Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Jack Blanco: World War Ii Survivor, Rosalba Valera

World War II

Jack Blanco was born in Chicago in 1929 from immigrant parents Frederick Ross, from Austria, and Katherine Kiessling, from Germany. During the planning of the wedding, Jack Blanco’s father left his mother Katherine, she was already pregnant. Due to this circumstance, he was raised by his single mother, who worked in sweatshops and he was the only child growing up. He was left with various babysitters who he claims abused him during his mother’s absence. His life changed forever at the age of ten when he and his mother decided to visit his grandparents in Germany.

Jack Blanco’s experience during …

Against Totalitarianism: Agamben, Foucault, And The Politics Of Critique, C. Heike Schotten

Political Science Faculty Publication Series

Despite appearances, Agamben’s engagement with Foucault in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life is not an extension of Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics but ra-ther a disciplining of Foucault for failing to take Nazism seriously. This moralizing rebuke is the result of methodological divergences between the two thinkers that, I argue, have fun-damental political consequences. Re-reading Foucault’s most explicitly political work of the mid-1970s, I show that Foucault’s commitment to genealogy is aligned with his commitment to “insurrection”—not simply archival or historical, but practical and political insurrection—even as his non-moralizing understanding of critique makes space for the resistances he hopes …

Kristallnacht Presentation - Samuel Heider, Samuel Heider, Mark Verman

Comparative Religion Faculty Publications

Samuel Heider tells his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. In 1941, Heider and his family were deported to a small camp outside of Warsaw, Poland. Heider was soon separated from his family and was the only person in his family who was not killed by the Nazis.

This lecture was hosted by Mark Verman and co-sponsored by the Zusman Chair in Judaic Studies, the Department of Religion, Wright State’s Honors Program, the Frydman Educational Resource Center and the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center.

When The World Stood Aside – The Allied Reaction To Jan Karski’S Report From Hell, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyses the Allied reactions in the United Kingdom and the United States after having received Jan Karski's report about the situation of the Jews in Poland.

A Female Adolescent Bystander's Diary And The Jewish Hungarian Holocaust, Gergely Kunt

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "A Female Adolescent Bystander's Diary and the Jewish Hungarian Holocaust" Gergely Kunt analyzes the unpublished diary manuscript of Margit Molnár, a Hungarian Roman Catholic adolescent girl born in 1927 who kept a diary between 1941 and 1949. Kunt's analysis shows how Molnár viewed Jews, the persecution of Jews, and the anti-Jewish terror in Budapest. As the diary documents, Molnár's views of the Jews temporarily changed during the Arrow Cross's reign of terror in October 1944 when she received news of the Arrow Cross murdering Jews en masse in Budapest. However, once the war was over, Molnár's deep-seated …

Holocaust Child Survivors' Memoirs As Reflected In Appelfeld's The Story Of A Life, Dana Mihăilescu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Holocaust Child Survivors' Memoirs as Reflected in Appelfeld's The Story of a Life" Dana Mihăilescu identifies characteristics of child survivors' memoirs in Aharon Appelfeld's writing. Mihăilescu addresses the following main question: is the structure of child survivors' memoirs similar to that of Holocaust memoirs written by adult survivors or is there a tendency to focus on certain aspects given the young age some had at the time? Mihăilescu argues that unlike regular autobiographies by Holocaust adult survivors, child survivors' memoirs are less constructed around factual events of private and public relevance and that they concentrate instead …

Sobrevivimos … Al Fin Hablo, Leon Malmed

Zea E-Books Collection

Esta es la historia real de Leon Malmed quien, junto a su hermana Rachel, escapó de Francia durante la época del Holocausto gracias a sus valientes y heroicos vecinos quienes, después de haber presenciado el arresto de los padres de nuestro protagonista en 1942, se ofrecieron a cuidarlo a él y a su hermana hasta que regresaran. Primero, los padres de Leon fueron llevados a Drancy, después a Auschwitz-Birkenau, y nunca volvieron. Mientras tanto sus vecinos, que vivían en el piso de abajo, Henri y Suzanne Ribouleau, los acogieron dándoles un hogar y una familia; protegiéndolos mientras la ocupación los …

