Women in the Holocaust

Book Overview

As Jews throughout Europe faced Nazi persecution, Jewish women-wives, daughters, mothers-encountered special problems and had particular vulnerabilities. This is the first book of original scholarship devoted to women in the Holocaust. Testimonies of Holocaust survivors and chapters by eminent historians, sociologists, and literary experts shed light on women's lives in the ghettos, the Jewish resistance movement, and the concentration camps. By examining women's unique responses, their incredible resourcefulness, their courage and their suffering, the book enhances our understanding of the experiences of all Jews during the Nazi era. "A pioneering book."-Saul Friedl nder, UCLA and Tel Aviv University "The cutting edge of Holocaust Studies."-Wall Street Journal "A major contribution to our understanding."-Times (London) "An excellent book that shows how the study of gender can deepen our understanding of the Holocaust."-Michael Berenbaum, President, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation "The astonishing strengths and resilience of women in these studies seem to rise out."-Forward

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300080808
• ISBN13: 9780300080803
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 402 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

The horrors of the Holocaust in a different light

This fascinating book about the role/behavior of female victims of the Holocaust is one that I feel is long overdue,as the other reviewer mentioned. This is the only recounting of the Holocaust that deals with female victims/heroes,in particular. Gathering information from records and from survivors must have been terribly difficult to read/listen to,but the author does it well and with great compassion. I have read many other books that related the personal history of individual women who survived,but this book is different,in that it offers a microcosm of what exactly went on in the ghettos,and villages that the genocide encompassed. I read with more than a few lumps in my throat,reading of the courage of the women who tried to keep life as "normal" as they could,despite residing in an earthbound hell. Many thousands of these women perished,but the courage and dignity with which they lived is another testament of just how decent people can be even when they are scared to death.They still reached out to help...up to the last minute before they were taken away,never to be seen again.

An excellent book about women's experience in the Holocaust

At last, and long overdue, this book describes the specific experiences of women during the Holocaust. Most books which deal with the Jewish experience of the Holocaust do not differentiate between the genders, since all Jews were targeted for annilation by the Nazis. . Well-researched and sensitively-written, Women in the Holocaust examines the experiences of women in the ghettos and camps, as seen through the eyes of women survivors. Although this is not a "feminist" treatise, and in no way detracts from the way in which all Jews suffered as Jews during this horrific era in European history, this book provides a better understanding of how women, as women, specifically suffered. Using selected memoirs and other testimonies, the reader is provided thoughtful, poignant, and sometimes highly painful insight into what it was really like for Jewish women as their homes, families, and lives were systematically shattered. Ofer and Weitzman examine the cultural gender roles of Jewish women before and during the Holocaust and provide an understanding of how Nazi policy separated women and children for specific horrors based on these gender roles. While the subject matter may be, and perhaps should be, painful to read, the book is well-written and compelling. As a student of the Holocaust, I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in reading about the Holocaust, and would suggest it as required reading for serious Holocaust students.