en el simposio de Los Angeles sobre Violencia Sexual durante el Holocausto.
Foto cortesía Kim Fox
Jane Fonda (second
from left) appears with scholars Dan Leshem, Jessica Neuwirth (second from
right) and Rochelle G. Saidel at a Los Angeles symposium on sexual violence
during the Holocaust.
(Photo credit: Courtesy of Kim Fox)
La ganadora del Oscar
hizo una lectura dramatizada de la obra de la autora israelí Nava Semel en el simposio
de Estados Unidos que promueve un estudio profundo sobre el tema
El simposio fue organizado
por la USC Shoah Fundación junto con la
Dra. Rochelle G. Saidel, fundadora de Remember the Women Institute, y Jessica Neuwirth, una de
las fundadoras de la organización de derechos de la mujer Equality Now
"Este era un tema de menor importancia en los estudios del
genocidio. En el
pasado, se consideraba
demasiado específico, un 'nicho', un
tema
específicamente de las feministas".
Dr. Stephen D. Smith
“Me siento muy contenta de que podamos escuchar sobre el Holocausto a
través de relatos de primera mano", dijo Jane Fonda en el podio el jueves por la noche en el Teatro Ray Kurtzman
en Los Angeles, dirigiéndose a una audiencia privada de estudiosos e historiadores. "Diecisiete
de estos cien testimonios son de violencia sexual – testimonios de las
valientes sobrevivientes que se atrevan
a hablar de sus experiencias".
La actriz ganadora de un Oscar luego conmovió a la multitud con la lectura dramatizada de la novela And the Rat Laughed de la autora israelí Nava Semel - un relato en el que se mezclan recuerdos de la infancia, poesía confesional y
el diario de un sacerdote polaco, y que transcurre desde 1943 hasta el 2099.
Durante la parte más dramática de la novela – la historia
de una niña judía escondida en un hoyo con una rata como mascota, que es sexualmente
abusada por el hijo de un granjero polaco - la actriz levantó la vista al techo
y gritó con su voz inconfundible, suplicando: " ¿Cómo contar esta historia? "
Fonda concluyó señalando que las voces de las víctimas sexuales del Holocausto que no fueron escuchadas en el pasado, son relevantes
en el presente – “desde Yugoslavia a Ruanda al Congo . " Ella
presentó un video corto, filmado en Denver en 1995 como parte del proyecto de
la Shoah Foundation, institución creada por Steven Spielberg, que
ha reunido casi 52.000 testimonios en 32 idiomas.
El vídeo mostró a Manya, una señora de mejillas
rosadas de 77 años, sobreviviente de
Auschwitz, recordando cómo había sido tirada a un lado por un guardia nazi.
"Me dijo que era bonita. ‘Ella va a hacer un trabajo diferente’.”
En el video Manya recuerda, en un mal inglés, cómo fue llevada a limpiar el cuartel de los
oficiales, una sala privada equipada con armas y pistolas. "Yo sabía que estaba
en problemas porque él me tocó en la cara", dice ella.
Finalmente
él la golpeó y la violó, y Manya
recuerda que "el guardia me dijo: 'Cuando tu rostro se vaya, te irás con el fuego... ¿ves
el humo?'" Luego él señaló a la chimenea del crematorio cercano.
El video termina con Manya pidiéndole a sus compañeras
sobrevivientes que hablen del tema como ella lo está haciendo.
El tema era muy
serio para la audiencia del Teatro Kurtzman, un lugar que queda en la zona de Century City y que es parte de la Creative Artists Agency,
la firma creada por los poderosos
talentos de Hollywood, entre ellos el ex jefe de Disney, Michael Ovitz.
El video, y la lectura de Fonda fueron la culminación
de un simposio pionero en el tema de la violencia sexual, que duró de dos días
y reunió a más de una docena de
estudiosos del Holocausto. Organizado por la USC Shoah Fundación junto con la Dra. Rochelle G. Saidel, fundadora de Remember the Women Institute, y Jessica Neuwirth, una de las fundadoras de la organización de derechos de la mujer Equality Now , los seminarios reunieron a historiadores
sociales, profesores de idiomas, antropólogos biológicos, doctores en ciencias
políticas y expertos del Holocausto de
todo el mundo.
