Speaker: Christin Zuehlke, Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung (Center for Research on Anti-Semitism), Technische Universität Berlin (Technical University Berlin) -

Abstract: »In the case of Jewish masculinity during the Holocaust the body functions as the most visible, intimate, and physical representation of the person’s identity and integrity. The gendered male perspective during the Holocaust is an overlooked aspect of gender, Jewish, and Holocaust studies as it is “NOT PRESENT as a consciously gendered experience” (Krondorfer 2020, 31). Often, men’s beards and PEYOT were torn or cut off publicly. It was a deeply traumatizing experience for these men as they were literally stripped off their visible identity marker as religious Jewish men, their spiritual integrity was violated. If we understand sexualized violence as a destructive attempt against somebody’s “physical, emotional, and spiritual integrity” (Banwell 2016, 209), we see the striking similarities, even if it does not involve a sexual act. Also directly linked to the Auschwitz concentration camp is the tattooing of the new prisoners. This was also a practice by the perpetrators which is targeting the victim’s body and part of the dehumanizing process of the Jewish victims. While cutting off the hair of Jews is removing something from the victims’ bodies; tattooing the prisoner’s number is the opposite by adding forcefully to it. All these practices violate the victim’s bodily boundaries and integrity on several levels—physical, mental, psychological, and spiritual. It seems as though the perpetrators took ownership of their victims whose bodies are at the perpetrators’ disposal. The victims’ bodies were the intersectional representation of the victim’s identity (race and gender). Thus, the body became the one target to destroy the person on every single level of its being. What we can see from this example is that “in the Holocaust, Jewish male agency and the Jewish male body were mercilessly assaulted, … thus pushing the double non-absence of Jewish men to its limits” (Krondorfer 2020, 37).« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Germany / Nazi Germany | Gencoide: The Holocaust / Sexual violence during the Holocaust | Sex and the law: Sexual violence