The Ravensbrück concentration camp was the largest concentration camp for women within Germany's prewar borders. The SS required Ravensbrück prisoners to perform forced labor. Starting in the summer of 1942, prisoners were also subjected to unethical medical experiments.
![Major Nazi camps in Europe, January 1944 [LCID: eur72160]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/db2e26ad-3a0a-4946-9ce2-70e513ed39d5.gif "Major Nazi camps in Europe, January 1944 [LCID: eur72160]")
This map shows some of the Nazi camps that existed in German-occupied Europe in 1943–1944. These include killing centers, concentration camps, labor camps, and transit camps.
Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established tens of thousands of camps. The regime imprisoned millions of people in these camps. The Nazis used these sites for many purposes, including the imprisonment of real and perceived enemies and the mass murder of Jewish people. Nazi camps were sites of cruelty, torture, deprivation, unchecked disease, grueling forced labor, and extreme violence.
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![Major camps in Greater Germany, Ravensbrueck indicated [LCID: rav72020]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/44472322-581b-427f-b0b1-594dca34e607.gif "Major camps in Greater Germany, Ravensbrueck indicated [LCID: rav72020]")
![Ravensbrueck environs, January 1945 [LCID: rav42030]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/783fc7a1-3a06-4d40-beaa-84b76b630d91.gif "Ravensbrueck environs, January 1945 [LCID: rav42030]")
![Ravensbrueck concentration camp, 1945 [LCID: rav22044]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/aa067089-7590-417e-9857-1206f36b3210.gif "Ravensbrueck concentration camp, 1945 [LCID: rav22044]")
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