16 Friday, April 1, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Women's Survival of the Holocaust Subject of New York Parley
By AVIVA CANTOR
NEW YORK (JTA) —
The first conference on
"Women Surviving: The
Holocaust" concluded an
arduous and often tense two
days of eliciting testimony
from survivors in an at-
tempt to ferret out whatwas
particularly "female" about
their experiences and be-
havior during that trauma-
tic era, revealing both the
absence and the urgency of
serious research on the sub-
ject.
The conference, held at
Stern College, here, was
sponsored by the Institute
for Research in History and
Programs in Public_ Philos-
ophy under a grant from the
New York Council on the
Humanities.
Close to 400 people, the
overwhelming number of
them women and a goodly
number of them survivors
and survivors' children,
took part in the gathering,
some of them traveling
there from as far away as
the South, Midwest and
London.
Dr. Joan Miriam
Ringeiheim, a Kent Fel-
low at the Center for the
nancy
Humanities of Wesleyan
University, convened the
conference after finding
little research on the sub-
ject, or indeed interest in
it by scholars in the past
several years she has
been studying it. The his-
tory of the Holocaust, she
said, was incomplete
without this information.
The conference format
was built around blocks of
questions asked of survivor
panelists by moderators as
well as members of the
audience.
The moderator's ques-
tions were rooted in the
premise that women had
experiences in or responses
to the ghettos, concentra-
tion camps and resistance
groups that were different
from those of men.
Four major issues came
up repeatedly in the ques-
tions directed at survivors
by panelists and partici-
pants: .were women less or
ulnerable during the
vulnerable
Holocaust because they
were women? What survi-
val strategies specific to
women did they employ?
What was the nature of
women's resistance? What
were relationships between
and among women like?
There was general
agreement that women
were more vulnerable
than men in situations
where they were in-
volved with minor chil-
dren.
Dr. Sybil Milton, ar-
chivist at the Leo Baeck In-
stitute and one of the few
scholars to make a formal
presentation, on "Issues and
Resources," at the confer-
ence, said that "women
went to their death with
children" when they
underwent a selection upon
arrival at a death camp.
These women, she added,
were not necessarily the
children's mothers, but also
relatives, friends or anyone
standing with a child at the
time.
There was some dif-
ference among survivors as
to whether the German
"purity laws," prohibiting
sexual contact between
Germans and Jews, pre-
vented the rape of Jewish
women. One survivor said
the laws prevented mass
rape but not "sporadic
cases."
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Survivors agreed that
women were less vulner-
able under certain cir-
cumstances because
their Jewish identity
could not be easily and
immediately proved, as
could the men's because
of circumcision.
Vladka Meed, who had
participated in the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising, said it was
"safer" for women to g o
among Poles and work as
underground couriers.
Vera Laska, a non-Jewish
Auschwitz survivor who
had served in the Czech re-
sistance movement, added
that women were generally
not suspected of under-
ground activities because of
the prevailing patriarchal
views of women as innocu-
ous.
Considerable time was
devoted to exploring
whether women had em-
ployed specifically female
survival strategies. Milton
said in her presentation
that women in the Warsaw
Ghetto survived starvation
better than men because
they knew from experience
about cooking, nutrition
and meal planning and, un-
like the men, could conserve
and manage food.
Several
survivors
amplified this with
stories of how their
mothers had carefully
rationed out the meagre
supply of bread avail-
able, so it would last.
Milton also pointed to
housekeeping skills and
emphasis on appearance as
survival strategies.
Women's concerns for their
appearances and for keep-
ing clean, she said, was a
factor in spiritual resis-
tance that "enabled them to
maintain some part of their
former personality" in the
concentration camps. This,
however, as one participant
said privately, was also true
of men.
Several survivors related
the importance of their
mothers' "feminine wiles"
in distracting Germans
from looking at their papers
and under other circum-
stances.
While most survivors
seemed to view all these as-
pects of women's traditional
role as positive and effec-
tive, survivor Mira Ham-
mermish pointed to its
negative side.
Having left the ghetto
to her mother's distress,
she said, she survived be-
cause "my mother's mat-
ernal power did not
touch me. The qualities
Jewish families em-
phasized could be our
undoing."
Obviously concerned
about the focus on these
strategies as a key to survi-
val, several survivors em-
phasized again and again
that they survived through
luck and luck alone. Said
one: "We are remnant of a
'hurricane; we survived
through chance."
There were a great many
questions on relations
among women, and whether
"female bonding" contrib-
uted heavily to survival,
especially in concentration
camps. Susan Cernyak-
Spatz, a survivor of There-
sienstadt and Auschwitz,
said that friendships in the
camps were based on one's
work commando, which
shared the same bunk.
"Without the close sup-
port of this group, you
couldn't survive," she said.
Laska added: "The bonds I
formed in the concentration
camps will last forever."
Several survivors told
of being saved in the
camps by their mothers
and sisters. What the
men's relationships were
like was not discussed
nor, indeed, has it been a
subject of research.
Survivors pointed out
that in resistance groups,
the strong and intense
bonds of friendship were not
exclusive to women, and
that all friendships in these
groups were close.
Helen Levine, a former
partisan, said, "we were all
like one family; we cared for
each other." Meed added
that, in the absence of a
family in the ghetto and
under conditions of loneli-
ness, "I don't know if I would
have survived without this
closeness.
Resistance in the camps
often took the form of sabot-
age, which survivors said
was very widespread and
pervasive. Laska told of
people throwing pebbles
into machines to stop prod-
uction; another survivor
told of putting good bullets
into the pile of defective
ones and vice versa; a third,
of destroying clothes in
camp warehouses so they
could not be shipped to
well as members of the
audience.
Many of the participants
in the conference appeared
to seek to draw on the
Holocaust for their Jewish
identity or want to believe
that all women were brave
and kind, or both.
The moderators did not
ask survivors about nega-
tive aspects of women's be-
havior, such as women be-
coming kapos, and most
survivors did not volunteer
such information. The only
exception was at the panel
on concentration camps,
where -two survivors told
how other women had put
them in danger out of fear of
collective punishment.
The most crucial omis-
sion at the conference
was of presentations by
scholars to put the sur-
vivors' testimony in his-
torical context. In addi-
tion to Milton, the only
other Holocaust scholar
to address the gathering
was Prof. Henry Fried-
lander of Brooklyn Col-
lege, who spoke about
"The Camp Setting."
There were no introduc-
tions along similar lines to
the panels on ghettos and
resistance.
There was a virtually
total absence of Jewish cul-
tural and political context
as well. There was no dis-
cussion of the traditional
roles of European Jewish
women.
Germany.
Very little, however,
was revealed about
ghetto resistance, or
women's role in it, be-
yond the mention that the
majority of couriers were
women. Some panelists
expressed the view that
"just living from day to
day" in the ghettos con-
stituted resistance.
"Everyday life in the
ghetto was full of sac-
rifice and heroism,"
Meed said.
This tendency to glorify
women's behavior and ig-
nore possible negative as-
pects of it was a characteris-
tic of the entire conference
and seemed to infuse state-
thents by many survivors as
AL KLINE
"See me for a
heimishe deal"
Tagleish
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