UC Santa Barbara > History Department > Prof. Marcuse > Courses > Hist 133B Homepage > 133B Book Essays Index page > Student essay
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Women as Victims and Actors during Nazi Rule and the Holocaust Book Essay
on: Carol Rittner & John Roth (eds.), Different Voices:
Women & the Holocaust
by Michelle Luteman for Prof. Marcuse's lecture course |
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& Abstract |
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About Michelle Luteman I am a junior History of Public Policy major with a minor in Global Peace and Security. As a History major, I have a profound interest in the study of the past, particularly World War II. The Holocaust and its detrimental impact to humanity provide a compelling subject area in which to study. In previous studies of the Holocaust, the experiences of women have often been overlooked, fostering a desire in me to learn more about what women endured. Abstract (back to top) Through Different Voices, Carol Rittner and John K. Roth present the experiences of women, both of Aryan and Jewish descent, an aspect of Holocaust history missing in other works. In the form of an anthology, Different Voices offers the perspectives of women who experienced the Holocaust firsthand and the analysis of the female involvement from a historical perspective. Through the analysis of historians and others we see the experiences of women during the Holocaust within a larger context. Their observations show how women reacted to Nazism and the circumstances endured through persecution and placement in the camps. The collection of essays and materials presented also show the difference in experience based on gender. Women suffered differently from men because of their assumed gender roles and societal expectations. Rittner and Roth argue that the study of the female experience does not limit the Holocaust to a gender-based genocide but rather adds to the collective understanding of that period. Only through the analysis of the experiences of both women and men can the complete history of the Holocaust be obtained. |
Essay (back to top) In Different Voices: Women & the Holocaust, Carol Rittner and John K. Roth offer an anthology depicting the experiences of women during the Holocaust and the analysis of the female involvement of those who have observed the period from a historical perspective. It tells the stories of both Jewish and non-Jewish women and offers a deeper look into the Holocaust, particularly at Auschwitz. Through the analysis of historians and others we see the experience of women during the Holocaust placed in a bigger picture. Their observations show the effect Nazism had on women and how they responded, as well as the differences in persecution individuals faced based on gender. Rittner and Roth provide a collection of essays and materials to show the vulnerabilities of women during the Holocaust, how they responded to the situations they were placed in, what they valued and considered important, and to inspire new questions to be developed about the Holocaust and the experiences of its victims. Different Voices presents a compelling and convincing argument that emphasizes the importance of discussing the experiences of women during the Holocaust and not limiting the Holocaust to a genocide based on sexism but instead adding to a more complete depiction of the Holocaust. Only in researching and learning of the female as an actor and victim of the Holocaust and Nazism is a better understanding of that period as a whole accomplished. Many would argue that discussing at length the separate experiences of women during the Holocaust deviates from the fact that the genocide was an attack against a particular race, as opposed to a gender driven genocide. Rittner and Roth state this counter viewpoint: “It may denigrate the Holocaust’s significance by turning the Shoah merely into an example of sexism. It may detract from the much more fundamental fact that, as Ozieck once put it, ‘the Holocaust happened to victims who were not seen as men, women or children, but as Jews’” (Ritter and Roth, 4). This argument views the Holocaust as a deliberate attack and attempt to annihilate the Jewish population without regard to gender. Supporters of this viewpoint suggest that placing emphasis on the gendered aspect of the Holocaust undermines the widespread belief that the Holocaust was solely a genocide based on race. However, the authors included in Different Voices aim to use the experiences of women as tools to more deeply understand what occurred during the Holocaust. Collectively, these authors argue that the female experience differed from the male experiences during the Nazi era due to their gender. One example was enhanced sterilization practices in Nazi Germany. As the Nazis strived to maintain the German Aryan race in Germany they also attempted to eradicate the existence of all those deemed to be of an inferior race. Gisela Bock argues, “The surest method of birth control, moreover, is death, and Jewish women were targeted accordingly” (Bock, 162). Women were of utmost importance in the process of eradication as they gave birth to inferior races. Thus, women presented a detrimental problem to Germany’s quest for the sole presence of an Aryan race in Germany. She states that “the number