Language:
English
Year of publication:
2013
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
19,1 (2013) 59-80
Keywords:
Jewish women in the Holocaust
;
Sex crimes
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Based on survivors' accounts and on reports made by the German military in the East, concludes that the rape of Jewish women and girls by Romanian troops was much more widespread than rape by Wehrmacht soldiers in Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and Ukraine. The notion that the rape of Jewish victims constituted "Rassenschande" did not exist among Romanian soldiers. There is no evidence that the Romanian army leadership commanded that rapes be carried out; however, there was no explicit prohibition of rape. The lenient and even supportive position of officers in the field regarding the rape of Jewish women led to many such crimes. The rapes were committed during the first stage of the war in the East, when the Romanian army gained military successes; thus, they were not caused by frustration, but rather by ideological considerations. The rapes must be viewed within the context of the Romanian Eastern Campaign and its goals, especially the punishment of the "Jewish traitors" of 1940 and the purification of the reconquered territories. Usually the rapes accompanied plundering raids, the perpetrators of which were not punished. In many cases local peasants, Romanian or Ukrainian, also took part in the rapes. Notes that there was some resistance to Romanian rapists in Bessarabia.
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