When Families Disappeared: Camp Shvesters

This program’s original recording transcript is below. This transcription was created automatically during a live program so may contain inaccurate transcriptions of some words.

Ari Goldstein: I'm Ari Goldstein Senior Public programs producer at the Museum of Jewish heritage, a living memorial to the Holocaust.

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Ari Goldstein: it's a pleasure to welcome you to today's lecture on when families disappeared campus festers or camp sisters, but Dr Michael berenbaum.

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Ari Goldstein: we're proud to co present today's program with project witness an organization doing essential Holocaust education, work here in New York.

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Ari Goldstein: The museum and project witness work together to organize today's program because we feel it's more essential now than ever to learn and teach about the experiences of Jews and especially Jewish women under Nazi rule.

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Ari Goldstein: Both to commemorate their lived experiences and so that we can learn the lessons of their experiences for a world today.

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Ari Goldstein: In a moment we'll hear from my colleague project witness free to alicia in ski and then from Dr Michael berenbaum.

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Ari Goldstein: During michael's lecture please feel free to share questions in the zoom chat or i'm sorry the zoom Q amp a box and will include as many as we can in a Q amp a portion at the end of the program without further ado i'll hand things off now to freedom missions view.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Thank you IRA welcome everyone, and thank you for your patience, while we are going through some technical difficulties.

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Frieda Loshinsky: My name is cradle the Shin ski i'm the program coordinator of project witness.

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Frieda Loshinsky: on behalf of ruthless and stained the founder and director of project witness we'd like to welcome you to Dr Michael burnham's presentation.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Of when families disappeared cash registers or sisters, we are proud to join the Museum of Jewish heritage, a living memorial to the Holocaust and hosting today's lecture to you.

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Frieda Loshinsky: today's topic delves into the bonds that were formed between women in concentration camps, which often help them survive the most unimaginable and impossible circumstances.

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Frieda Loshinsky: we're very excited for Dr Byrne bounce fascinating lecture so let's get started it's after birnbaum a world renowned historian is the director of.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Institute and a professor of Jewish studies at the American Jewish University in La.

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Frieda Loshinsky: He was the project director overseeing the creation of US hmm and was the first director of its research institute he later served as its President and CEO of the show out visual history foundation which took the testimony of.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Holocaust survivors from 57 countries his work in film has won both academy and emmy awards.

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Frieda Loshinsky: that's a birnbaum was the author and editor of 22 books scores of scholarly articles hundreds of journalistic pieces and was the executive editor of the second edition of the encyclopedia judaica.

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Frieda Loshinsky: He won the Simon rock over memorial award the American Jewish Press Association three times three categories over two years.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Dr birnbaum is a dear friend and consultant to both the Museum of Jewish heritage and to project witness, it is my true honor and pleasure to welcome Dr mark birnbaum.

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Michael Berenbaum: Thank you very much freedom.

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Michael Berenbaum: I have to apologize to everyone, I have been having technical difficulties this morning somehow between two computers and iPhone we've barely been able to connect.

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Michael Berenbaum: So we've been barely able to connect and consequently we had some difficulties, so I apologize blake.

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Michael Berenbaum: Being that and being formerly from New York, I can speak quickly, which will allow us to cover the material, let me first thank my.

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Michael Berenbaum: The people who have invited me the museum Jewish heritage and New York City, which I have worked with, and also my colleagues at project witness which i've also worked with and enjoyed my association with both institutions.

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Michael Berenbaum: Let me begin the long way about, and that is let's begin by talking about how the subject of women got introduced the Holocaust studies.

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Michael Berenbaum: And what the evolution has been in there for what we've learned about the experience of women in particular and then talk about what is unique to the woman's experience within the Holocaust.

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Michael Berenbaum: It doesn't take much to imagine that the issue of feminism and feminist.

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Michael Berenbaum: And feminist.

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Michael Berenbaum: Studies had been coming forward with regard to every field of human endeavor and it also came forward very strongly with regard to the Holocaust.

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Michael Berenbaum: That originally led to a tremendous clash, and the clash was wait a minute here you're talking about women, but the reason that the women were killed was because they were Jews.

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Michael Berenbaum: And we can't distinguish between the victim groups of Jews, on the basis of gender and don't use the Holocaust, to verify or to make particular claims about gender theories and about feminist theories and it's a misuse of the experience.

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Michael Berenbaum: I have a also a particular.

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Michael Berenbaum: Experience with that in three ways I refereed the one of the earliest books on women and the Holocaust.

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Michael Berenbaum: and found that it was describing a phenomenon of victimization without describing anything else that was involved in the experience and touching on some of the unique dimensions of the woman's experience and asked that essentially.

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Michael Berenbaum: In addition to all of its major chapters that begin to consider certain other issues, the second thing that happened is I published with my friend john Ross.

