Nazi Concentration Camps Research Articles

Lithuanian women in Ravensbrück concentration camp

In the Lithuanian historical memory, imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps (the best known to Lithuanians is Stutthof concentration camp) is entrenched as a largely male experience. This led to the fact that not only the experience of women prisoners has faded, but also the memory of other concentration camps. The most important of these, in researching women’s experiences in Nazi captivity, is Ravensbrück concentration camp. The aim of this paper is to analyse the information available in the memorial’s internal database and online archives about Lithuanian women in Ravensbrück, not only on the basis of statistical data but also by presenting at least partially reconstructed biographies. The results of the research showed that most women of Lithuanian and Polish origin (often this origin was difficult to distinguish) related to Lithuania, the majority of whom were imprisoned in Ravensbrück, were young workers, born between 1920 and 1926, voluntarily or forcibly deported to Germany for works, having committed a certain offence. Also, women of Jewish (9), East Slavic (5), German and (2) Latvian (1) origin, born or having Lithuanian citizenship were imprisoned in Ravensbrück. Thus, a large number of women were brought to Ravensbrück not directly from Lithuania or another place of residence, but already while being in Germany. The fate of only a few women whose records of death from alleged exhaustion or murder at the end of the war have survived is known. Many women survived not only Ravensbrück but also other concentration camps and prisons, where the remaining information (prisoner cards) and post-war documents of German authorities about foreigners who came to Germany during the war have already helped to reconstruct the biographies of some women and can be used in the future while conducting research on prisoners from Lithuania and in other concentration camps.

From morphology of human body to reshaping a morphology of the society: heritage in the field of pathology of infectious diseases of Wilhelm Ebstein and work of councilman Sigismund Asch. A story how to counteract epidemics and to transform feudal system into civil democracy.

Collected, primary resources enabled us to extract data that are scarcely present in medical literature of the two Breslauer morphologists of both the human body and - metaphorically - the society: Wilhelm Ebstein (1836-1912) and Sigismund Asch (1825-1901), particularly the latter, who described morphology of melanosis in his doctoral dissertation in 1846, to switch on reshaping social morphology of Wrocław (Breslau) in Virchow-like manner. In contrast to the main perspective of Ebstein's anomaly that has been finely described in past biographical papers, a primary aspect of infectious diseases is highlighted here in Ebstein's heritage. In 1869, his habilitation on recurrent typhus provided professional support for Asch. As Ebstein cared for the poor in shelters of Wrocław, Asch admitted poor patients from early morning hours to gain such a great esteem to be elected alderman. Asch's mentality corresponded to Ferdinand Lassalle's philosophy of the social democratic movement. In front of cholera epidemics, Asch contributed to medical control of meat, development of city canalization, establishment of green areas as well he deeply got involved in charity institutions for widows and orphans and was a model medical doctor to follow for much more famous Janusz Korczak who perished together with children from his orphanage in Nazi Concentration Camp in Treblinka. Asch was immortalized as "Doctor Klaus" in the popular play by Adolf L'Arronge and united people in progress from feudal discrimination to democracy and in fight for civil rights in industrial society to gradually replace aristocracy with meritocracy in the mainstream of development of modern society.

Eminent science support from Jews to the young Turkish republic; a particular focus on dentistry.

During World War II, millions of people were mistreated and imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Due to the antisemitic pressure applied by the Nazi regime, many scientists had to leave Germany, and they immigrated to the United States, Switzerland, Turkey or South America. Alfred Kantorowicz was among those highly educated people who were forced out of their professional career. For a certain period, he had to stay away from the world of research and academia, which were his favorite occupations. However, these unexpected difficulties did not prevent him to pursue his success story with many awards, books, and scientific studies. Professor Kantorowicz was saved from a concentration camp upon the efforts of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to modernize the university education system in Turkey. Prof. Kantorowicz worked from 1933 until his retirement in 1948 and acted as the "father of dentistry" in Turkey. His vision of preventive dentistry and his entrepreneurial approach should set an example for today's young dentists.

