Jewish women in the Holocaust
Of the six million
Social networks
According to author Joan Ringelheim, women demonstrated more nurturing interpersonal behavior in internment/concentration camps than their male counterparts, due to their unique qualities.[5] However, men also created social support networks in the camps.[6]
An interview with a Holocaust survivor named Rose described the bonds the women formed:
...[women were] picking each other like monkeys [for lice]… holding each other and keeping each other warm…. Someone puts their arm around and you remember…I think more women survived… the men were falling like flies. Men were friends there too. They talked to each other but they didn’t, wouldn’t sell their bread for an apple for the other guy. They wouldn’t sacrifice anything. See, that was the difference.[5]: 380
Sexual abuse
Jewish women during the
It was reported that "50%–80% of the SS troops and police units that operated in Eastern Europe were guilty of the sexual assault on Jewish women,"[11] not only for sexual pleasure but also to exert dominance and dehumanize them. This was in spite of the Nazi law that forbids sexual relations between ethnic Germans and Jews which was punishable by jail or death. There were instances of SS unit parties where defenseless Jewish women were repeatedly sexually assaulted until they fell to the floor bleeding. Some historians conclude that because SS officers and soldiers were male, Jewish boys and men faced less risk of sexual assault and abuse than women. [11][12]
Childbirth also endangered women's survival in the concentration camps, affecting them physically and emotionally. Once a baby was born, women were vulnerable to being killed along with their newborns. One memoir describes some of the sadistic acts: "SS men and women amuse themselves by beating pregnant women with clubs and whips, [having them] torn by dogs, dragged around by their hair and kicked in the stomach with heavy German boots. Then when [the pregnant Jewish women] collapsed, they were thrown into the crematory – alive."[7]: 86 : 376 Rape, unwanted pregnancies, forced abortions, medical experimentation and/or examination, and sterilization were also common and contributed to the sexual violations and abuse many Jewish women faced during the Holocaust. [13]
Gender versus identity
Jewish women and motherhood
Major disparities between mother and father figures in the narratives of survivors were caused by the gender roles of Jewish men and women who were imprisoned.[14]: 155 Women commonly referred to themselves as surrogate mothers[14]: 158 and highlighted their unique qualities as women in describing their experiences in the camps. To them, being a woman in the Holocaust meant that they performed every role of a woman. They considered themselves as sisters, mothers, daughters, etc.[14]: 175 Motherhood represented their gender, for they were continually worried about their children.
Jewish women as partisans
Jewish women faced challenges and played a role through their involvement in the Jewish partisan movement, a resistance movement against Nazi Germany throughout Nazi-occupied Europe in World War Two. These women escaped from Jewish ghettos throughout the occupied territory to join partisans in the forest to escape Nazi persecution and enhance their chances of survival.[15] Many women successfully joined partisan units, specifically in the Bielski detachment.[15] The Bielski detachment maintained the highest amount of female partisans, with approximately 364 women of the 1,018 members.[15] However, partisan units were largely male, and military activities were the role of men. When women fled Nazi persecution to reach these units, they generally did so "because they were looking for a rescue, not because they were fighting the enemy."[15]
The social cohesion of these partisan units sometimes reflected larger societal attitudes, including gendered stereotypes and expectations. The roles relegated to female members within were influenced by these factors. Subsequently, women who joined the partisans were generally "excluded from combat duty and from leadership positions"[4] and subjected to gender-specific vulnerabilities. Research shows that many women were aware before entering the forest that "the possibility of rape or murder was real."[6] Once accepted into the partisans, women were often pressured into relationships with men in these units, either willingly or unwillingly, due to the protection they granted to the women.[6] However, under many circumstances, women were not subjected to discrimination and were regarded as valuable assets. Specifically in the Bielski detachment, women played a pivotal role in running the camp by providing food and aiding the injured or ill partisans as nurses or members of the medical staff.[15]
Jewish women in the resistance
