Gender Roles In The Holocaust

When examining gender and the holocaust, one must keep in mind the phrase “different horrors, same hell”. This is the very fitting title of a collection of essays examining gender and the holocaust. It is a very simple way of describing the gender differences during the holocaust. Although men and women were treated differently, one sex was not treated better than the other. It is important to view the Holocaust through both lenses, male and female. History is often told through the male perspective. The liberators became heroes and the women were ‘saved’. Women were mothers. Women were wives. Women in the holocaust played important roles and Ringelheim expanded on their specific difficulties having to deal with sexual advances, and being the bearers of the poisoned race. As Ringelheim says, “Consequently, without some focus on gender, it is impossible to understand the victimization of women in its many forms” (Ringelheim 344). The retelling of the Holocaust through a female perspective will reveal greater horrors than previously imagined because they are being told through a new perspective, the sense of hell is being seen through a different light. The female experience during the Holocaust differs from the male in many ways(do i need more specificity? sexual victimization, pregnancy and the burdens associated with it, intimate shaving), and it is essential to the greater understanding of the Holocaust to examine at it through women’s perspectives.

Women were grouped with children. In many instances the arrest of all males had taken place before women and children were taken (Eichengreen 13). In the oral history of Lucille Eichengreen she recounts how her mother acted when her father had been taken away. While living together still after her father had been taken, her mother remained hopeful although Lucille did not. The mothers were often left with their children initially and strived to remain hopeful but were torn down as time went