Rotspanier. Debate with Regard to the Classification of the Spanish Prisoners Deported to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Spanish prisoners deported to the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp were treated and classified in an anomalous and problematic fashion that did not correspond to the real reasons for their detention. Thus, despite being prosecuted as Rotspaniers – ‘red Spaniards’ – a category initially employed to designate those Germans who had fought in the Spanish Civil War in support of the republican government, they were systematically forced to wear a blue badge that, according to the codes usually implemented in camps, classified them as ‘emigrants’, an equally strange category that was applied to all those Jews or political exiles who had fled Germany following the rise of Nazism but had been arrested upon their return to the country. This reality, however, was not shared by the other Spaniards distributed across the other camps in the system or by the other Rotspaniers present in Mauthausen, who were given the red badge that indicated they were political prisoners. This is the anomaly addressed by this article, which, based on study of the administrative sources at Mauthausen and thorough analysis of ‘protective custody’ as a legal instrument employed by the Nazi authorities to neutralize their enemies, enables us to revisit the debate and propose a new interpretative framework through which to re-evaluate the Spanish experience in the network of German camps.

Gendering the language of genocide

Abstract Exploring the Holocaust through a gendered lens, this article examines linguistic aggression against women in Nazi concentration camps. While extensive scholarship connects language to genocide, the imbrication between gender, language and genocide remains an under-researched subject. To further this discussion, I analyze female survivors’ memoirs to explore the processes of semantic deprecation through metaphorization. Relying on cognitive semantics (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), I concentrate on euphemistic and dysphemistic metaphors that construct women’s identities in terms of otherness, by means of zoosemic and reifying conceptualizations, among others. The sources under examination encompass Jewish survivors Liana Millu (2001); Gisella Perl (2019), and Anne-Lise Stern (2004), and non-Jewish resisters Margarete Buber-Neumann (2008); Wanda Półtawska (1989), and Germaine Tillion (1997). Considering the relationship between metaphorical language and perceived stereotypes about women and the feminine, and focusing on specific lexical items, I hope to unravel the nexus between linguistic aggression and patriarchal structures in the concentration camp system. I argue that metaphorization reinforced women’s inferior position and perpetuated gender stereotypes. I suggest that, paradoxically, this violence also triggered empowering processes of linguistic reappropriation, asserting the victims’ agency.

Contested Memories in the Border Town of Trieste: A Comparative Analysis of the Risiera di San Sabba and The Foiba di Basovizza

Abstract This article analyses the Risiera di San Sabba, the museum of the only Nazi concentration camp in Italy with a crematorium, and the Foiba di Basovizza, the prominent memorial commemorating the mass killing of Italians carried out by Yugoslav Partisans, examining how they exhibit Italian complicity with Nazi Germany and shed light on the politics of memory in Italy’s post-war history. Through a theoretical framework grounded on theories of nationalism, the argument that will be put forward is that the mentioned museums represent fascism as an alien object and Italians as victims/freedom fighters, neglecting Italy’s direct involvement in the Holocaust. Concluding remarks will suggest that the historical lack of critical analysis enabled the juxtaposition of the memory of the Holocaust with the Foibe, paving the ground for the proliferation of post-fascist historical accounts and their institutionalisation as manifest in Italy’s current political landscape.