Golden Boy - Zĺoty Chĺopak: A Review, Anna Sekudewicz

RadioDoc Review

This feature is a story woven from the lives of two people: Abraham, the son of a tailor from Łódź, and Kasia Michalak, who’s also from Łódź and whose grandfather was a tailor. How do you present Abraham Tuszyński without pigeon-holing his story as yet another tragic Holocaust narrative – particularly since the programme-maker wanted to avoid making a strictly historical feature? Where and how to find excitement, tension, heat and feelings in material that is by nature informational, objective, cold and factual? Despite posing a huge risk, the collision of the two stories, or realities, creates a new perspective, …

Hidden No More: Wilhelmina "Willie" Juhlin '61: A Secret Life, Gerry Boyle, Nick Cardillicchio

Colby Magazine

Willie de Kadt Juhlin ’61 tells of her life as a hidden child so that this chapter in history is remembered and in hopes that it will not be repeated.

Decoding "Never Again", Sherry F. Colb

Sherry Colb

This article, Decoding “Never Again,” narrates its author’s experience as a child of two Holocaust survivors, one of whom participated in rescuing thousands of his fellow Jews during the war. Colb meditates on this legacy and concludes that her understanding of it has played an important role in inspiring her scholarship about (and ethical commitment to) animal rights. She examines and analyzes the ways in which analogies between the Holocaust and anything else can trigger people’s anger and offense, and she then draws a distinction between occasions when offense is an appropriate response to such analogies and when it need …

Wagner Contra Mundum: Wagner Versus The World, Caitlin A. Thom

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

An investigation of responses to Wagner in Nazi Germany and post-World War II Israel.

9th Annual Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony In The Cedar Valley [Poster], University Of Northern Iowa. Center For Holocaust And Genocide Education.

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education Documents

A poster announcing the 2015 Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony.

“Contemporary Reactions To War And The Holocaust With A Focus On The Role Of The Polish- Language Press In North America From 1926-1945.”, Magdalena E. Kubow

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Yad Vashem Magazine argued that more work needed to be done with regard to “how media reports on the Holocaust influenced people’s positions vis-à-vis the Jews during the war.” My research examines the attitude toward Jews prior to and during the Holocaust, and how information on such attitudes was disseminated, thus helping to reveal who knew what? When? Furthermore, in examining the evolution of the Holocaust, the question of who was interpreted as a target for genocide is explored.

When considering an event as ‘unprecedented’ as the Holocaust, historians should be asking when information was created, made available, and just …

The Depiction Of The Holocaust Within The Theme Of Escape In Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay, Deirdre Toeller-Novak

Masters Theses

Escape sounds like a ram’s horn throughout Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, looming large in the lives of his mostly Jewish characters. Only one, Josef Kavalier, is intimately tied to and escapes the Holocaust which destroys his entire family. The horrors of the Holocaust, however, cast a shadow that hovers over nearly every chapter of Chabon’s 636-page novel. For most of the novel’s other characters, intent on plotting their own escapes, the events of the Holocaust remain 4,000 miles away. Americans, Jew and gentile, politically astute and clueless, laborer and capitalist, prefer to maintain a …

A Flight For Hope, Emma Levich

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

The purpose of this piece was to specifically commemorate the children that were victims of the Holocaust. The butterfly is the international symbol for hope, renewal of life, innocence, and beauty, and so I wanted to create something that captured the spirit and souls of all the children that never had a chance to spread their own beautiful wings and fly away from their terrible fate. The horrible crimes and the overall darkest period in history the children had to suffer through is represented by the big dark butterfly in the corner, dressed with gruesome images of what they were …

Christian Responses To Hitler: A Film Screening And Discussion [Poster], University Of Northern Iowa. Center For Holocaust And Genocide Education.

Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education Documents

A poster announcing a screening of the film "Theologians under Hitler" and two opportunities for discussion.

