If This Is a Woman: Studies on Women and Gender in the Holocaust

Published by Academic Studies Press 2021

If This Is a Woman

Studies on Women and Gender in the Holocaust

Edited by: Denisa Nešťáková , Katja Grosse-Sommer , Borbála Klacsmann and Jakub Drábik

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781644697115

Overview
Contents

About this book

The present volume contains thirteen articles based on work presented at the “XX. Century Conference: If This Is A Woman” at Comenius University Bratislava in 2019. The papers focus on various aspects of gendered experiences during World War II and the Holocaust.

Author / Editor information

Nešťáková Denisa :

Denisa Nešťáková holds a PhD in history. Her main interest is on the history of the Holocaust and gender studies in East-Central Europe. She is an external researcher at Comenius University, Bratislava, where she is working on her postdoctoral project “Women and Men in the Labor Camp Sereď, Slovakia.” As a research associate at the Herder Institute, she focuses on the history of family planning in Czechoslovakia.Grosse-Sommer Katja :

Katja Grosse-Sommer is a PhD student at the University of Hamburg. She holds a master's degree in Holocaust and Genocide studies from the University of Amsterdam and is a graduate of the Paideia Jewish Studies Program. She has been involved in organizing various conferences, events, and exhibitions related to National Socialist persecution and its remembrance. Her research focuses on Holocaust memory and commemoration, and modern Jewish history.Klacsmann Borbála :

Borbála Klacsmann received a master’s in history from Eötvös Loránd University and a master’s in comparative history with a specialization in Jewish studies from Central European University (2012). Since September 2015 she has been a doctoral student at the Department of History at the University of Szeged and a member of the Hungarian research group of Yad Vashem. Her work centers on the Holocaust and its aftermath in Hungary.Drábik Jakub :

Jakub Drábik is a historian mainly interested in comparative fascism studies, but covers a broad range of twentieth-century history topics in his research and teaching. He completed his doctorate at Charles University in Prague in 2014, and since 2016 has worked at the Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and taught at Masaryk University in Brno.

Denisa Nešťáková holds a PhD in history. Her main interest is the history of the Holocaust and gender studies in East-Central Europe. She is an external researcher at Comenius University, Bratislava, where she is working on her postdoctoral project “Women and Men in the Labor Camp Sereď, Slovakia.” As a research associate at the Herder Institute, she focuses on the history of family planning in Czechoslovakia.

Katja Grosse-Sommer is a PhD student at the University of Hamburg. She holds a master's degree in Holocaust and Genocide studies from the University of Amsterdam and is a graduate of the Paideia Jewish Studies Program. She has been involved in organizing various conferences, events, and exhibitions related to National Socialist persecution and its remembrance. Her research focuses on Holocaust memory and commemoration, and modern Jewish history.

Borbála Klacsmann received a master’s in history from Eötvös Loránd University and a master’s in comparative history with a specialization in Jewish studies from Central European University (2012). Since September 2015 she has been a doctoral student at the Department of History at the University of Szeged and a member of the Hungarian research group of Yad Vashem. Her work centers on the Holocaust and its aftermath in Hungary.

Jakub Drábik is a historian mainly interested in comparative fascism studies, but covers a broad range of twentieth-century history topics in his research and teaching. He completed his doctorate at Charles University in Prague in 2014, and since 2016 has worked at the Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and taught at Masaryk University in Brno.

Reviews

“Years after the events, the subject of gender and family during the Holocaust began to be researched and written about by scholars, and this volume is a welcome addition to the topic.”

— Michlean Lowy Amir, AJL News and Reviews

“The publication If This is A Woman, edited by an international early career stage researchers’ group, is not only an insightful contribution to history and memory studies, it also makes a necessary political statement in times where gender studies and the social position of women are experiencing backlashes across the world. The high level of self-reflection is a very characteristic feature of this volume and may be a symptom of the new generation of researchers reflecting on their own work and how they even are influenced by power imbalances in academia … All contributions have been thoroughly researched and edited. … The strength of this book… is that it provides new research on sources that are not available in English. The volume also demonstrates that historical research on gender and war is addressing very pressing issues.”