Considering Second World War Archaeological Heritage in France

The archaeology of the Second World War has existed since the 1980s in English-language research. However, the vestiges of this conflict were only officially included in French national heritage at the end of 2013. Only since 2014, the year of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, do preventive archaeology operations prescribe for World War II (WWII) sites. Public research programmes have also been set up to identify and characterise the heritage linked to the conflict, in particular the numerous remains of the Atlantic Wall on France's western seafront. During this decade, several archaeological operations have revealed the strong scientific potential attached to WWII sites throughout the country. At the same time, researchers from the National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) have drawn up a general research theme based on these remains which now form part of an international discussion framework. There are three main lines of research based on the typology of material traces from the conflict. The first of these is dedicated to battlefield remains, which are currently being used to compile an archaeology of military operations in Normandy. The second is the study of defensive structures (bunkers on the Atlantic Wall and passive defence constructions) that are also the subject of exciting discoveries in Normandy and other French regions. The third area of research addresses remains linked to internment and mass crimes. In particular, this concerns the search, currently underway, of the only Nazi concentration camp on French soil, the KL Natzweiler-Struthof. This houses the European Centre of Deported Resistance Members (CERD) and performs important research on other deportation or internment memorials (e.g. Drancy, Mont-Valérien) and on a series of prison camps across France. These sites, long threatened by soil and coastal erosion, development or the looting of militaria, are now crystallising as powerful heritage assets, even though the expression and sharing of this archaeological memory of World War II comes in response to high levels of national and international public expectation.

Performing to survive: simulation, camouflage, and theatricality in Nazi concentration camps

ABSTRACT This article examines the ways in which simulation, mimicry and camouflage contributed to deportees’ survival and allowed them to subvert Nazi oppression. The camp society seemed permeated by ritual-like, theatrical and symbolic action, which shaped human relationality and power relations. I explore simulation and camouflage as survival strategies, offering a reflection on the meaning of performing in the camps. Conceiving the Lager as a space of performance, I contend that actors constructed clandestine codes of signification, taught to each other and constantly improved, which allowed them to deceive the perpetrator, resist the dehumanizing ethos, and foster ingroup solidarity.

Balys Sruoga’s Vision of the Future of the Theatre from the Nazi Concentration Camp in Stutthof

Balys Sruoga’s Vision of the Future of the Theatre from the Nazi Concentration Camp in Stutthof

Crecer en el lager: los testimonios literarios de la infancia y la adolescencia en el campo de concentración

Narrating the experience of deportation in nazi concentration camps is a highly complex task that grapples with issues related to the difficulty of transmission and Trauma Studies. Over the past two decades, there has been an increase in publications of testimonies from children of the Shoah, who have begun to narrate their memories motivated by the need to transmit their legacy to new generations and due to the natural disappearance of witnesses. This study aims to address the main characteristics of this new literary corpus to establish its bases and obtain a clear picture of the childhood experience in the camps.

Analysis of causes of damage to masonry walls in the historic barrack No. B-115 in the former KL Auschwitz II – Birkenau camp

The brick barracks in the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination camp KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau hold historical importance and are protected by law through their inclusion in the register of historical monuments. They are also inscribed on the World Heritage List. One of these barracks is known as B-115. It was originally constructed as a temporary building during the autumn and winter of 1941 and 1942. The materials used for its construction were obtained from dismantled houses in nearby villages. The walls of barrack B-115 have sustained damage in several areas. The exterior walls have experienced corrosion due to exposure to environmental factors. Inside the barrack, there are cracks and areas where the walls are breaking apart. The most severe damage is seen in the gable walls, which have become deformed and detached from the lateral walls. Additionally, there are extensive damages in the connections between the lateral walls and external longitudinal walls. The partition walls have also cracked, and concentrated forces have caused further cracks in certain areas. By analysing the documented types of damage and their causes, the repair plans aim to address and eliminate the identified sources of damage. The renovation is designed to minimize intervention in the historical layers of the barrack while preserving its documentary value. It will also ensure that visitors have safe access to the site.

If Archaeology is Not Just About the Past. The Landscape of the KL Plaszow Memorial

In the years 2016–2019, interdisciplinary research was carried out related to the German Nazi concentration camp KL Plaszow. Its key component was non-invasive and invasive archaeological works. They resulted in uncovering thousands of artefacts and the documentation of the material heritage related to the camp, which has been preserved to this day in the local landscape. The discoveries made were also a trigger for broader reflection and investment activities. The results bring new insight into the role and meaning of the past, present and future of the landscape of KL Plaszow. Such a landscape ties the dead and the living, various people with their objects and comprises the legacy of unimaginable events during the Second World War.