Both men and women were part of the resistance, but the role of women is often overlooked in present-day discussions. Women would sometimes be used to attract the attention of Nazis and lure them into an ambush or assassinate them personally. Some women also worked individually to support the resistance. Freddie Oversteegen and her older sister were 14 and 16 when they joined the Dutch resistance. The sisters met Hannie Schaft, and the three worked as a team to kill Nazi soldiers. Their young age allowed them to evade suspicion and exploit weaknesses in Nazi security. The trio primarily lured enemy soldiers into ambushes staged by older members of their partisan cell.[16]
Jewish women in labour camps
Many women believed that labour camps were an opportunity to work for their freedom from the ghettos, but other women attempted to escape. The conditions of the camps were much more brutal than commonly believed. Rena Kornreich Gelissen remembers telling herself “We are young…we will work hard and be set free.”[18]: 55 Gelissen, who went into a labor camp willingly, unaware of their actual nature, said this was her original conception of a labor camp. Inside the camps, the reality became apparent. The women were stripped of their clothes, their belongings, and their hair. “They shear our heads, arms; even our pubic hair is discarded just as quickly and cruelly as the rest of the hair on our bodies.”[18]: 58
Selections
The main goal of the Holocaust was to eliminate the Jews. However, the Nazi regime maintained a large population of Jewish workers in the labor camps. To facilitate the Nazi goal of Jewish genocide, the labor camps conducted "selections," held at random intervals. Women were lined up to be killed or spared, largely at random. Gelissen said, "Selections are sporadic. There is no telling how often they occur…" she also goes on to say "There is usually one SS man who stands in judgment while the rest of them watch, and sometimes there is two SS man, both must give you the thumb toward life."[18]: 133
Diet
According to Gelissen, "if the war is going well for the Germans, once in a while [they] get a slice of meat in [their] soup or with [their] bread," and “we lick our open palms slowly, savoring the smear of margarine or mustard.”[18]: 136 Apart from these small portions daily, they got morning tea, soup for lunch, and bread for dinner. However, most of the time they simply had water and less of what it actually was supposed to be. They were always hungry and wanted more. "I don’t know which to long for more – food or freedom.”[18]: 137
Work
Work in the labor camps was intense, due to harsh weather conditions and constant supervision by the SS. Prisoners often conducted manual labor in full sun, "when it was hot on [their] heads.”[18]: 154 Gelissen performed many different jobs in the camps. She said the physical pain was incomparable to anything she had experienced. “We are working on the new blocks, digging sand out of a deep hole and shifting it through the mesh nets.” However, Rena had had experience doing this and she says, “Our hands are hard. They no longer bleed from the long hours of work….”[18]: 141
External links
- Spots of Light: Women in the Holocaust Archived 15 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine. An online exhibition by Yad Vashem. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
- Lenore J. Weitzman, Women in the Holocaust, at The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme
- Women During the Holocaust, on My Jewish Learning
- Helen Frink, Images of Women in the Holocaust, on the Greenfield Community College in Western Massachusetts YouTube channel, 4 April 2007
References
- ^ "Holocaust Timeline: Statistics of the Holocaust". The History Place. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-1584659044.
- ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Women During the Holocaust". Retrieved 29 April 2014.
- ^ S2CID 145091754.
- ^ ISBN 978-1557785046.
- ^ a b c Tec, Nechama (2003). Resilience and Courage: Women, Men and the Holocaust. Yale University Press.
- ^ JSTOR 1048544.
- ISBN 9780199608683.
- S2CID 162601966.
- S2CID 162601966.
- ^ a b Katz, Steven (2012). Modern Judaism, Volume 32, Number 3. Oxford University Press. pp. 293–322.
- .
- ^ "Sexual Violence in the Holocaust: Perspectives from Ghettos and Camps in Ukraine | Heinrich Böll Stiftung | Kyiv - Ukraine". Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
- ^ a b c Feinstein, Margaret Myers (Spring 2007). "Absent Fathers, Present Mothers: Images of Parenthood in Holocaust Survivor Narratives". Jewish Women in the Economy. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues. 13.
- ^ a b c d e Vershitskaya, Tamara (Fall 2011). "Jewish Women in the Partisans in Belarus". Journal of Ecumenical Studies. 46 (4): 567–572.
- ^ Little, Becky. "This Teenager Killed Nazis With Her Sister During WWII". History. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
- ^ Batalion, Judy (18 March 2021). "The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g Gelissen, Rena Kornreich, and Macadam, Heather Dune. 2015. Rena’s Promise. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.