Al finalizar emitieron una declaración que comienza
así: "Las pruebas, información y los
estudios nos han hecho descubrir que la
violencia sexual, ignorada durante mucho tiempo, fue una parte integral del
Holocausto de muchas maneras"
Lo que lleva a la pregunta: ¿Por qué ha tomado tanto tiempo para que la
verdad sobre la violencia sexual durante el Holocausto saliera a la superficie? O, como una persona de la audiencia
preguntó, ¿cómo es que nos sentimos más cómodos hablando de la pérdida de toda
una familia asesinada en masa antes que hablar del tema de la violencia sexual?
La Dra. Saidel, co-autora del libro Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women During the Holocaust,”
publicado en 2010, dijo a la audiencia: "Estaba en Auschwitz, con una
buena guía. Habló sobre el asesinato en masa, pero no mencionó a los burdeles.
Cuando le pregunté por qué, ella dijo: ‘Se
supone que no debemos hablar de eso. ‘"
Jane Fonda leyendo
extractos del libro de la novelista Nava Semel “And the Rat Laughed” a una
audiencia que incluía sobrevivientes del Holocausto. Foto cortesía Kim Fox
Jane Fonda reads an excerpt from Israeli novelist Nava Semel’s “And the Rat
Laughed” to an audience including Holocaust survivors.(Photo credit: Courtesy of Kim Fox
El Dr. Stephen D. Smith, director ejecutivo de la Fundación
Shoah, abordó el problema desde diferentes ángulos. "Este era un tema de menor
importancia en los estudios del genocidio", dijo. "En el pasado, se consideraba demasiado
específico, un 'nicho', un tema específicamente
de las feministas".
Además, Smith dijo a la audiencia que el tema planteó un conjunto especial de desafíos cuando se entrevistó a las víctimas del
Holocausto. “Tenían que dar voluntariamente esa información enfrente de una cámara, de desconocidos, y después
firmar una autorización permitiendo que esa información fuera de dominio público… A menudo (el tema) salía
de la nada. Y con frecuencia eran los propios entrevistadores los que no querían
oír hablar del tema”.
Y añadió: "No hemos desarrollado el lenguaje para
hablar de este tema. Tenemos que permitirnos realizar una conversación real
sobre esto. "
Otro de los retos, dijeron los expertos del simposio, ha
sido la búsqueda de pruebas. Cuando Remember
the Women se acercó a la Fundación Shoah
para buscar los testimonios: "Fue muy
difícil para la mayoría de las sobrevivientes”, recuerda el Dr. Dan Leshem, director asociado de la
fundación encargado de la investigación. Y recalca: “Y otras organizaciones...
no estaban interesados en el tema. A su juicio, no había suficiente
documentación que mostrara que (las violaciones) eran generalizadas. Querían
ver los documentos. Pero, por supuesto, en la mayoría de los casos, los alemanes no documentaron su propia violación de las mujeres judías”.
Ahora, tanto las sobrevivientes vivas como las que ya
murieron, grabadas en los videos, tienen un foro.
Después del panel, el micrófono se pasó a todo el
público y una sobreviviente habló.
"El abuso sexual era constante. No sólo la violación. La desnudez - nos
vimos obligadas a estar desnudas delante de los oficiales, que nos miraban
morbosamente. Y recuerden que éramos jóvenes - 18, 19, 20 años de edad y que nunca habíamos estado desnudas frente a un
hombre.”
Otra sobreviviente intervino. "Yo tenía 14 años cuando estuve en los
campamentos. Por lo general, los guardias sólo caminaban por ahí, pero entre nosotras había una chica de 20
años muy bonita y cuando el guardia la vio se detuvo. Él estaba enojado y la agarró por el vestido y la sacudió. Ella
temía por su vida porque era muy hermosa. Porque las mujeres alemanas, también,
eran cien veces más brutales con una chica judía si era hermosa. Muchas de
nosotras dejamos de menstruar. Pensamos que nunca podríamos tener hijos. Nos convirtieron
(los nazis) en medias mujeres, nunca más volvimos a ser mujeres enteras.”