Continued Remembrance, Abbigail Mehnert

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

I always found great interest in learning about the Holocaust and how it has affected society even to this day. Through my winter LSFY course “Ashes to Immortality” I got the opportunity to discover a greater empathy for those who suffered, lost their lives, and survived this historic event. I wanted to insure that my piece represented the importance of passing on experiences and knowledge of the Holocaust in hopes that a similar event will never happen again. In my piece, I painted the entrance of Auschwitz converted in red splatters to represent the lives lost. The concentration camp is …

Surviving The Holocaust: Catharsis Through Music, Amanda Hassler

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

No abstract provided.

Refugees And Relief: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee And European Jews In Cuba And Shanghai 1938-1943, Zhava Litvac Glaser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traditionally, pre-modern Jewish communities sensed an obligation to bind together to provide aid to Jews who found themselves in catastrophic situations; however, with the advent of modernity and the dissolution of Jewish communal authority, the fragmentation of Jewish communities, and the unprecedented stresses of the Holocaust, communal dynamics grew far more complex. The Jews of Cuba and Shanghai were two small and relatively remote communities overwhelmed by Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. At their request, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee stepped in and provided both the funding and leadership that both of these locations so desperately needed.

The Jewish …

Seminario: Culture Fasciste, Silvia Valisa

Silvia Valisa

No abstract provided.

Stepping Beyond Nuremberg’S Halo: The Legacy Of The Supreme National Tribunal Of Poland, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The Supreme National Tribunal of Poland (Najwyzszy Trybunal Narodowy (Tribunal)) operated from 1946 to 1948. It implemented the 1943 Moscow Declaration in the case of suspected Nazi war criminals. This article unpacks two of the Tribunal’s trials, that of Rudolph Hoess (Kommandant of Auschwitz (Oswiecim) and Amon Goeth (commander of the Krakow-Plaszow labour camp). Following an introduction, the article proceeds in four sections. Section 2 sets out the Tribunal’s provenance and background, offering a flavour of the politics and pressures that contoured (and co-opted) its activities so as to recover its place within the imagined spaces of international criminal accountability. …

Unacknowledged Victims: Love Between Women In The Narrative Of The Holocaust. An Analysis Of Memoirs, Novels, Film And Public Memorials, Isabel Meusen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation combines cultural theory and gender theory with literary criticism to evaluate the treatment of lesbians during the Holocaust and in narratives about the Holocaust. Responding to the kissing-scene controversy of the Berlin memorial for the homosexual victims of the Holocaust I claim that lesbian women’s experience of suffering is downplayed and disappears under the umbrella term ‘homosexuals.’ Employing a critical historical conceptualization of “lesbian love,” I consider examples from Claudia Schoppmann’s Days of Masquerade and Verbotene Verhältnisse as well as the personal estate of political activist Hilde Radusch to trace the personal view lesbians have of themselves. Shifting …

Decoding "Never Again", Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article, Decoding “Never Again,” narrates its author’s experience as a child of two Holocaust survivors, one of whom participated in rescuing thousands of his fellow Jews during the war. Colb meditates on this legacy and concludes that her understanding of it has played an important role in inspiring her scholarship about (and ethical commitment to) animal rights. She examines and analyzes the ways in which analogies between the Holocaust and anything else can trigger people’s anger and offense, and she then draws a distinction between occasions when offense is an appropriate response to such analogies and when it need …

Honoring The Victims: How The Change In Ethics Ruined Science In The Third Reich And What To Do With The Remaining Medical Data, Kathleen M. Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper analyzes both sides of the debate over using the Nazi medical data and brings forth one possible compromise. While using the data can provide the scientific community information that can be beneficial for society—and thus salvaging some good out of the evil—are the survivors’ sentiments on the subject truly being heard? The idea that the victims are once again being abused by using the information without their consent is not a matter to be taken lightly. On the other hand, if the data is valuable, it can be detrimental to scientific experimentation to deny access or destroy the …