Нацистские концлагеря: суровая повседневность и стратегии выживания

The article is devoted to the study of psychological aspects of survival in Nazi concentration camps. An analysis of camp everyday life practices, as well as behavioral and psychological strategies of both prisoners and camp management, is presented. Particular attention is focused on the phenomenon of depersonalization, and emotional reactions of people entrapped in extremely harsh life in the camp. As sources for the analyses there were taken the memoirs of famous psychiatrists Viktor Frankl and Bruno Bettelheim, which were based on their personal experiences, psychological observations and insights, since they themselves were prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. The article also refers to the memoirs of R. Hess, which allow us to comprehend the strategies of behavior of camp functionaries and their way of dealing with prisoners and everyday life in the concentration camp.

Jew in France after the Holocaust: Piotr Rawicz in Paris, 1947–1982

In 1961, the Polish/Ukrainian/Jewish writer Piotr Rawicz published his debut novel, ‘Blood from the Sky’. Written in French (“Le Sang du ciel”) and published by Gallimard, Rawicz’s novel belongs to the ‘first wave’ of fictional works on the Holocaust that appeared in France in the years immediately following World War II. Well reviewed at the time, scholars of Holocaust literature have continued to refer to Blood from the Sky in recent works on the subject. But the author himself has received much less attention. Born in Lviv in 1919 into an acculturated Jewish family, Rawicz survived the final months of the Second World War in two Nazi concentration camps (Auschwitz and Leitmeritz); then emigrated to Paris in 1947, where he established himself as a writer.The article delves into the timeframe of 1947–1982, encapsulating Piotr Rawicz’s transition to Paris and his life until his passing. It places notable emphasis on the diverse environments that shaped Rawicz’s life and writing. Particularly, the article pays close attention to Rawicz’s connections within Jewish social circles and explores how his experiences and resilience during the Holocaust and his pre-war life in Lviv influenced his approach to forging new identities after settling in France.

In the Wake of the Holocaust: Massimo Vitale, Pius XII, and the Battle over the Good Friday Prayer for the “Perfidious Jews”

While the Good Friday prayer, with its reference to perfidis Judaeis, had long been a source of unhappiness in the Jewish community, the Holocaust triggered new efforts to have it changed. The recent opening of the Vatican archives for the papacy of Pius XII (1939-1958) now permits a much fuller understanding of these pressures and how the pope and those around him dealt with them. The newly available Vatican documents, together with records from Italian Jewish organizational archives, highlight the key role in this campaign played by Massimo Adolfo Vitale, leader of Italian Jewry’s efforts to determine the fate of the thousands of Jews who had been deported to Nazi concentration camps in the war. The case offers insight as well into the larger question of how the Vatican confronted the legacy of the Holocaust.

White Suicide, Black Genocide: The Psychic Life of Labor and Freedom in Anti-Masking Movements

In protest of the COVID-19 lockdowns, crowds gathered in downtown Chicago to “Re-Open Illinois” during May 2020. One sign in particular, held by a white woman in an American flag mask, drew particular attention: “ARBEIT MACHT FREI, JB,” invoking the German phrase hung above Nazi concentration camps to taunt the then governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker. Reactions to this anonymous woman were swift, but critics missed that “ARBEIT MACHT FREI, JB” merely represented the front of the sign. When flipped, the sign read “Nice Haircut, Lori,” an antiblack affront to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. In this paper, we think this semiotic elision to contend with the inextricability of the motives of these protests and the psychic life of labor. Mobilizing this sign as a vehicle to consider the racialization of work as a grammar of suffering, we ask what the deployment of “work makes you free” reveals about the relationship between American whiteness, labor and antiblackness? To answer this question, we excavate the libidinal investments undergirding the protestor’s sign and its reliance on work as a category that renders the slave unthought. We contend that it is this cathexis that subtends the announcement by some conservative commentators that they would rather end their lives than live in lockdown. We conclude by engaging the anti-police brutality protests that occurred concurrent to the lockdowns, querying how the libidinal drives animating anti-masking may also scaffold the popularity of those movements.