Saidel señaló que el trabajo de los historiadores del
Holocausto es complicado por la amplia variedad de abusos. "No sucedían
solamente en los campos. En diferentes
sitios: En los guetos, en la clandestinidad ", dijo ella. "Eran
violadas por los kapos [presos que supervisaban otros presos], por hombres judíos con más privilegios. También
estaban las mujeres que para sobrevivir, por un plato de comida, se veían
obligadas a aceptar ser violadas. Hay todo tipo de historias y situaciones. Y están
los hombres que también fueron violados.”
Nazis, prisioneros no judíos, judíos
e incluso los soldados que liberaron los campos fueron responsables de
abusos sexuales.
En referencia a la colección de testimonios de
sobrevivientes, la activista dice: "Es tarde, pero no es demasiado
tarde"
Para la mayoría de las sobrevivientes la vergüenza duró toda la vida,
por eso algunas piden que sus
testimonios se hagan públicos después de su muerte. Una mucama se sintió culpable durante décadas
por no haber podido proteger a una niña que fue violada y asesinada. Y, como
Smith señaló: “Si una mujer violada quedaba embarazada, lo más seguro es que
ella fuera asesinada.”
Gran parte del testimonio potencial se perdió, agregó,
porque "la gran mayoría de las víctimas
de violencia sexual no sobrevivieron."
"Sabemos que es tarde" para recopilar más
información, dijo Saidel a la audiencia. "Pero estamos comprometidos a
seguir adelante."
"Es tarde, pero no es demasiado tarde",
coincidió Neuwirth. "Tenemos que
romper el silencio que rodea a la violencia sexual o nunca vamos a acabar
con la violencia sexual. La negación de la violencia sexual en el
Holocausto se relaciona directamente con la continuación de la violencia sexual
en los conflictos armados de hoy. "
Una de las participantes, la Dr. Catharine A. MacKinnon - una abogada erudita
frecuentemente citada que ha representado a las sobrevivientes de Bosnia y
ayudó a crear el concepto de violación
genocida en la ley - dijo que los dos días de conferencias y debates,
cerrado al público, representaron un posibilidad de un cambio real en las
percepciones sobre el tema. "Un grupo de personas notables se reunieron
para hablar del tema", dijo. "Es
un acontecimiento histórico.”
"La Shoah tenía un objetivo en particular",
agregó, "que ninguna judía y judío quedaran vivos. Ellos informaron que
tenía la intención de eliminar a todo un pueblo de todo el planeta. Y algo de este
genocidio hay en otros genocidios, pero éstos
tienden a estar más confinados (limitados) a espacios físicos como en Ruanda y en Bosnia.
En el Holocausto, a menudo las violaciones precedieron a los asesinatos. O las mujeres fueron violadas hasta la
muerte."
¿Por qué este tema tomó tanto tiempo, históricamente,
en salir a la superficie?
Como MacKinnon lo ve, "La resistencia tiene que
ver con la sensación de que la atrocidad
sexual es una vergüenza para la víctima. Mi opinión personal es que la negación de la violencia sexual en el
Holocausto es la negación del Holocausto”.
November 9, 2012
Foto cortesía Kim Fox
Fuente: Jane Fonda
Traducción: Escritoras Unidas & Cía.
Nota: Los textos en negrita son responsabilidad de este blog.
‘This was a minor area in genocide studies. In the
past, [sexual violence]
was considered too specific, ‘niche,’ something for
feminists’.
Dr. Stephen D. Smith
The Oscar-winning actress then moved the crowd with a dramatic reading from Israeli author Nava Semel’s novel And the Rat Laughed – a stark pastiche of childhood memories, confessional poetry and a Polish priest’s diary, time-tripping from 1943 through the present to 2099.
