Uckermark who were stigmatized as "asocial". Our starting point were 160 names of "asocials" in a database we have created and added to over the years, altogether 2,700 names of former Austrian Ravensbrück and Uckermark inmates. The analysis of the data concerning the "asocial" Austrian inmates is based on the comparison of the sum of "asocial" inmates as well as the sum of Austrian inmates. The referring institutions/services, the reasons of detention, the ways of detention, the detention conditions, the chances of surviving, or respectively the death rates were core criteria of analysis. The basis for the chapter about the youth concentration camp Uckermark was different. As there is still a lack of knowledge concerning this camp for girls and female adolescents we focused not only on the specific reasons of internment and the living and surviving conditions there, but also on the criminal-biological examinations conducted there, the camp structure, and the collaboration between the Ravensbrück and the nearby Uckermark camp.

Secondly, the report focusses on the background of the internment into concentration camps. Here, we explore questions like the following: Which behaviour, which attributions and accusations led to a transfer to a concentration camp? Who were the actors (individuals or institutions), and what was the procedure before the transfer? Which authority had an interest in a transfer to a concentration camp and how was it justified? In order to examine these questions, we also addressed cases of women who were transferred to so-called "work houses", "work education camps" or educational institutions. Another group we examined and compared were women who were sentenced to forced sterilisation; the attribution of being "asocial" was part of the justification of this forced medical intervention. On the example of the "Gau Wien" (Reich region Vienna) and "Gau Niederdonau" (Reich region Lower Danube) we examined whether there was a systematic in the escalation of persecution and which socio-political developments played a role in it. Using the example of the so-called "asocial commissions", which constituted an Austrian exception in the centralisation of authorities involved in the persecution of "asocial individuals", we examined the construction of "asociality" and the persecution of women stigmatized in this manner. We also took a closer look at the institutions of the "work houses" Am Steinhof, Klosterneuburg and Znaim. Transfers from the educational institution Gleink to the youth concentration camp Uckermark prompted us to examine this institution in the "Gau Oberdonau" (Reich region Upper Danube).

Thirdly, we examined the continuities of discrimination and marginalisation. Using the examples of post war trials against perpetrators and of requests for support according to the victim welfare act, we took a closer look at how post-war Austrian authorities dealt with women who had been persecuted as "asocial".

The book »ARBEITSSCHEU UND MORALISCH VERKOMMEN«. Verfolgung von Frauen als „Asoziale“ im Nationalsozialismus was published in May 2019: Mandelbaum Verlag