University of Birmingham Department of Theology and Religion BA Philosophy, Religion and Ethics 09 24094 Dissertation
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University of Birmingham Department of Theology and Religion BA Philosophy, Religion and Ethics 09 24094 Dissertation A Gendered Analysis of Prisoner-Physicians in KL Auschwitz, with a focus on Dr Gisella Perl SRN: 1424498 Word Count: 12,000 2 1424498 University of Birmingham School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion Dissertation cover sheet To be included with all assignments submitted for assessment Dissertation 09 24094 Dissertation (underline the dissertation you are 09 28285 LH 6000-word Dissertation submitting) Level H Student ID (SRN) 1424498 Actual 12,000 Word Count REMINDERS 1. By submitting this assignment you are declaring that it is not plagiarised, that it is all your own work, and that all quotations from, allusions to, and paraphrasing of the work of others have been appropriately cited and referenced. Refer to the School Handbook or speak to the School Plagiarism Officer if you have any questions concerning plagiarism. 2. It is your responsibility to ensure that you upload the correct version of your dissertation to the correct assignment section on Canvas. 3. A penalty of 5 marks will be imposed for each working day the assignment is late, until a grade of 0 is reached. 4. There is no leeway concerning word limits for the assignment. One mark will be deducted if your essay exceeds the word limit and a further mark for every 100 words that you are in excess e.g. 1 word over the limit will result in a 1 mark penalty, 101 words over is a 2 mark penalty etc. The word count includes all references, but excludes the title, bibliography, and this coversheet. 5. Do not give your name on the assignment. 6. TWO hard copies should be submitted to the PTR Taught Programmes Office (ERI 2045) and ONE copy should be submitted electronically via the relevant Dissertation module section on Canvas by 11:59am on the published deadline. 3 1424498 Table of Contents Introduction 4-5 Chapter 1: Contextualisation and Methodology 6-17 Chapter 2: Case Study of Dr Gisella Perl 18-36 Conclusion 37-40 Appendices 41-44 Bibliography 45-56 4 1424498 Introduction In this dissertation I aim to explore the various feminist approaches to studying the Holocaust, with a particular focus on Dr Gisella Perl (1948), a Jewish woman who served as a prisoner-physician in Auschwitz, between 1944 and 1945. The role of women and gender emerged as a unique area of analysis in Holocaust Studies during the eighties, when academics began to highlight the lack of female voices within Holocaust literature. The first conference on this topic was organised by feminist scholar, Joan Ringelheim, in 1983 (Katz and Ringelheim, 1983), after she observed that female Holocaust survivor narratives had been widely neglected (1984). Academics therefore, began listening to, and analysing women’s stories, - consequently, ‘women and the Holocaust’ developed into a burgeoning field of scholarly enquiry, later becoming part of mainstream Holocaust Studies. For example, the most recent Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies (Hayes and Roth, 2010), contains a chapter dedicated to female experiences (Weitzman, 2010:1-18). Feminist academics have offered valuable insights into the distinctive challenges women faced, and into the ways in which survivor experiences and memories can, at least to some extent, be informed and shaped by gender. As Pine pertinently states, ‘[t]he lens of gender provides a useful tool for interpreting the behaviour…of Holocaust victims’ (2015:54). I anticipate that this dissertation will contribute to this growing debate on the extent to which gender impacted on survivor experiences and literature. In Chapter 1, the developments in the study of women and the Holocaust will be examined. I will begin by discussing the ‘first’ and ‘second-wave’ approaches to this area of enquiry, to demonstrate how, and why this discourse has developed. I will then explore the contemporary literature within this field, in order to understand the current approaches to studying gender and the Holocaust. Subsequently, the role of medical care and hospitals in Auschwitz will be outlined, to highlight the context prisoner-doctors such as Gisella Perl (1948) were working in. In Chapter 2, these developments within the feminist study of the Holocaust, will be applied to the case study of gynaecologist, Gisella Perl (1948), a woman ‘employed’ by the SS as a prisoner- 5 1424498 physician. By studying the primary material relating to Perl, issues concerning privilege, collaboration and the unimaginable challenges prisoner-doctors dealt with, will be analysed through the framework of a gendered study. There is a paucity of literature surrounding the experiences of prisoners like Perl and within this restricted scholarship, there is very limited discourse concerning the relationship between gender and prisoner-physicians. By combining these parallel areas, I hope that this dissertation provides an insightful and to some extent, unique, gendered study of Auschwitz prisoner- functionaries. 