A Goodreads user asked Heather Dune Macadam:

What was the most surprising thing you learned in your research?

Heather Dune Macadam What really shocks me is the absolute degradation of women. I knew it was bad, but it was so much worse than even Rena had told me. Despite working with Rena on Rena’s Promise for two years, she never told me that selections were carried out in the nude. She kept that from me. Then there are the actual numbers of women who died in 1942, which we will never know accurately because their deaths were not recorded until the fall of 1942, and even then those numbers show major discrepancies between survivor accounts and SS records. I was challenged by one journalist, who felt like I was using hearsay in my accounting of the mass selection held in December 1942, rather than the reports made by the SS. “So we are supposed to believe the SS, instead of the testimonies of multiple witnesses—men and women, alike, who were there?” I asked. “Do you really think the SS wanted to record killing 10,000 women in a single day?”

The fact that no one has ever reported that selection, except for me, is almost as shocking as the fact that it occurred. Why have women's death been so under reported and recognized? It is scandalous to me.

flag