The Underlife of Transnistria’s Ghettos: Recategorizing and Reframing Social Interaction

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the ghettos in Transnistria from a social perspective with the goal of reconstructing the responses of ghettoized Jews to the limitations imposed by the Romanian authorities. The hypothesis I propose argues that survival was a matter of recategorizing interaction in order to make the social reality more predictable. The approach is both historical and sociological, with emphasis put on Ervin Goffman’s analytical interactionist frame and his theorization of the total institution. While the article considers official documents, in order to analyze the victims as social actors invested with agency, oral sources are given preeminence.