Saving the Rabbits of Ravensbruck

Background

The triumphant story of how girl scouts-turned-resistance fighters who were crippled and maimed by experimental surgeries defied and outwitted the SS in the largest women’s only concentration camp in the Third Reich.  Not only did the girls, nicknamed the “Rabbits,” bravely protest the experiments, but smuggled out messages written in invisible ink, unnerving the SS, who heard details of the experiments and their own names broadcast across Europe by the BBC.  The experiments were stopped, but the girls were eventually slated for execution on February 4, 1945.  As the SS approached to take the girls at early morning roll call, their fellow inmates pulled off one of the most amazing rescues in Nazi concentration camp history, not only saving the Rabbits that morning, but keeping them hidden until liberation and ensuring many would survive to testify at the Nuremberg Trials. The Rabbits, however, returned to a Stalinist Poland intent on crushing those in the former Polish resistance.  It would take the unrelenting will of Ravensbrück survivors, a determined woman from Connecticut, and the outraged voice of the American public to save the Rabbits of Ravensbrück once again, this time from behind the iron curtain. 

About the Director

Prior to producing and directing Saving the Rabbits of Ravensbrück, Stacey Fitzgerald directed and co-produced the Emmy award-winning A Southern Celtic Christmas Concert, an hour-long broadcast documentary special that celebrates and explores the musical and spiritual connections, and the Christmas traditions, of Ireland and Appalachia. The program currently airs nationally in major markets on PBS. As an independent filmmaker, she produced and directed Delivery Boy Chronicles, a feature length comedy starring Grammy nominee, Shawn Mullins. Stacey has also produced and directed television commercials for various nonprofit clients.

Prior to her work in film, Stacey was a federal banking regulator with the Office of Thrift Supervision/Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.  She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Finance at the University of Alabama and is currently a member of the University’s President’s Cabinet.   She lives in Atlanta with her husband and their 9-year-old twin daughters.