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Michael Berenbaum: a wonderful volume called the Holocaust philosophical and religious implications, the volume was intriguing because it developed over an evenings conversation in which we both bemoaned.

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Michael Berenbaum: A problem that we had had, which is in those days, we had to copy everything that we were looking for, because there was no one place to find some of the major essays.

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Michael Berenbaum: On the Holocaust, we started talking and we went through what we considered the major essays on the Holocaust and we discovered that we had redone essentially we had used in our teaching.

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Michael Berenbaum: 15 of the same major essays and therefore we decided let's make a book out of it by collecting these essays and bring them together.

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Michael Berenbaum: My friend Carol written or who's a religious sister of mercy both the Roman Catholic nun and a very fine Holocaust scholar looked at our collection of essays and she noted we noticed one thing when we collected these says we noted that we noticed that half the people.

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Michael Berenbaum: On the cover had taken their own lives.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that frightened us in terms of one aspect of studying the Holocaust, because it meant that when you close come close to this material.

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Michael Berenbaum: It exact surprise and very often it exact a very heavy price on those who work with this material Carol notice something very different, and that is she noticed that we had almost no women.

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Michael Berenbaum: In the discussion and that our use of testimony did not bring any women's testimony and, as I like to say that gave rise to a very important collection of essays.

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Michael Berenbaum: called in a different voice women in the Holocaust and Carol wrote that book edited that book with my colleague john Ross and I discovered something after that, which is that I had not included in the very important canon of Holocaust literature, I had not included.

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Michael Berenbaum: The.

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Michael Berenbaum: voice of women and I had to begin, including the voice of women, the third thing happened, which is that.

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Michael Berenbaum: I had started paying attention in listening to oral histories, to the unique perspective of women and consequently it began to transform and change.

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Michael Berenbaum: A good deal of my understanding of how I read Holocaust literature and how I understood the event themselves.

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Michael Berenbaum: Over time, the rift between those who had a feminist perspective or let me say a feminist orthodoxy, and those who were.

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Michael Berenbaum: Holocaust historians Holocaust literary figures, and these are some of the giants of the field, including people like Lawrence Langer began to narrow tremendously.

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Michael Berenbaum: As we began to understand that we had to look at the totality of human experience and the totality of human experience differentiated in not differentiated it included some unique as some aspects of the experience that were unique to women.

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Michael Berenbaum: So let me give you a summary paragraph or two on what we say, is unique to women and then let's take through some of the testimonies as we understand them.

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Michael Berenbaum: Number one, we have to say that more women were killed than men.

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Michael Berenbaum: Let me documented in a very particular way.

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Michael Berenbaum: Number One.

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Michael Berenbaum: Women.

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Michael Berenbaum: During the beginning and of the evolution of the Holocaust men some men thought that the Nazis would target only men and that the Nazis would not go after women and children, and consequently many men escaped.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to protect themselves, thinking that by that they were also protecting their families Lo and behold, that what happened, they could not imagine.

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Michael Berenbaum: Which is that they escaped into freedom and men and and women and children were left to be victimized women, in particular, therefore, died were murdered more in greater numbers than men, you all know that at the selection.

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Michael Berenbaum: At the ramp.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that is the moment after arrival, the groups would divided men were on one side, women and children are, on the other, and they were divided into groups of five before they underwent the selection and it was automatic that women with children were sent to their death.

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Michael Berenbaum: That meant that, if you take the population that has children under the age of 14 or 15 meaning those who could not pass for being over the age of 16.

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Michael Berenbaum: which was the quayside demarcation point for selection those women with young children were sent to the death their husbands and their older sons had a greater.

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Michael Berenbaum: probability, not a great probability, but a greater proper probability of a surviving consequently more women turned out to be victim than men.

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Michael Berenbaum: And we see that in the numbers killed, and we see that in the extraordinary experiences that women at let's now talk about for a moment, some of the unique experiences of women.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's turn to a very important moment.

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Michael Berenbaum: in which women showed a tremendous and a tremendous amount of resiliency and a tremendous amount of creativity, imagination and during.

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Michael Berenbaum: You all know that between 1933 and 1938 his family had to make a.

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Michael Berenbaum: difficult decision if they were in Germany, and that is the decision is, do we leave or do we stay.

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Michael Berenbaum: And the question of do we leave or do we stay is an intriguing question because it means what's the moment that which you give up everything you have, and you go into the unknown.

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Michael Berenbaum: Because you understand that your situation is deteriorating and it's getting terrible and keep in mind something else.

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Michael Berenbaum: Which is that and I want to use analogy, if you put a frog into water and you heat up the water gradually the frog will stay and be cooked alive.