of degenerate individuals born depends mainly on the number of degenerate women capable of procreation. Thus the sterilization of degenerate women is, for reasons of racial hygiene, more important than the sterilization of men” (Bock, 166). The Nazis further emphasized the need to decrease the number of women of undesirable characteristics to ensure they did not reproduce. The importance of sterilization for these women was of far greater importance than the sterilization of men as women were thought to have the greatest power in reproduction. Thus, gender differences were already negatively affecting women negatively in the early years of Nazi persecution. The importance of reproduction, however, did not pertain solely to Jewish women but for Aryan women as well. Nazism advocated that Aryan women were responsible for the continuation of the Aryan race. Aryan women also suffered from brutal sexism, though different from that experienced by Jewish women. Nazis found their means of reproduction desirable. Bock states that, “…compulsory motherhood and prohibition of motherhood—far from contradicting each other—had now become two sides of a coherent policy combining sexism and racism” (Bock, 168). Promoting motherhood for some while prohibiting motherhood from others was sexist in that it limited the scope of a woman’s importance to motherhood while racist in that it decided who was deemed worthy of motherhood. Women were solely expected to bear and raise children and required to do so if deemed fit for motherhood. Though Jewish women could do little to avoid sterilization, they sought other means of resistance. Jewish women were expected to maintain the cohesiveness and well-being of the family and their ability to do so presented active resistance to the Nazi desire to disrupt Jewish community life. Marion A. Kaplan notes that, “In the limited time and space allotted them and with the restricted means at their disposal, women’s organizations encouraged job retraining, emigration, and self-help and attempted to boost morale and a positive Jewish consciousness” (Kaplan, 207). Organizations such as the League of Jewish women attempted to aid the Jewish community, paying special attention to the women. Jewish women’s organizations helped them psychologically withstand Nazi persecution and deprivation and prepared them for emigration. They also established cultural centers so that Jews could still learn of German and Jewish culture despite their exclusion. The efforts of women’s organizations demonstrated resistance against the persecution they faced by the Nazis as well as their superior strength and preparedness in comparison to men in dealing with their plight. Males were naturally less community oriented and responsibility for maintaining Jewish communities fell to women. Resistance to Nazi control was not limited to Jewish communities in Germany but continued in the concentration camps as well. Jewish women placed great significance on the presence of family. When families were torn apart upon arrival at the concentration camps, Jewish women sought to form groups resembling the closeness of a family unit through the development of relationships with other female inmates. Sybil Milton observes that, “small groups of women in the same barracks or work crews formed ‘little families’ and bonded together for mutual help…These small families increased protection for individual internees and created networks to ‘organize’ food, clothing, and beds” (Milton, 229). Women, already community oriented, used their social skills to bond with other women to aim for their mutual survival. Though some camps forbade these relationships from forming through solitary confinement, those women who could form close-knit groups did. It increased the chances of survival for all the women involved as they had one another to rely on for food aid, and clothing. It also provided psychological support for women when they realized they were not experiencing such horrors alone. Women used other skills they had developed prior to arrival at the concentration camps to increase their chances of survival. Due to societal expectations, women excelled in tasks associated with the domestic sphere. Such attention to practical matters such as cleanliness and cooking greatly increased the likelihood of Jewish women surviving the concentration camps. Milton notes that, “Traditional homemaking skills taught to women effectively lowered their vulnerability to death and disease, despite the obviously inadequate lavatory and sanitary facilities” (Milton, 224). Their ability to ration food, sew scrap pieces of cloth into clothing, and nurse one another enabled them to endure life at the concentration camps. Thus, women were more inclined to higher survival rates then their male counterparts due to their previous domestic roles. The fates of Jewish women were not the only thing susceptible to Nazi power. Many Aryan women helped Nazi tactics to progress due to their support for their husbands. Nazism depicted the ideal Aryan woman as being subservient and obedient. She was responsible for maintaining an orderly household and being a mother. Historian Claudia Koonz observes the effect of Aryan women on the sanity of Nazi men and states that, “wives gave the individual men who confronted daily murder a safe place where they could be respected