Off
the Record: Remapping Shoah Representations
from Perspectives of Ordinary Jewish Women
Ordinary people—whose
lives were more impoverished and constrained than
those of middle- or upper-class individuals—have
been largely overlooked in historical reconstructions
of the Shoah (Holocaust). While recent studies have
emphasized the significance of gender, few scholars
have examined the ways in which gender and class
enter into accounts of death and survival.
Expanding the definition of “survivor,” this
study includes those who fled persecution from 1933
onward. Primarily based on oral history interviews
and unpublished third-person narratives, I analyze
the influence of socioeconomic status on both working-
and middle-class women’s everyday lives. Extending
feminist approaches to the Shoah, I focus mainly
on German and Polish Jews growing up in poverty and
working with their hands to earn a living. Research
in this domain cannot rely exclusively on investigations
of male, middle-class, and urban Jews, which are
often informed by stereotypes and class biases that
predominate in literary representations. My aim is
to contribute to an evolving interdisciplinary discourse
of class and gender as they bear on this topic. By
interpreting testimonies at risk of being lost, de-stigmatizing
poverty and manual labor, and enlarging the scope
of German Studies to include transnational and multidisciplinary
explorations of Germany's twentieth-century history,
we can add breadth and depth to our understanding
of the Shoah.
Many ordinary Jewish women
in Poland and Germany grew up during the 1920s–30s
with a heightened awareness of antisemitism and class
oppression. Lack of financial resources and social
connections diminished their chances of escape and
survival, and so almost all their testimonies are
missing. Although the working poor represent the
majority of Shoah victims, we know little about their
lives. Listening to voices of women who were able
to survive—against overwhelming odds—is
essential to a comprehensive assessment of the Shoah.
Their oral histories, documented and examined in
this dissertation, provide evidence that their experiences
differed significantly from those of wealthier women.
Along with economic differences I consider other
variables that affected whether women perished or
survived. These include geographical contexts (urban
and rural, Western and Eastern European), age, health,
and social networks. |