Dalia Ofer Theologie.Geschichte Beiheft 8/2013

theologie.geschichte Beiheft 8/2013 universaar – Universitätsverlag Saarbrücken Dalia Ofer PARENTHOOD IN THE SHADOW OF THE HOLOCAUST During World War II Jewish parents under Nazi occupation experienced unimaginable difficulties as they tried to function according to what they believed was their parental responsibility, which included first of all safe haven to the children, to supply enough food, to care for their health and education. The degree of each of the factors mentioned differed according to country and class. In the eastern European ghettos the situation was extremely complex: When hunger, forced labor, and death became the daily experience, living conditions were next to impossible and parents faced unbearable dilemmas in their efforts to maintain the family and their parental responsibility. Nevertheless, the family remained central to life in the ghetto, serving as both a support and a burden. Parents lived in constant tension trying to care for both their own lives and the lives of their children. When we read the primary documents of the time – dia- ries, letters, memoirs, and other sources – as well as the oral testimonies that were recorded later, we confront a paradox. On the one hand, we see parents who are totally devoted to their children and ready to sacrifice their own lives to save a child. On the other hand, these same sources describe parents who neglect and desert their children. Because the contemporary documentation is fragmented, in both formal and personal sources, it is difficult if not completely impossible to follow individual families from the years that preceded the war through their entire ghetto experience. Therefore scholars should be careful and cautious with any generalizations. My recent work has examined two dimensions of family experiences in the ghetto. In “Cohesion and Rupture: The Jewish Family in the East European Ghettos during the Holocaust,” I explored tensions within the family unit, and in “Motherhood under Siege,” I looked at the pressures on 182 DALIA OFER mothers. In this paper I add a third dimension, the role of men as fathers and husbands. One should remember however, that the role of fathers is strongly connected with that of mothers and that the family should be discussed as a unit.1 Parenthood has a life cycle that is related to the age of children and parents and to the size of the family. Understand- ing parenthood is dependent upon the relationship between couples and the structure of the family. Beyond the individual case of each couple and the particular relationships among family members, which will display a different reality in each case, parenthood is a cultural concept and contains a gendered code of conduct and responsibilities of both father and mother.2 The definition of responsibilities and norms reflects both the partnership and the particularity of each of the partners in organizing the family and caring for its members, in the context of society’s cultural conventions, class and gender re- lations. I would like to explore how parents endeavored to maintain their basic obligations and responsibilities towards their children, and how this affected their identity as parents and their self image. What were the results of the traumatic events following the war and of confinement in the ghetto on their behavior as parents? Were parents aware of the ever-growing crisis in their ability to sustain and live according to norms and conventions that guided life prior to the ghetto enclosure, and how did they react? One should bear in mind that many parents of the 1930s and 1940s experienced the hardships of the First World War and the economic and political crisis of its aftermath. The 1 Dalia Ofer, Cohesion and Rupture: The Jewish Family in East European Ghettos during the Holocaust,” in: Studies in Contemporary Jewry 14 (1998), 143–165; “Motherhood under Siege, in: Esther Hertzog (Ed.), Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust, Jerusa- lem/New York 2008, 41–67. 2 There is a vast literature on the topic, but I rely mainly on the classic work of William J. Goode, The Family, Engelwood Cliffs, NJ 1982, because of the strong connection he draws between culture and family structure. PARENTHOOD 183 1930s were difficult years for a majority of the Jewish popula- tion in eastern Europe because of the new economic crisis and the rise of antisemitism. It became more difficult to provide for the family and thus a growing number of eastern European Jewish women were compelled to work. Over 30 percent were employed in industry and commerce, but many more were working in small family businesses, and not included in that statistic.3 At the same time, parents were being educated differently. On one hand, many young Jews took advantage of public education, which became obligatory in the 1920s, and a consider- able group participated in supplementary Jewish education of different forms. However, there were also many youngsters who continued to attend traditional religious institutions – the heder and the yeshivah. How different were the younger parents who were raised in a modern Polish-Jewish culture from their parents’ and grandparents in their feelings and expres- sion of love and affection between spouses and between parents and their children? Shaul Stampfer’s research on the interwar period showed the increased importance of a love, affection and a roman- tic relationship between Jewish young men and women en- tering marriage. This was more prevalent among the lower and lower middle classes, where economic considerations in marriage were less important than in the middle and upper middle class.4 Can we follow this growing centrality of love and affection into the ghetto and see how it is manifested in strong mutual bonds between spouses and between parents and children in both the nuclear and the extended family the parents of married couples? 3 Bina Garnazarska-Kadary, Changes in the Material Situation of the Jew- ish Workers in Poland, 1930-1931” (Hebrew), in: Gal’ed 9 (1986), 169, table 8. 4 Shaul Stampfer, How Jewish Society Adapted to Change in Male/Female Relationships in 19th/Early 20th-Century Eastern Europe,” in: Rivkah Blau (Ed.), Gender Relationships in Marriage and Out, New York 2007, 65–83. 184 DALIA OFER What were the major tasks of parents in prewar years and how did they change in the ghetto? Parents viewed their main responsibility in the family as an economic one – to care for the basic physical of both children and adults by providing food, clothing, and housing. The gendered roles of parents placed upon the husband the provision of the financial foun- dation while the wife managed the household, taking care of food preparation, clothing, and cleanliness. This gendered di- vision of labor was normative even in middle and lower class families, where women worked. In addition to its vital economic role, in all societies the family has also been responsible for transmitting culture and social placement to ensure that children would grow up to become productive members of society and conform to its val- ues and conventions. Assumptions about gendered roles lead to a distinction between the upbringing of boys and girls, in particular in the sphere of education. In addition to the formal schooling that boys and girls received, fathers were responsible for the religious education of their boys and so enrolled them in a religious institution, while the mothers had to ensure that their daughters, through their home experience, would be able to manage a Jewish household. These functions were central to the achievement of the social goals of the family. In this respect the parents provided continuity and the transmis- sion of tradition. In this context one must consider the impact of emanci- pation and revolutionary movements such as Communism, Bundism, and Zionism on the ability of parents to be efficient agents of tradition. A growing number of Jewish youths experienced a growing mental and educational divide with their parents, which led to conflicts. (Calel Perechodnik, who will be discussed further, is one example of this phenomenon.) However, some researchers claim that these differences in perspective enabled Jewish adolescents and young adults to become independent and select their own way of realizing PARENTHOOD 185 their life vision.5 We want to explore what happened to this sense of independence and freedom when confined to the ghetto and whether it affected the solidarity between adoles- cent youths and their parents. Another important responsibility of parents was to provide their children with psychological support and give them a sense of self-assurance. We must remember, however, that the centrality of psychological self-confidence, as it is understood today by parents, was not shared by most parents during the years under consideration. However, from the YIVO collec- tion of autobiographies of youth (based on essays written in Poland in 1930s), we learn that many young children were critical of their parents as their emotional supporters. They complained that parents did not understand their needs and ignored their emotional stress. Moreover, they often stressed that parents considered provision of the basic economic needs fulfillment of their obligations and were hoping that the children would soon grow up and participate in providing for the family’s economic wellbeing. Authors of the autobiographies often criticized the relationship between their parents and testified to the lack of love and care. In lower classes, both mother and father were absent from home for long hours and often an older sister took care of the younger siblings. Boys spent long days in the heder which made up for the absence of a parent from home.

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