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“I Held On At Any Price”: Victim Self-Preservation In The Sonderkommando In Auschwitz And Treblinka, Jessica Christina Foster Aug 2022

“I Held On At Any Price”: Victim Self-Preservation In The Sonderkommando In Auschwitz And Treblinka, Jessica Christina Foster

All Theses

Many Holocaust victims have expressed uneasiness or even shame regarding the actions they took to stay alive in the death camps. These acts of self-preservation were usually humiliating and often came at the expense of their fellow victims. This comes out most clearly in the testimonies of the members of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Writers such as Filip Müller, Zalmen Gradowski, and Richard Glazar recount how they survived the lethal environment of the camp by appropriating the food, clothing, and valuables of the people murdered in the gas chambers. Although most scholars have interpreted these testimonies, and the …


A Comparative Historical Analysis Of The Spanish Inquisition And The Holocaust, Jon Wininger Jul 2022

A Comparative Historical Analysis Of The Spanish Inquisition And The Holocaust, Jon Wininger

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This work delves into the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust and indentifies the eras that preceded these events that laid a foundation, the major players in these events, and how the players interacted. Common features and differences are identified as well as a common philosophical thread that crossed generational gaps to link these events. The corruption that found such fertile soil created by the regimes that preached hatred was common to both events. The claim by the Inquisition that it preached Anti-Judaism as a philosophical, religious tenet rather than a racial antisemitic bigotry was in truth not even believed by …


“The British Museum Had Lost Its Charm”: The Repatriation Of The Benin Bronzes And Nazi-Looted Jewish Art, Reeve Pacen Churchill May 2022

“The British Museum Had Lost Its Charm”: The Repatriation Of The Benin Bronzes And Nazi-Looted Jewish Art, Reeve Pacen Churchill

Senior Theses

The purpose of this research is to consider the question of Benin Bronze repatriation through the context of Jewish repatriation which has spanned the decades following World War II. By studying ownership and property rights, cultural heritage, and repatriation efforts of each movement, this study seeks to draw distinctions between European repatriation and African repatriation to show that success is limited in both cases because of the historic legality of looting in both cases. Ultimately, it becomes clear that a comparative repatriation study becomes problematic when European standards are superimposed on to African standards, when African countries struggle with vastly …


From Madness To Medicine: How Nazi Medical Experimentation Morphed Into Today’S Medical Field, Alexandria Daughn Kerby May 2022

From Madness To Medicine: How Nazi Medical Experimentation Morphed Into Today’S Medical Field, Alexandria Daughn Kerby

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

It is no secret that many of our current scientific and medical advancements stem from a long history of research, trials, and experimentation, but not enough is known about the origins of our routine practices. The Holocaust enabled Nazi doctors to explore countless victims in search of the ultimate answer to the Jewish question. The answer: to alleviate the burden that those deemed “unworthy of life” placed on the greater society. The mass extermination practices which highlight the atrocities of the Holocaust are the end result of constant scientific developments disguised as medicine. Tiergarten 4 (T4) serves as the beginning …


Contextualizing Britain’S Holocaust Memorial And Museums: Form, Content, And Politics, Rebecca D. Pollack Feb 2022

Contextualizing Britain’S Holocaust Memorial And Museums: Form, Content, And Politics, Rebecca D. Pollack

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The quantity of Holocaust memorials in Britain and their prominence in public debates beseeches the question: Why does a country with a modest Jewish population, that was neither occupied by the Nazis nor lost its citizens in the horrors of the Holocaust, devote large quantities of resources and time to memorializing the events of the Holocaust? While there are private and synagogue-based Holocaust memorials in Britain, this dissertation centers on Britain’s statefunded Holocaust memorials and museums, a substantial network of memorials that is often left out of the abundant literature on Holocaust memory. Each memorial project is examined through the …