scholarly journals ’PARLO…’: A CATALAN VOICE FROM THE HOLOCAUST: WRITER AND SURVIVOR OF MAUTHAUSEN JOAQUIM AMAT-PINIELLA SHATTERS FRANCOIST MANDATED SILENCE

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Maureen Tobin Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Affective Responses ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Compensatory Damages ◽  
Sense Of Justice ◽  
Poetic Work

Following the retreat to France of half a million Spaniards in the winter of ’38/39 and as a result of the Nazi occupation, 10,000-15,000 Spaniards were deported to concentration camps. Among them was the writer Joaquim Amat-Piniella (1913-1974). His novel K.L. Reich, whose title alludes to the stamp impressed on all objects within the Nazi Reich’s concentration camps, creates a fictional world that reflects the realities within Mauthausen. That author writes in a draft (without date), that with this story his wish was not to focus on the horrors, but rather to document (“manar un record”), and to relate the historical catastrophes of “cruelty, misery, suffering, but also hope.” His poetic work Les llunyanies (The Far Away Lands) also reveals what Amat denoted as his “white hour,” an awakening of conscience and consciousness, the insistence on what is human and humane precisely because he was able to endure four and a half years of brutality. In addition to his novel and poetry, Amat-Piniella’s political efforts following his liberation promoted the reconciliarion that resulted from a sense of justice. With his poetry, this native of Manresa expressed the gamut of his affective responses to Mauthausen. With K.L. Reich, Amat-Piniella gives voice to the Republicans whose exile led to a concentrationary sentence. With his activism, he did everything possible to vindicate the ex-prisoners and obtain for them their due “indemnización” (compensatory damages) and thus overcome the obstacles imposed by the repressive forces. In spite of numerous hurdles, Amat was triumphant.

Społeczeństwo holenderskie i los Żydów: skomplikowana historia

2016 ◽  
pp. 425-434
Author(s):  
Dan Michman
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Dutch Society ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Western European ◽  
Post War ◽  
Of Greece

The percentage of victimization of Dutch Jewry during the Shoah is the highest of Western, Central and Southern Europe (except, perhaps of Greece), and close to the Polish one: 75%, more than 104.000 souls. The question of disproportion between the apparent favorable status of the Jews in society – they had acquired emancipation in 1796 - and the disastrous outcome of the Nazi occupation as compared to other countries in general and Western European in particular has haunted Dutch historiography of the Shoah. Who should be blamed for that outcome: the perpetrators, i.e. the Germans, the bystanders, i.e. the Dutch or the victims, i.e. the Dutch Jews? The article first surveys the answers given to this question since the beginnings of Dutch Holocaust historiography in the immediate post-war period until the debates of today and the factors that influenced the shaping of some basic perceptions on “Dutch society and the Jews”. It then proceeds to detailing several facts from the Holocaust period that are essential for an evaluation of gentile attitudes. The article concludes with the observation that – in spite of ongoing debates – the overall picture which has accumulated after decades of research will not essentially being altered. Although the Holocaust was initiated, planned and carried out from Berlin, and although a considerable number of Dutchmen helped and hid Jews and the majority definitely despised the Germans, considerable parts of Dutch society contributed to the disastrous outcome of the Jewish lot in the Netherlands – through a high amount of servility towards the German authorities, through indifference when Jewish fellow-citizens were persecuted, through economically benefiting from the persecution and from the disappearance of Jewish neighbors, and through actual collaboration (stemming from a variety of reasons). Consequently, the picture of the Holocaust in the Netherlands is multi-dimensional, but altogether puzzling and not favorable.

zy prawda nas wyzwoli? Przełamywanie oporu psychologicznego w przyjmowaniu wiedzy o Zagładzie

2014 ◽  
pp. 803-822
Author(s):  
Marta Witkowska ◽  
Piotr Forecki
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Research ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Holocaust Education ◽  
Positive Group ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Social Psychological Research

The introduction of the programs on Holocaust education in Poland and a broader debate on the transgressions of Poles against the Jews have not led to desired improvement in public knowledge on these historical events. A comparison of survey results from the last two decades (Bilewicz, Winiewski, Radzik, 2012) illustrates mounting ignorance: the number of Poles who acknowledge that the highest number of victims of the Nazi occupation period was Jewish systematically decreases, while the number of those who think that the highest number of victims of the wartime period was ethnically Polish, increases. Insights from the social psychological research allow to explain the psychological foundations of this resistance to acknowledge the facts about the Holocaust, and indicate the need for positive group identity as a crucial factor preventing people from recognizing such a threatening historical information. In this paper we will provide knowledge about the ways to overcome this resistance-through-denial. Implementation of such measures could allow people to accept responsibility for the misdeeds committed by their ancestors.

Dov Levin and Zvie A. Brown, The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the Jews in Kovno in the Second World War, trans. Jessica Setbon. Jerusalem: Gefen, 2014. 496 pp.

