Language:
English
Year of publication:
2010
Titel der Quelle:
Canadian Jewish Studies/Etudes Juives Canadiennes
Angaben zur Quelle:
18-19 (2010-2011) 179-206
Keywords:
Rosenfarb, Chawa,
;
Nazi concentration camps
;
Gender identity
;
Sex role
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Yiddish literature History and criticism
;
Holocaust survivors
Abstract:
Examines the construction of identity of the protagonist-narrator of "Edgia's Revenge", Rella, who was a Jewish kapo in Auschwitz and, at the time of the story's plot, lives in Montreal. Rella's experience in the Holocaust was significantly influenced by her gender. She became a kapo in order to have more freedom of movement and obtain an abortion after her being raped by an "Aryan" criminal prisoner who, it seems to Rella, "impregnated her with evil". Becoming a female kapo saved Rella, but the only good deed she did in Auschwitz was to rescue her fellow-prisoner Edgia from death in a gas chamber because Edgia resembled Rella's dead sister. After the war, living as a survivor in Canada, Rella is burdened by her guilt: she was simultaneously a victim and a perpetrator. Rella's struggle to forge a new identity in Canada fails due to the constant presence of the past. Edgia, who also lives in Montreal and could attest to the fact that Rella helped her, ultimately rejects Rella's friendship. Rella finds salvation only in suicide, in death, which she perceives as a reunion with the victims, the Jewish community.
Note:
The story was published in Forman Frieda's (ed.) book "Found treasures: stories by Yiddish women writers".
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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