Tackling the very darkest of material — the tale of a Jewish girl hiding in a pit with a pet rat, sexually abused by the son of a Polish farmer — the actress looked up to the ceiling and called out with her unmistakable, pleading voice, “How to tell the story?”
Fonda concluded by pointing out that the long overlooked voices of sexual victims of the Holocaust are relevant to the present — “from Yugoslavia to Rwanda to the Congo.” She introduced a short video, shot in Denver in 1995 as part of Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation project, which has collected almost 52,000 testimonials in 32 languages.
This clip showed Manya, a rosy-cheeked, 77-year-old Auschwitz survivor, recounting how she had been pulled aside by a Nazi guard. “He said that I’m pretty. ‘She’ll do different work.’”
In the video, Manya recalls in broken English how she was taken to clean in the officer’s quarters, a private room stocked with weapons and guns. “I knew I’m in trouble because he touched me in the face,” she says.
‘This was a minor area in genocide studies. In the past, [sexual violence] was considered too specific, ‘niche,’ something for feminists’
Ultimately, he beat her and raped her, and Manya remembers that “the guard told me, ‘When [your] face will be gone, you’ll go with the fire … you see the smoke?’” He then pointed to the chimney from the nearby crematorium.
The clip ends with Manya exhorting her fellow survivors to speak out as she has.
It was serious stuff for the Kurtzman Theater, a tony venue in the Century City area that’s part of Creative Artists Agency, the talent firm created by Hollywood power brokers including former Disney head Michael Ovitz.
The video, and Fonda’s reading, marked the culmination of a groundbreaking two-day symposium attended by more than a dozen Holocaust scholars. Put together by the USC Shoah Foundation — in conjunction with Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, founder of Remember the Women Institute, and Jessica Neuwirth, one of the founders of women’s rights organization Equality Now — the seminars brought together social historians, language professors, biological anthropologists, doctors of political science and Holocaust experts from all over the world.
Together, they issued a group statement that begins: “Evidence,
information, and scholarship are emerging that sexual violence, long largely
ignored, was an integral part of the Holocaust in many forms.”
Which begets the question: Why has it taken so long for the truth
about sexual violence during the Holocaust to surface? Or, as one audience
member asked, how is it that we are more comfortable talking about the loss of
a whole family through mass murder than addressing the issue of sexual
violence?
Dr. Saidel, a co-author of “Sexual
Violence Against Jewish Women During the Holocaust,” released in
2010, told the audience, “I was in Auschwitz, with a good guide. She
talked about the mass murder, but she didn’t mention the bordellos. When I
asked why, she said, ‘We’re not supposed to talk about that.’ ”
Dr. Stephen D. Smith, the Shoah Foundation’s executive director, addressed
the problem from a variety of angles. “This was a minor area in genocide
studies,” he said. “In the past, it was considered too specific, ‘niche,’
something for feminists.”
In addition, Smith told the
audience, the issue posed a special cluster of challenges for interviews with
Holocaust victims. “To volunteer that info in front of a stranger, on camera,
and after having signed a release form for public domain … Often, [the topic]
would come up out of the blue. Frequently, the interviewers themselves shut the
subject down.”
He added, “We haven’t
developed the language to talk about this. We need to enable a real
conversation to take place.”
Now, both the living and the
deceased, recorded on film, have a forum.
After the panel, the
microphone was passed around the audience, and before long, a survivor spoke
out. “The sexual abuse was constant. Not just rape. Nudity — we were forced to
be naked in front of officers, ogling at us. And remember that we were young —
18, 19, 20 years of age — and had never undressed in front of a man.”
Another survivor chimed in. “I
was 14 years old in the camps. Usually the guards just walked by, but there was
one 20-year-old among us who was so beautiful that he had to stop. He was angry
because of his feelings — he grabbed her by the dress, shook her. She was
afraid for her life because she was so beautiful. The German women also — they
were a hundred times more brutal to a Jewish girl that was beautiful. Many of
us stopped menstruating. We thought we could never have children. They made us
half-women, not complete women anymore.”
