Did Jews Die as Muslims in Auschwitz? Specters of the Muselmann

Abstract:In the nazi concentration and extermination camps, especially in Auschwitz, prisoners marked by utter physical and psychological exhaustion were called Muselmänner ("Mussulmen"). In recent years, based on a passing remark by Giorgio Agamben, many have taken this linguistic phenomenon to mean that Jews died as Muslims in the Holocaust. Quickly absorbed into current political theory, intellectual discourses, and discussion forums on the internet, this idea has become as widespread as widely misunderstood, all but turning Muselmann into a buzzword which may be (mis)used for anything from Jewish Islamophobia to US-American torture practices. The paper retraces the historical semantics of the German word Muselmann and discusses the possible reasons for its introduction into the language of the concentration camps. Based on the finding that the word's Orientalist implications do not sufficiently explain its use in the concentration camps and that neither guards nor prisoners employed it with the intention of turning Jews into Muslims, the paper cautions against the transfer of this word's historically specific use, developed under extreme conditions, into the heated political debates of the present.