{"title":"Becoming a Rescuer in the Pyrenees: Border Guides Who took Jews from France to Franco’s Spain (1940–1943)","authors":"Jacqueline Adams","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae040","url":null,"abstract":"During the Holocaust, thousands of Jews in France fled Europe via Franco’s Spain. When leaving France, refugees who lacked the required travel documents avoided police and customs officers at the Franco-Spanish border by walking over the Pyrenees. Guides (passeurs) led them through the mountains to the border, choosing trails and times that would make encounters with police patrols less likely. Most charged large sums of money, but some worked without payment. This article explores why the latter group engaged in this dangerous form of rescue, by examining how they became border guides. It focuses on two French farmers, a French Christian brother at a sanatorium, and an antifascist activist from Germany. The sources analyzed include the memoirs, unpublished accounts, diaries, letters and oral history interviews of the guides, their work associates, and the refugees; as well as official correspondence between French police and government officials in the Pyrenees region, and the archival records of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The author’s primary research finding is that the border guides considered in this study undertook the dangerous task of guiding refugees because they had had a series of experiences and had engaged in a series of actions that made it more feasible for them to do so when asked. Their values and understanding of their work also help explain why they became guides. Reflections on the implications of this research for our comprehension of bystanders’ actions conclude the article.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142225458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Holocaust Propaganda Machine in Soviet Periodicals, 1941–1945","authors":"Albert Kaganovitch","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae026","url":null,"abstract":"The USSR entered the Second World War with the world’s most powerful propaganda apparatus, having twenty years of experience and a state monopoly on truth.1 All publications were subjected to a three-tiered system of censorship: personal, editorial, and official, with the common line of censorship determined at the highest level. In the Soviet Union, there were five primary sources of official information: (a) periodical publications, (b) fictional literature, (c) journalistic writing, (d) films, and (e) radio broadcasts. The author examines the Russian language periodical press, which was the most widely available print material in the USSR. These sources were entirely aimed at Soviet readers, as opposed to Yiddish-language publications, which were in part intended to arouse sympathy in readers abroad.2 Verification of casualty statistics and authenticating the facts of this published information is not the purpose of this article, but rather the author seeks to challenge the assumption that the USSR suppressed or censored reporting on the Holocaust during the Second World War.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141553215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Era of the Female Witness: Jewish Women and the Trial of Klaus Barbie","authors":"Ashley Valanzola","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae020","url":null,"abstract":"In May 1987, Sabine Zlatin and Simone Lagrange became household names in France after they testified against the infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie, “the Butcher of Lyon,” during his trial for crimes against humanity. On the witness stand, Zlatin’s testimony revealed her perseverance as a Polish-Jewish immigrant involved extensively in wartime rescue and resistance. Meanwhile, Lagrange shared her encounters as a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl whom Klaus Barbie tortured. Throughout Barbie’s trial, national and international media outlets reported frequently on Zlatin and Lagrange’s wartime and postwar lives. The enormous media attention the trial received made it a crucial event during the resurgence of Holocaust memory in France, yet what made this trial unique regarding the role of Jewish women as witnesses was its timing in the aftermath of the women’s rights movement. The feminist movement allowed people to better understand the gendered nature of Zlatin and Lagrange’s testimonies and recognize their persecution and perseverance as women during and after the war. Going forward, the centrality of experiences shared by women shaped how the trial would be remembered, and arguably even influenced a greater consideration of crimes against women within the statutes for crimes against humanity.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141530160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“An island of Jewish autonomous life”: Paul Rosner’s Diary and the Story of the Young Maccabi Movement in Germany","authors":"Noam Corb","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae002","url":null,"abstract":"From April to August 1937, Paul Rosner recorded his experiences while attending the Beth Halutz/Maccabi Hatzair boarding school in Berlin, and while participating in the Maccabi youth movement in Germany. Clearly illuminating his personal history in the group, the diary describes daily life, and offers a glimpse into several important events of the Berlin Jewish community, particularly within Zionist circles. This article first covers the history of the Maccabi youth movement, before analyzing the diary’s coverage of various topics including culture, religion, politics, and leisure. Previously, the official writings of the movement’s leaders dominated the narrative of this group, but Rosner’s diary offers a youth’s perspective that is both unique and complex, exploring the movement’s successful attempt to create a parallel Jewish reality for its members during a period of ongoing persecution.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140204213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Rumble of a Locomotive, Traumatizing Screams, and Mortal Dance: Firsthand Poetic Testimonies Haunted by the Sounds of the Holocaust","authors":"Dobrawa Lisak-Gębala","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcad073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcad073","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the relationship between Holocaust trauma and firsthand poetic testimonies through the lens of literary acoustics. Specifically, it explores the work of three Jewish poets, Stanisław Wygodzki, Ilona Karmel, and Stanisław Jerzy Lec, who wrote in Polish of their tragic experiences in the Nazi camps. The article compares these poetical works to involuntary flashbacks composed of haunting sounds that recall trauma and violence and applies the concept of thantosonics to these auditory memories. In particular, the author notes the importance of trains as not only an auditory motif, but also as the metrical underpinning of the verses, and as a point of juxtaposition against sounds of innocence in the Holocaust soundscape. Furthermore, the article also explores the imagery of folk dance as a kind of danse macabre, as well as instances of involuntary sonic identification with the perpetrators.