Saidel noted that Holocaust
historians’ work is complicated by the wide variety of abuses. “It wasn’t just
the camps. So many settings: In the ghettos, in hiding,” she said. “[Sexual
abuse] by kapos [inmates who supervised other prisoners], by Jewish men with
more privileges. Also, women who allowed themselves to be raped for food to
survive. There were all kinds of stories and situations. And also, men who were
sexually violated.”
Nazis, non-Jewish prisoners,
Jews and even liberators were responsible for the sexual abuse.
For a subset of survivors, the shame lasted a
lifetime, with some asking that their testimonials not be shown until after
their deaths. A maid suffered decades of guilt for not being able to protect a
girl who was gang-raped and murdered. And, as Smith pointed out, “If a woman
was raped and fell pregnant, she was almost certainly killed.”
Much of the
potential testimony was lost, he added, because “the vast majority who
experienced sexual violence did not survive.”
“We know it’s
late” to collect more information, Saidel told the audience. “But we’re
committed to moving forward.”
“It’s late,
but it’s not too late,” Neuwirth concurred. “We need to break through the
silence surrounding sexual violence or we will never end sexual violence. The
denial of sexual violence in the Holocaust directly relates to the continuation
of sexual violence in armed conflict today.”
One of the
participants, Dr. Catharine A. MacKinnon — a frequently cited legal scholar who
has represented Bosnian survivors and helped to create the concept of genocidal
rape in law — said the two days of lectures and discussions, closed to the
public, represented a chance for real change in perceptions. “A remarkable
group of people were brought together,” she said. “It’s a historic event.
“The Shoah had
a particular aim,” she added, “that no Jew would be left alive. It was informed
by the intention of eliminating an entire people from the entire planet. And
there are elements of that in other genocides, but they tend to be more
confined to [limited] physical spaces, as in Rwanda and in Bosnia. In the
Holocaust, often the rapes preceded the murders. Or women were raped to death.”
Why did this
topic take so long, historically, to surface?
As MacKinnon
sees it, “The resistance has to do with the feeling that sexual atrocity brings
shame on the victim. My own opinion is that denial of the integral place of
sexual violence in the Holocaust is Holocaust denial.”
November 9, 2012
The Times of Israel
Photos courtesy Kim Fox
Fuente: Jane Fonda
Nava Semel
LOS
ANGELES, California (November 13, 2012) - A historic international
symposium on sexual violence during the Holocaust took place on November
7–8, 2012, convened by USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual
History and Education and Remember the Women Institute. The
approximately 20 academics and activists who participated have all
worked on this issue, which has been overlooked by most historians for
nearly 70 years. A highlight of the two-day symposium was a public event
with Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda on November 8, also co-sponsored by Equality Now. Ms. Fonda read excerpts from And the Rat Laughed,
a novel by acclaimed Israeli writer Nava Semel, herself a child of
Holocaust survivors. Published in English in 2008, the novel tells the
story of a five-year-old Jewish girl who was sexually abused by the son
of Polish farmers who hid her from the Nazis. Ms. Fonda also introduced a
clip reel from a survivor’s testimony about rape; the testimony was
provided by the USC Shoah Foundation, and the clip reel was produced for
the occasion by the Foundation and Remember the Women Institute.
Following Ms. Fonda’s remarks, Equality Now President Jessica Neuwirth
moderated a panel discussion with Remember the Women Institute Executive
Director and Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in the Holocaust
co-editor Rochelle G. Saidel, and USC Shoah Foundation Executive
Director Stephen D. Smith.
The symposium, held at USC Hillel, was inspired by Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in the Holocaust, edited by Dr. Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Dr. Saidel (Brandeis University Press, 2010), the first scholarly text ever published on the subject. The symposium focused on collecting new testimony to make victims’ voices heard; discovering existing documentation; compiling already-published citations of sexual violence; and ensuring that sexual violence is included in the Holocaust narrative.
