a holocaust #metoo

Understanding the intersection of gender and genocide is critical to effectively approach prevention, accountability and social healing. ~Elisa von Joeden-Forgey

The collective Gabersdorf diary grants unprecedented, intimate access to a world where a woman’s body was her currency for survival, unlocking a complex narrative of sexual abuse, as well as agency in a camp where barracks were referred to as “brothels,” and girls as young as 12 were routinely preyed upon.

Though once a taboo topic, sexual violence is considered an early pattern of genocide, linking the Holocaust to more contemporary conflicts, from Bosnia to Myanmar to Ukraine. The Nazis, however meticulous about keeping records, didn’t document rape of Jewish women, banned as rassenschande, or race defilement. Though the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) recognized rape as a weapon of war in 1998, it was too late for most Holocaust survivors, who were shamed into silence about their traumas. “The only way we can find out about this, is through personal testimony,” says USC Shoah Foundation’s former executive director Stephen Smith, otherwise, “it will be lost for all time.”

DONATE