 | |
| Irme Grese |
Wendy Lower has written a new book called Hitler's Furies, which delves into the history of women who participated in the Holocaust. This review in The Daily Mail will give you a taste of her fascinating research.
On the left is Irme Grese, a concentration camp guard who was among the few women to be held accountable for her part in the murder of the Jews. She was hanged, at age 22, in 1945.
Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan, known as the "Mare of Majdanek," is sometimes considered a model for Hanna. Braunsteiner was convicted, sentenced to prison time in Austria, given amnesty, and moved to America. The Simon Wiesenthal Foundation tracked her down in 1964, but it took 9 years for the extradition to go through. The trial didn't begin until 1975 and took 8 years. Finally in 1981, she was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. She was released for reasons of health in 1996, and died in 1999. Her full story here.
I think the article is an extremely interesting perspective on the Holocaust because a lot of people assume that due to the fact that women were not entirely viewed as equal to men during the time period, that women were not involved in the violence. Also, violence seems to be a gendered topic and is often seen as masculine. Women were assumed to be sympathetic and caring creatures, but according to the article, thirteen million women were involved with the Nazi party. In one of the most interesting quotes in the article, Lower says, “To assume that violence is not a feminine characteristic and that women are not capable of mass murder has obvious appeal: it allows for hope that at least half the human race will not devour the other, that it will protect children and so safeguard the future. But minimizing the violent behavior of women creates a false shield.” This brings up the idea that all of us are capable of this type of odious behavior. Through the lens of the novel, when Hanna asks the judge what he would have done, though many of us would say that we would never have the ability to commit such horrific crimes, we unfortunately don’t know for sure. Though it is not our right to kill or commit terrible acts of violence, it is easier to be critical of the situation when we are looking back on it.
ReplyDeleteSean, I agree... It's interesting how the gendered inequality resulted in benefits for women when it comes to the prosecution of these crimes. It seems that the sexist ideals which often robbed women of their right to take the reigns of their own lives or to be responsible for their own decisions also afforded those who engaged in the atrocities of the holocaust a way to avoid punishment, because they weren't seen as being able to be culpable for their behavior.
ReplyDeleteThis post also brings up questions surrounding how actively engaged in violence people have to be for prosecution of them to seem appropriate - whether they are male or female. I think we discussed this last class in terms of the degree to which people are responsible for their inaction.
I found an interesting article from the New York Times that also cites Lower's work and Irme Grese's story. (I don't think I can make a hyperlink in a comment so I'll post the regular link at the bottom.) It definitely struck me, as I think all of you mentioned, how the authors highlight, even if subtly, some of the atrocities committed as being especially horrific coming from women. It definitely becomes apparent that we hold very different expectations of conduct, even in situations like genocide, for each gender, although obviously people can do appalling things in varying situations regardless of their being male or female.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was really interesting that we often seem to forget that women even played a significant role on the side of the nazis in the holocaust, and this seems to be a subject that's come up only fairly recently in critical writing and studies of the holocaust.
Overall this is a very relevant article and I definitely recommend looking at it in the relation to the previous post and comments.
here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/world/europe/18holocaust.html?_r=0