“When thinking about the issue of genocide, sexual abuse is not a part of our consideration. But it needs to be, because women as a group are often targeted [because] they are women,” Smith said. “I’d like to thank all the women who have led us so courageously to raise this issue... But I want to say, as a man, that I accept my responsibility to raise this [issue] with other men, and to find other men to speak out on this issue, because this is our issue.”
“It wasn’t just in the camps, but also in the ghettos, in hiding, on death marches, and as private sex slaves of Nazis and their collaborators in the East,” Saidel noted. “There was sexual abuse by Nazis, Kapos [supervisor-prisoners], and by Jewish and non-Jewish camp inmates with more privileges. Women sometimes were forced to accept rape in exchange for food and survival. There were all kinds of stories and situations. And there were also men who were sexually violated.”
The following statement was issued after the symposium by those participants listed below:
Symposium on Sexual Violence during the Holocaust: Group Statement
Evidence, information, and scholarship are emerging that sexual violence, long largely ignored, was an integral part of the Holocaust in many forms. Absence of acknowledgment of this reality has harmed not only survivors but also the understanding of and efforts to prevent genocide, and efforts to stop sexual violence in genocide, war, and every day. We hope that increasing awareness of this subject, obscured by shame and denial, will bring recognition to the victims—many of whom did not survive—to rectify this omission from history, and support the work of those who oppose these atrocities.
Patrice Bensimon, France
Dr. Paula David, Toronto
Dr. Monika Flaschka, USA
Dr. Eva Fogelman, USA
Dr. Myrna Goldenberg, USA
Dr. Sonja Hedgepeth, USA
Karen Jungblut, USA
Dr. Dan Leshem, USA
Dr. Catharine MacKinnon, USA
Daisy Miller, USA
Jessica Neuwirth, USA
Dr. Amy Parish, USA
Dr. Andrea Peto, Hungary
Dr. John Roth, USA
Dr. Rochelle Saidel, USA and Israel
Karen Shulman, USA
Dr. Stephen Smith, USA
Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, USA
Dr. Zoe Waxman, United Kingdom
About the sponsoring organizations
USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education (sfi.usc.edu) is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, a compelling voice for education and action. The Institute’s current collection of 51,696 eyewitness testimonies contained within its Visual History Archive preserves history as told by the people who lived it and lived through it. Housed at the University of Southern California, within the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Institute works with partners around the world to advance scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes.
Through research and related activities, Remember the Women Institute (www.rememberwomen.org) promotes the stories of women so they might be integrated into history and collective memory. The work of the Institute is intended to influence academic research and publications, as well as popular culture, by encouraging the inclusion of all of humanity in historical and commemorative representations. The projects of the Institute include carrying out research on women and the Holocaust, co-publishing books, creating exhibits, organizing panels at conferences, and cooperating with other institutes and organizations for programs, films, and exhibits.
Founded in 1992, Equality Now (www.equalitynow.org) is an organization that advocates for the human rights of women and girls around the world by raising international visibility of individual cases of abuse, mobilizing public support through our global membership, and wielding strategic political pressure to ensure that governments enact or enforce laws and policies that uphold the rights of women and girls.
Jane Fonda urges remembrance of sexual violence during the Holocaust
Actress, activist speaks at international symposium convened by USC Shoah Foundation and Remember the Women Institute
November 13, 2012
LOS
ANGELES, California (November 13, 2012) - A historic international
symposium on sexual violence during the Holocaust took place on November
7–8, 2012, convened by USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual
History and Education and Remember the Women Institute. The
approximately 20 academics and activists who participated have all
worked on this issue, which has been overlooked by most historians for
nearly 70 years. A highlight of the two-day symposium was a public event
with Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda on November 8, also co-sponsored by Equality Now. Ms. Fonda read excerpts from And the Rat Laughed,
a novel by acclaimed Israeli writer Nava Semel, herself a child of
Holocaust survivors. Published in English in 2008, the novel tells the
story of a five-year-old Jewish girl who was sexually abused by the son
of Polish farmers who hid her from the Nazis. Ms. Fonda also introduced a
clip reel from a survivor’s testimony about rape; the testimony was
provided by the USC Shoah Foundation, and the clip reel was produced for
the occasion by the Foundation and Remember the Women Institute.