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140165232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deportations of Roma from Hungary and the Mass Killing at Kamianets-Podilskyi in 1941","authors":"Anders E B Blomqvist","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae010","url":null,"abstract":"At the end of August 1941, the Nazi German Einsatzgruppe, together with German Police Battalion 320 and Ukrainian auxiliaries, killed approximately 23,600 persons (mainly Jews) at Kamianets-Podilskyi. While some researchers assert that Roma were deported from Hungary and Hungarian-occupied Transcarpathia (present-day Ukraine) despite the absence of official reports, other scholars argue that Hungarian leaders may have planned to ethnically “cleanse” the area of Roma, but the plan was never executed, resulting in no deportations or deaths. This article presents new findings that support the former position, and argues that roughly one thousand Roma were expelled from Transcarpathia. New evidence includes a report detailing the ongoing operation to expel Roma, census data indicating a significant reduction in the Roma population near the border, as well as indications that individuals other than Jews were expelled, likely Roma. Only circumstantial evidence—verbal orders to eliminate Roma and reports of Roma killings by the same special commando in different locations—supports the claim that Roma were killed in the August 1941 massacre, though later reports from 1942 explicitly identify Roma victims. After analyzing this new evidence, the author supports the claim that Roma were deported and potentially killed earlier than had previously been known.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140154437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Europe to Mexico: The Unexpected Journey of Thirty Jewish Families Escaping Nazism","authors":"Daniela Gleizer, Yael Siman","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcad070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcad070","url":null,"abstract":"Despite Mexico’s highly restrictive policy toward Jewish refugees during the 1930s and the Second World War, nearly two thousand Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazism managed to enter the country. While previous historiography has primarily focused on government policies toward Jewish refugees, it has paid little attention to the experiences of those who actually arrived in Mexico. This article fills this gap by analyzing the forced migration and transit process of thirty Jewish refugee families who arrived in Mexico between 1937 and 1949. Mexico emerged as a crucial option for refugees throughout their flight when they utilized and established transnational links that would ultimately lay the groundwork for their rescue. By expanding the field of Holocaust studies to encompass the experiences of refugees in Latin America, this study provides important insights into the global dynamics of the Holocaust.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140020012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Staging a Boycott: Photographs of the Nazi Attack on Jewish-Owned Businesses in April 1933","authors":"Christoph Kreutzmüller","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae004","url":null,"abstract":"On April 1, 1933, the Nazi regime staged the brutal state-organized blockade of Jewish-owned businesses as a peaceful boycott. At the time, attempts to influence public opinion only worked to a limited extent. Both domestic and international papers were reluctant to print photos that represented the Nazi perspective too clearly. Yet astonishingly, the Nazi perspective prevails today. The photos made by the Nazis and their helpers to stage the “boycott” are dominant in exhibitions and publications. The “Nazi victory on the shopfront,” as The Guardian called it in 1933, has therefore turned into a belated victory on the “photo front.” This article analyzes the photos taken on April 1, 1933, deconstructs the propaganda messages embedded in them, and reconstructs the violence of the Nazi regime’s first systematic assault against the Jews in Germany.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140019620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shmal’tsovniki: Bounty Hunters in World War II Galicia, 1941–1944","authors":"Jeffrey Burds","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcad074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcad074","url":null,"abstract":"Among the most notorious forms of collaboration with the German occupation of District Galicia were the so-called shmal’tsovniki (szmalcownicy) or marodëry (profiteers), bounty hunters who betrayed Jews to the German police for cash rewards, apartments, food, and a host of other incentives. In this study of post-Soviet Russian, Ukrainian, German, Israeli, and Polish sources, the author has traced the nefarious roles these local collaborators played in the Holocaust. He has endeavored to outline the political economy of genocide in Galicia, tracing the transformation of relations among neighbors into a predatory hunt for Jewish men, women, and children who had been driven into hiding to escape persecution and genocide. Archival documents and eyewitness testimonies reveal that bounty hunters preyed not just on Jews, but also on so-called Righteous Gentiles, typically well-meaning Poles or Ukrainians whose acts of kindness were sometimes turned against them in the morally inverted world of the German occupation. In this way, the German occupation authorities generated a mass culture of fear and suspicion that facilitated the rounding up and liquidation of remaining Jews.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139928240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mitigating Persecution: Intermarried Families and the Significance of Social Networks during the Holocaust in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia","authors":"Tatjana Lichtenstein","doi":"10.1093/hgs/dcae001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcae001","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the wartime experience of an intermarried family in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It examines the intermarried couple Marie and Jiří Klouda, their daughters, Helena and Mariana, and their closest relatives among the Eisner and Klouda families. Using a microhistorical perspective, this study focuses on the experiences and strategies of particular individuals and their social circles to understand their responses to shifting circumstances. Although I focus on these two families, my questions pertain to the significance of non-Jewish friends and relatives for Jews during the Holocaust. In short, what difference did these social and familial bonds make to Jewish family members? The study shows that familial and social bonds had tangible outcomes in terms of facilitating important, lifesaving contacts and favors within the forced Jewish societies in the Terezín ghetto and Prague. Prewar professional, familial, and cultural networks, and the social capital they embodied, carried over into the lives of Jews forced into Terezín and into the ghettoized society in Prague. Family and friends provided significant material and emotional support for each other. This support was especially important in a family like the Eisners-Kloudas, which experienced multiple forms of victimization during the war. During the Holocaust, non-Jewish relatives and friends could not stop the processes of genocide, but they could mitigate the effects of dispossession, isolation, deprivation, and deportation.","PeriodicalId":44172,"journal":{"name":"HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES","volume":"232 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139910831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}