Description
Book SynopsisThis timely volume brings together an international team of leading scholars to explore the ways that women responded to situations of immense deprivation, need, and victimization under Hitler's dictatorship. Paying acute attention to the differences that gender made,
Women Defying Hitler examines the forms of women's defiance, the impact these women had, and the moral and ethical dilemmas they faced. Several essays also address the special problems of the memory and historiography of women's history during World War II, and the book features standpoints of historians as well as the voices of survivors and their descendants. Notably, this book also serves as a guide for human behaviour under extremely difficult conditions. The book is relevant today for challenging discrimination against women and for its nuanced exploration of the conditions minorities face as outspoken protagonists of human rights issues and as resisters of discrimination. From this perspective the voices bein
Trade ReviewWomen Defying Hitler is a thorough volume that tackles the historiographical imbalance against women’s rescue activities and provides guidance for how we can remember these sacrifices and apply them to the modern day. * Canadian Journal of History / Annales canadiennes d'histoire *
A major contribution to Holocaust studies,
Women Defying Hitler: Rescue and Resistance under the Nazis brings together leading international scholars to illuminate the myriad of different roles played by women in resisting Nazism. It will be invaluable for scholars and essential reading for anyone interested in war, women’s history, and the increasingly important field of feminist studies of the Holocaust. * Zoe Waxman, Lecturer in Modern Jewish History, University of Oxford, UK *
Women Defying Hitler: Rescue and Resistance under the Nazis is essential reading for anyone interested in women and women's studies, Jewish history, the Holocaust, and Nazi Germany. While many contributions provide new perspectives on prominent incidents of resistance such as the "Red Orchestra" or the Rosenstrasse protests in Berlin, many hitherto little-known women's groups and individual heroes in a variety of countries are also covered. Moreover, this volume is important not just for the rich empirical detail, but also for advancing theories regarding what constitutes resistance, what is unique about women's agency in such a context, and the complicated ways that women (and men) tried to push back and delegitimize a genocidal regime. Finally, the integration of several survivors' and descendants' testimonies adds to the import of this cutting-edge collection. * Eric Langenbacher, Teaching Professor of Government, Georgetown University, USA *
Table of ContentsList of Contributors Foreword,
David Gill (New York German Consul-General, USA) Women Defying Hitler: An Introduction,
Mordecai Paldiel (Yeshiva University, USA) and Nathan Stoltzfus (Florida State University, USA) 1. Cumulative Radicalization: Intermarriage under Hitler and Remembrance,
Nathan Stoltzfus (Florida State University, USA) 2. Whoever Saves One Life, Saves an Entire World: The Women Rescuers of Jews,
Mordecai Paldiel (Yeshiva University, USA) 3. Resisting Obliteration: Learning about the Lives and Deaths of Jewish Women during the Holocaust
Judy Baumel-Schwartz (Bar-Ilan University and the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research, Israel) 4. Defiance and Resistance to Nazism from the Perspective of Gender, Class and Generation,
Volker Berghahn (Columbia University, USA) 5. The Women's Protest on Rosenstrasse between Commemoration, Idealization and Debate,
Susanne Heim (Freiburg University, Germany) 6. Rescue through Intervention in the Nazi Decision Making Process: Protest in Goebbel's Berlin,
Nathan Stoltzfus and Chris Osmar (both Florida State University, USA) 7. Gariwo's Philosophy: Educate to Optimism and Responsibility through the Memory of the Righteous,
Gabriele Nissim (Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide Organization (GARIWO), Italy) 8. Women and Resistance: New Perspectives on Germany and France,
Anne Nelson (Columbia University, USA) 9. Jewish Women Rescuers of Jews,
Mordecia Paldiel (Yeshiva University, USA) 10. Is Food Protest Political? Women's Demonstrations in Occupied France,
Paula Schwartz (Middlebury College, USA) 11. Reflections on Rosenstrasse: With an Excerpt from
Broken Glass, Broken Lives -- A Jewish Girl's Survival Story in Berlin, 1933-1945, Ruth Wiseman (Rita Kuhn's daughter) 12. The Mischlinge Expose: Stories of Assimilation and Conversation,
Carolyn Enger (descendant of an intermarried couple Epilogue,
Mordecai Paldiel (Yeshiva University, USA) Appendix Select Bibliography Index