Preexisting social ties among Auschwitz prisoners support Holocaust survival

Survivor testimonies link survival in deadly POW camps, Gulags, and Nazi concentration camps to the formation of close friendships with other prisoners. To provide evidence free of survival bias on the importance of social ties for surviving the Holocaust, we study individual histories of 30 thousand Jewish prisoners who entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on transports from the Theresienstadt ghetto. We ask whether the availability of potential friends among fellow prisoners on a transport influenced the chances of surviving the Holocaust. Relying on multiple proxies of preexisting social networks and varying social-linkage composition of transports, we uncover a significant survival advantage to entering Auschwitz with a larger group of potential friends.

The Struggle against Timelessness: Prisoner Experiences of Time in Nazi Concentration Camps

Abstract This article explores the ways in which timelessness affected prisoners in Nazi concentration camps and how some prisoners attempted to track time. By depriving prisoners of timekeeping methods, the Schutzstaffel (SS) sought to deprive them of a sense of future and therefore hope. Going against the idea that the SS achieved absolute power, however, is the evidence that some prisoners managed to keep track of time, albeit in unconventional ways. This research looks at the material records of timekeeping from the camps, from graffiti writing to recovered personal possessions, in conjunction with survivor testimony to understand exactly how prisoners were able to track time. The ability to keep time was of material and emotional benefit to many prisoners, allowing them to intercept food parcels, avoid beatings, mentally sustain themselves during difficult hours and days, connect through religion, and plan for the future. By opening a window into how prisoners were able to track time, this research contributes to the literature on daily life in the camps and demonstrates the value of integrated studies of prisoner life, showing how prisoner groups communicated and how their communication affected prisoner hierarchies, power, and survival.

Listening to Human Rights: Class Conflict in Hanns Eisler’s Deutsche Sinfonie

Abstract In what began as a piece against the Nazi concentration camps, the composer Hanns Eisler and his collaborator, the poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, created the eleven-movement, twelve-tone Deutsche Sinfonie, Op. 50 (1935–1958) to communicate political ideas. They soon expanded it to articulate what they saw as the very roots of fascism: militarism and capitalism. To explain the problems of class conflict in Europe, Eisler and Brecht focused on two groups that were central to Marxist–Leninist ideology: peasants and industrial workers. In two movements, the Peasant Cantata (Bauernkantate) and Workers Cantata (Arbeiterkantate), they portrayed long-standing injustices that peasants and industrial workers endured in the twentieth century. Eisler thus viewed the Deutsche Sinfonie, his largest and most ambitious work, as a way of explaining the arc of modern German history—from the late nineteenth century through to the 1940s—and how the Nazis came to power. The article further argues that the Deutsche Sinfonie can be analysed in relation to the discourse on human rights, drawing on the work of Martha Nussbaum, Micheline Ishay and other human rights theorists and historians, as a contribution to what Mark Philip Bradley calls the ‘global human rights imagination’. The article explains the vital role that the Peasant Cantata and Workers Cantata had in the overall conception of the work and how human rights issues were at the core of that musical idea. To place the Deutsche Sinfonie in historical and cultural context, this interdisciplinary analysis integrates methodologies of both cultural history and musicology.

The mass graves of Hohne and the French attempt (and failure) at exhumation (1958–1969)

The Bergen Belsen Nazi concentration camp has been widely described and studied, especially as the images taken by British troops at the moment of the camp's liberation shaped the very representation of Nazi crimes and the Holocaust. Much less-known are the debates about the exhumations of more than 20 000 corpses of inmates, the ones who died in the weeks before or after the liberation. The French mission in search of corpses of deportees, the so-called 'Garban mission', tried to negotiate the access to the camp grounds. After an international uproar and a decade of negotiations, the permission was finally not granted.