for who they were, not what they did” (Koonz, 303). Nazi women were expected to establish a safe, peaceful haven for their husbands to return to after a day of killing. Nazi men needed their wives to be subdued and separate from the actions they committed in the concentration camps. In effect, Nazi women were the keepers of the sanity of Nazi men. Koonz further highlights the role of Nazi women and asserts, “Nazi wives did not offer a beacon of strength for a moral cause, but rather created a buffer zone from their husbands’ jobs. Far from wanting to share their husbands’ concerns, they actively cultivated their own ignorance and facilitated his escape” (Koonz, 304). Nazi women did not outright support the Nazi regime in committing horrendous acts, such as those seen in the concentration camps. However, they did have their own role in the domestic sphere. They were not expected to participate actively in dialogue about the actions of Nazi men, but instead to maintain a home and refuge for them to come home to. Nazi women supported the Nazi regime through the development of their own feigned ignorance, finding contentment in their oblivion of what was actually occurring outside their homes. Within their households, many Nazi women refrained from using their influence over their husbands to alter their involvement in atrocities. Many did not have the courage to voice their opposition to their husbands’ actions. Historian Gitta Sereny interviewed Franz Strangl, a commandment of two concentration camps during the Holocaust, and his wife, Frau Strangl. Sereny states, “I believe that Strangl’s love for his wife was greater than his ambition, and greater than his fear. If she had commanded the moral conviction to force him to make a choice, it is true they might all have perished, but in the most fundamental sense, she would have saved him” (Sereny, 284). Although Frau Strangl knew of her husband’s actions in the concentration camps, she did not say anything to prevent him, despite believing he would have chosen his family over his work. If Frau Strangl, and women like her, had the courage to voice their opposition to their husbands, they may have disrupted Hitler’s death machine to some extent and relieved their husbands and themselves of the burden of guilt they carried for the rest of their lives. During the Holocaust, all women, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were affected by the actions of the Nazi regime. Different Voices aims to capture the experiences of all women who lived during the Nazi era and present them independently from the experiences of men. Through the perspective of numerous historians, the lives of both Aryan and Jewish women come to life as their ordeals are analyzed. Both Jewish and Aryan women alike experienced sexism at its extreme through the Nazi emphasis on reproduction and sterilization. Jewish women used their domestic and community involvement to resist and survive Nazi persecution in the concentration camps though they suffered from a greater risk of death because of their status as mothers. Nazi women remained devoted to the Nazi cause through their support for their husbands and self-inflicted ignorance of the situation outside their homes. Rittner and Roth, along with the historians included, add the much-needed element of the female experience to the extensive collection of Holocaust studies. Prior to the efforts of Rittner and Roth, the history of the Holocaust was largely dominated by the voices of men, neglecting to tell the different experiences of women. Gertrude Kolmar, a victim of the Holocaust, penned the question Different Voices serves to answer, “You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel?” (Kolmar, vi). Different Voices adds to a more complete narrative of the Holocaust by allowing the voices of female victims of the Holocaust to finally be heard. |
Bibliography and Links (back to top)(links last checked 3/x/09) Book Reviews: Barnett, Victoria. “Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust - book
reviews”. The Christian Century Foundation, 6 October 1993. <findarticles.com> Brent, Helen. “Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust Review”. Belles
Lettres, Vol. 9 Issue 2 page 46. 1993. Goldenberg, Myrna. “From a World Beyond: Women in the Holocaust”. Feminist
Studies. Vol. 22 Issue 3. 1996. <ebsco
link>. Web Sites: Judy Cohen, “Women and the Holocaust: A Cyberspace of their Own” (2001),
<http://www.theverylongview.com/WATH>.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Women During the Holocaust”
(October 2008), <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005176>.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Women in the Third Reich”
(October 2008), <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005205>.
Books: Joy Erlichman Miller, Love Carried Me Home: Women Surviving Auschwitz
(Deerfield Beach: Simcha Press, 2000), 227 pages. Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman, Women in the Holocaust (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 402 pages. |
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Any student tempted to use this paper for an assignment in another course or school should be aware of the serious consequences for plagiarism. Here is what I write in my syllabi:
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