6 1424498 Chapter 1: Contextualisation and Methodology First and Second-Wave Approaches to Studying Women and the Holocaust It is worth noting that throughout this chapter, I will mention particular ‘waves’ of study, referring to the different approaches to studying women and the Holocaust which have occurred since the 1980s. The first-wave of study within this field occurred throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, when feminist Holocaust scholars were primarily concerned with women’s experiences of incarceration. They explored both the distinctive biological vulnerabilities women faced, such as pregnancy and amenorrhea, and the survival skills women adopted during the Holocaust, such as creating ‘surrogate families’ (Ofer and Weitzman, 1998:11) and being resourceful (Goldenberg, 1996:78-93; Heinemann, 1996, Ringelheim, 1984; Milton, 1993:213-249). Academics focussed on these features to demonstrate ‘the significance of a specifically female experience of the Holocaust’ (Heinemann, 1996:13). In the introduction to Ofer and Weitzman’s edited collection, Women in the Holocaust (1998), they describe the first-wave perspective, propounded by feminist academic, Karay (1998:285- 309): ‘Although many men stopped washing and shaving…women continued to pay attention to personal hygiene; they kept their…hair clean, mended their clothing, and maintained…a feminine appearance’ (Ofer and Weitzman, 1998:11). This way of understanding women’s experiences is subject to criticism because of its essentialist framework (Bos, 2003:27). Gender essentialist approaches endorse the idea ‘that men and women have inherent, unique and natural attributes that [distinguish] their…genders’ (Jakubowski, 2015). By claiming that women have these distinct survival skills, scholars are not only suggesting that resourcefulness and cleanliness are ‘essential’ features of womanhood, they are also assuming that 7 1424498 these skills were exclusive to women, and that male behaviour in the camps was the antithesis of this. This analysis of gendered behaviour seems to be overly reliant on assumptions regarding how an archetypal woman or man should behave, without considering the complex nature of gender identity. Alternatively, second-wave scholar Raphael (2003) advocates the notion that female attributes are not exclusive to women, however, when males demonstrate typically ‘female’ traits such as care or cleanliness, they are exercising a feminine quality. Although Raphael rejects the idea of an ‘essence of womanhood’ (2003:10), she claims that there are ‘female’ attributes, which both men and women demonstrate (2003:10). To illustrate this, Raphael cites the actions of Janusz Korczak, a male Jewish paediatrician who behaved in a caring, motherly way towards orphans in the Warsaw ghetto (2003:10). For Raphael, Korczak’s behaviour proves that ‘maternal presence is…not limited to biological mothers’ (2003:123). She argues that motherhood is feminine, however, both genders are capable of acting in motherly ways (2003:10). Raphael’s approach is progressive because she does not assume female qualities are limited to women, nor is she asserting that women are ‘better at caring, than men’ (Raphael, 2003:10). However, her ideas are still problematic, as she supports the notion that there is something essentially female about certain qualities, an idea contested by many contemporary scholars. Ringelheim’s paper ‘A Reconsideration of Research: Women and the Holocaust’ (1985:741-761) provided a powerful bridging voice between the initial wave of study and the second-wave approach, which gained prominence throughout the scholarship in the late 1990s. In this paper, Ringelheim evaluated her previous research, arguing that she had inadvertently ‘valorize[d] [sic] [the] oppression’ (1985:756) women were subjected to during the Holocaust, by exclusively focussing on female strengths. Horowitz later explored this notion and stated that initially academics ‘[draw] attention to “happy endings”’ (1998:371) which therefore produced ‘a feeling of optimism in face of a destruction’ (1998:371). Put simply, first-wave scholarship placed excessive emphasis on examples of female friendships, care and cleanliness, without putting these women’s experiences into the broader, darker situation they were in (Horowitz, 1998:371). As Bos states, first-wave academics made 8 1424498 universal assumptions regarding ‘female’ attributes, which ‘glorified women in general instead of cataloguing the historical experience of individual women’ (2003:27). Ofer and Weitzman’s edited