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Armed Resistance ◽  
Second World ◽  
And Training

This chapter reviews the book The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the Jews in Kovno in the Second World War (2014), by Dov Levin and Zvie A. Brown, translated by Jessica Setbon. The Story of an Underground is about the Jews of Kovno (Kaunas) who founded an underground movement during the Holocaust. The armed underground developed a plan to escape to the forests and join the partisans. The ghetto was liquidated in the summer of 1944. Many of the remaining Jews were sent to the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps. The book highlights the dilemmas of Jewish armed resistance such as difficulties in obtaining weapons and training, some of the failures of the resistance, and some of the positive aspects of those who thought differently from members of the armed resistance.

scholarly journals The Holocaust in Slovak Drama

2017 ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Dagmar Kročanová
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Rare Occurrence ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Slovak Society ◽  
Dramatic Characters ◽  
Second World

The article discusses several Slovak plays with the theme of the Holocaust; namely Ticho (Silence) by Juraj Váh, Holokaust (Holocaust) by Viliam Klimáček, and Rabínka (The Woman Rabbi) by Anna Grusková. It also briefly refers to Návrat do života (Return to Life) and Antigona a tí druhí (Antigone and Those Others) by Peter Karvaš, both mediating traumas from concentration camps. Two plays (Ticho and Návrat do života) were written and staged immediately after the Second World War. Karvaš’s Antigona is a rare occurrence of the theme in Slovak drama during the Communism (in the early 1960s), whereas Klimáček’s and Grusková’s plays are recent, both staged in 2012. The article focuses on several aspects of these five plays: on dramatic characters representing “victims”, “witnesses” and “culprits” (Panas, quoted in Gawliński 2007: 19); on references about and/or representation of the Holocaust in dramatic texts; and on the type of the conflict(s) in the plays. It also mentions specific approaches of respective authors when dealing with the theme of the Holocaust, as well as with the relevance of their reflection of the theme for Slovak society in respective periods.

The Pink Triangle

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-162
Author(s):  
Craig Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Gay Liberation ◽  
The West ◽  
German State ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nazi Persecution

This chapter is about how the memory of persecution decisively shaped 1970s homosexual politics. First, the chapter explores the ‘rediscovery’ of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, explaining how the model of the Holocaust was sometimes appropriated as part of this process. The chapter then shows how memory of this persecution, combined with the experience of contemporary discrimination, produced a profound alienation on the part of left-wing gay men from the West German state. Following an analysis of how the pink triangle became a transnational symbol, this chapter evaluates discourses of victimhood in gay liberation. Though the pink triangle was reclaimed from its origins as a badge of shame in the concentration camps, it never became an unequivocal symbol of pride. Finally, the chapter explores how, in the late 1970s, activists of all stripes, the commercial gay press, and the first openly gay parliamentary candidates coalesced around making the history of past persecution a central plank in their efforts to insert themselves into the West German mainstream.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Simons
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Nazi Occupation ◽  
French Resistance

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Simone de Beauvoir's post-World War II political engagement. The key to Beauvoir's post-World War II political engagement is, of course, her experience of the war itself—an experience recounted in her Wartime Diary (2009) and in The Blood of Others (1945), a novel set in the French Resistance and written during the Nazi Occupation. Although Beauvoir escaped the worst horrors of the war—on the front lines or in the concentration camps—she lost friends murdered by the Nazis and found her own life profoundly changed. Indeed, the Occupation that began in June 1940 confronted her with the realization that freedom, which she had assumed to be a metaphysical given, was contingent upon an economic and political situation that she had previously ignored.

scholarly journals Jewish Doctors’ Challenges in the Death Camps: Ethical Dilemmas? Choiceless Choices? The Human Condition?

Conatus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Ross Halpin
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Personal Traits ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Will To Live ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Significant Factors ◽  
The Human Condition

Most commentators have focused on ethical dilemmas and the idea that they were core to the actions of and decisions by Jewish doctors in SS concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust. While I recognize Jewish doctors did face ethical dilemmas, in this article, I shift my attention to include two other significant factors: choiceless choices, defined by the eminent Holocaust historian Lawrence Langer as “crucial decisions [that] did not reflect options between life and death, but between one form of abnormal response and another, both imposed by a situation that was in no way of the victim’s own choosing,”  and the human condition, whereby decisions and actions were triggered by personal traits and past experiences in response to particular situations and circumstances. Inherent in all three factors is the tenaciousness of reality and how the abhorrent conditions, immorality, inhumanity and evilness cast a shadow over every moment of the Jewish doctor’s life. My thesis is that decision-making was not one-dimensional but multi-dimensional. For the Jewish doctor every incident became a source of dread and tragedy. They were often not trained to treat some diseases or perform surgery and lacked experience to work in such conditions and cope emotionally and psychologically. I will attempt to show that how a person responds to an ethical dilemma is based on his or her own experiences and reasoning, and how they reacted to sudden and inexplicable incidents that threatened life or impacted survival induced abnormal actions and decisions. As Jewish doctors they were driven to be healers, to be normal, but they were forced by circumstances to kill or become perpetrators, acting abnormally. Tragically the abnormal became the norm. The Jewish doctors were professionally trained and culturally socialized to continue their roles as doctors. Nevertheless, they were human and were driven by the innate will to live.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document