Following Ms. Fonda’s remarks, Equality Now President Jessica Neuwirth
moderated a panel discussion with Remember the Women Institute Executive
Director and Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in the Holocaust
co-editor Rochelle G. Saidel, and USC Shoah Foundation Executive
Director Stephen D. Smith.The symposium, held at USC Hillel, was inspired by Sexual Violence against Jewish Women in the Holocaust, edited by Dr. Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Dr. Saidel (Brandeis University Press, 2010), the first scholarly text ever published on the subject. The symposium focused on collecting new testimony to make victims’ voices heard; discovering existing documentation; compiling already-published citations of sexual violence; and ensuring that sexual violence is included in the Holocaust narrative.
“When thinking about the issue of genocide, sexual abuse is not a part of our consideration. But it needs to be, because women as a group are often targeted [because] they are women,” Smith said. “I’d like to thank all the women who have led us so courageously to raise this issue... But I want to say, as a man, that I accept my responsibility to raise this [issue] with other men, and to find other men to speak out on this issue, because this is our issue.”
“It wasn’t just in the camps, but also in the ghettos, in hiding, on death marches, and as private sex slaves of Nazis and their collaborators in the East,” Saidel noted. “There was sexual abuse by Nazis, Kapos [supervisor-prisoners], and by Jewish and non-Jewish camp inmates with more privileges. Women sometimes were forced to accept rape in exchange for food and survival. There were all kinds of stories and situations. And there were also men who were sexually violated.”
The following statement was issued after the symposium by those participants listed below:
Symposium on Sexual Violence during the Holocaust: Group Statement
Evidence, information, and scholarship are emerging that sexual violence, long largely ignored, was an integral part of the Holocaust in many forms. Absence of acknowledgment of this reality has harmed not only survivors but also the understanding of and efforts to prevent genocide, and efforts to stop sexual violence in genocide, war, and every day. We hope that increasing awareness of this subject, obscured by shame and denial, will bring recognition to the victims—many of whom did not survive—to rectify this omission from history, and support the work of those who oppose these atrocities.
Patrice Bensimon, France
Dr. Paula David, Toronto
Dr. Monika Flaschka, USA
Dr. Eva Fogelman, USA
Dr. Myrna Goldenberg, USA
Dr. Sonja Hedgepeth, USA
Karen Jungblut, USA
Dr. Dan Leshem, USA
Dr. Catharine MacKinnon, USA
Daisy Miller, USA
Jessica Neuwirth, USA
Dr. Amy Parish, USA
Dr. Andrea Peto, Hungary
Dr. John Roth, USA
Dr. Rochelle Saidel, USA and Israel
Karen Shulman, USA
Dr. Stephen Smith, USA
Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, USA
Dr. Zoe Waxman, United Kingdom
About the sponsoring organizations
USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education (sfi.usc.edu) is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, a compelling voice for education and action. The Institute’s current collection of 51,696 eyewitness testimonies contained within its Visual History Archive preserves history as told by the people who lived it and lived through it. Housed at the University of Southern California, within the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Institute works with partners around the world to advance scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes.
Through research and related activities, Remember the Women Institute (www.rememberwomen.org) promotes the stories of women so they might be integrated into history and collective memory. The work of the Institute is intended to influence academic research and publications, as well as popular culture, by encouraging the inclusion of all of humanity in historical and commemorative representations. The projects of the Institute include carrying out research on women and the Holocaust, co-publishing books, creating exhibits, organizing panels at conferences, and cooperating with other institutes and organizations for programs, films, and exhibits.
Founded in 1992, Equality Now (www.equalitynow.org) is an organization that advocates for the human rights of women and girls around the world by raising international visibility of individual cases of abuse, mobilizing public support through our global membership, and wielding strategic political pressure to ensure that governments enact or enforce laws and policies that uphold the rights of women and girls.
Fuente: USC Shoah Foundation
