On a sunny morning in May 1939 a phalanx of 867 women -- housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes -- was marched through the woods fifty miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded in through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards. Their destination was Ravensbrück, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Holocaust....