— Elisa-Maria Hiemer, H Soz Kult

“What sets this volume apart from the other Holocaust scholarship are the introductions to new paths of research that use gender as a subject and a lens, and the fact that it features scholars whose work is otherwise unknown to English-language audiences… [T]he real success of the book is that it teases out exciting new horizons for Holocaust research, giving readers insight into questions previously unasked and looking at sources in innovative and exciting ways, such as Vastenhout’s examination of the Jewish councils and Zabransky’s analysis of the connections between religion and sexuality.”

— Morgan Morales, H-Judaic

“[T]his newest volume offers a unique focus on Eastern Europe and features approaches to gendered experiences of the Holocaust that are far more theoretically and methodologically rigorous. … Almost all the chapters in the volume utilize the micro-historical method to inform their theoretical engagement with gendered experiences of the Holocaust. As such, If This Is a Woman is a veritable repository of micro-historical research, which further magnifies its value as a methodological exemplar for future Holocaust research. … As a result, the book is not simply valuable to those scholars looking for chapters relevant to their own specific localities of interest, but also to scholars searching for examples of theoretical rigor at the micro-scale.”

— Catharine Aretakis, Utrecht University, European Journal of Jewish Studies

"If This Is a Woman, a collection of well-documented scholarly essays, brings us new insights on women and gender during the Holocaust. Originating in Slovakia, the birthplace of Holocaust heroes Gisi Fleischmann and Haviva Reick, this book is an important contribution to giving women their place in Holocaust history. With the focus on East-Central Europe and some essays the result of research in Russian, Polish, Slovakian, or Ukrainian archives, the book gives English language readers access to important new information on women and gender."

— Rochelle G. Saidel, PhD, Founder and Executive Director, Remember the Women Institute, New York City

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword: Unholy Alliances Andrea Pető Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Denisa Nešťáková, Katja Grosse-Sommer, Borbála Klacsmann and Jakub Drábik Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Part One. Theoretical Reflections on a Gender Focus in Holocaust Studies
1. “Will You Hear My Voice?” Women in the Holocaust: Memory and Analysis Dalia Ofer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
2. A Familial Turn in Holocaust Scholarship? Natalia Aleksiun Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
Part Two. Gender in Times of Occupation and Authoritarianism: Expectation and Reality
3. Masculinities under Occupation: Considerations of a Gender Perspective on Everyday Life under German Occupation Agnes Laba Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
4. New Slovak Woman: The Feminine Ideal in the Authoritarian Regime of the Slovak State, 1939–1945 Eva Š Škorvanková Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
Part Three. Women’s Lives in Camps
5. “Our mother organized it all”: The Role of Mothers of Sereď Camp in the Memories of Their Children Denisa Nešťáková Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
6. Women in the Ilava Camp as Political Detainees in 1939 Marína Zavacká Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Part Four. Women in Positions of Community Leadership
7. Women in Dror and Gendered Experiences of the Holocaust? Anna Nedlin-Lehrer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
8. Female Involvement in the “Jewish Councils” of the Netherlands and France: Gertrude van Tijn and Juliette Stern Laurien Vastenhout Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
Part Five. Women in the Resistance
9. “Ma’am, do you know that a Jew lives here?” The Betrayal of Polish Women and the Jewish Children They Hid during the Holocaust—the Case of Cracow Joanna Sliwa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
10. “And with these boots, I’m gonna run away from here”: The Significance of Female Narratives in the Sobibor Uprising and Its Aftermath Hannah Wilson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
11. “After all, I was a ‘female’ and a ‘yid’ to boot.” Jewish Women among Partisans in Lithuania, 1941–1944 Modiane Zerdoun-Daniel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Part Six. Sexuality and Sexual Violence
12. Listening to Women’s Voices: Jewish Rape Survivors’ Testimonies in Soviet War Crimes Trials Marta Havryshko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
13. Male Jewish Teenage Sexuality in Nazi Germany Florian Zabransky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	264
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	268

Language: English
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Audience: College/higher education;Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 292
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 13
Keywords: Holocaust; Gender; World War II; Female experience; Genocide; Eastern Europe; Sexual violence; Nazism; Fascism; oppression; women; partisan resistance; masculinity; Jewish studies; Judaism; German occupation; concentration camps; scholarship

eBook

Published: December 14, 2021
ISBN: 9781644697115