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Michael Berenbaum: If you drop a frog and i'm not God forbid, suggesting this if you drop a frog into boiling water, it will jump out immediately.

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Michael Berenbaum: meaning if the situation gets worse dramatically immediately and it becomes clear to everyone that it's intolerable, then a whole range of people take the bus have the possibility of leaving and they take the steps necessary to leave if the situation deteriorates slowly.

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Michael Berenbaum: Then it takes a certain different measure in order to leave want to occur one set it in the following way, if you want to crystallize it the lake water will occur of blessed memory said.

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Michael Berenbaum: The pessimists left the optimists died meaning if you said, the situation is bad and it's getting worse tomorrow will be worse than yesterday.

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Michael Berenbaum: You took the steps that were necessary to leave, however difficult they were and I don't want to minimize how difficult they were and if.

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Michael Berenbaum: A little bit you said, I believe that the German people will come to their senses.

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Michael Berenbaum: I believe that the allies will not allow this to happen that a whole range of things will take place and you're optimistic or, for example in Hungary that.

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Michael Berenbaum: it's not going to happen in Hungary, then you stayed and very often you stayed until it was too late, what is the moment at which German Jewish women showed their capacity.

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Michael Berenbaum: was a very intriguing moment after the November programs November 1938 programs that are known as Kristallnacht.

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Michael Berenbaum: And the reason I use the 1938 programs is in contemporary German is great they believe that Kristallnacht, which was a term invented by the Nazis.

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Michael Berenbaum: The night of broken glass Crystal and krystal is supposed to be beautiful and fragile crystal glass the night of the broken glass.

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Michael Berenbaum: is to beautify an event that was horrific and they now call it the 1938 rights pogroms the pogroms being a word that is well known in Jewish history and therefore.

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Michael Berenbaum: descriptive of an event that is episodic hora in which the police were I the perpetrators are by standards and then which the mob rules, you know that more than thousand synagogues were burned 7000.

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Michael Berenbaum: Businesses were looted and destroyed and 30,000 men aged 16 to 60 were arrested.

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Michael Berenbaum: that's a moment in which, if you think of the question of optimistic pessimist.

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Michael Berenbaum: And you think that your husband your son your brother your father is in a concentration camp and at that point, if a man was in a concentration camp if a Jewish man was in a concentration camp and he would.

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Michael Berenbaum: could prove.

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Michael Berenbaum: That within a fortnight, he would leave the country, it was possible to get out of the camps, that was a window of opportunity in 1938 and 1939 that closed very quickly.

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Michael Berenbaum: And once the window of opportunity closed very quickly, then it was impossible to get out but in November 1938 and early 1939 if you could leave.

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Michael Berenbaum: And prove you could leave that's the moment in which you could be get out of the concentration camp once your husband your son your father your brother was in the camp.

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Michael Berenbaum: Then Jewish women, and it was only Jewish women because there weren't adult Jewish men around at that point only Jewish women began the enormously Herculean task of finding a place to go the means by which to buy tickets and to get a visa out to beseech the authorities.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to prove that you could get out of the camp of the country, and they moved heaven and earth.

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Michael Berenbaum: Essentially, because they had no other alternative but to move heaven and earth they moved heaven and earth in order to what to get their husbands out.

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Michael Berenbaum: So that's one of the areas in which we see a tremendous amount and one must pay attention to the tremendous amount of innovation of creativity of imagination of discipline.

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Michael Berenbaum: And many of these women were assuming financial responsibilities for the family in the first time at the for the first time, and this event was restricted primarily to German and Austrian women whose husbands were whose husbands were.

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Michael Berenbaum: husbands fathers sons and brothers were arrested and it's a tremendous amount of.

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Michael Berenbaum: innovation and creativity and I want to teach you a phrase that I learned from a former director of the Museum of Jewish heritage in New York, David more well said just because the Jews were powerless did not mean that they were passive.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that becomes an important mode ality that which you see how they used whatever limited capacity, they had in order to get their husbands free and out their husbands their brothers their fathers free and out of Germany let's now go to the second.

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Michael Berenbaum: moment in which women's experience differ significantly from men and let's particularly deal with religious women for a moment.

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Michael Berenbaum: we're now moving not into the build up to the Holocaust two years 33 to 39 we're now dealing in 1939 onward and most especially in the question of can you hide.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that involves ghettoisation, it also involves escaped from the mobile killing units and the question of can you if you have to understand that in Eastern Europe.

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Michael Berenbaum: Many Jewish men from religious families went to Jewish schools in which they studied Lima, a coalition which they studied Jewish learning and they had less secular skills and less command of the secular language of the native language of the land in order to survive.

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Michael Berenbaum: Jewish women, for the most part, with the exception of the base jaco of women, the base shock of girls, we can say at that point.

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Michael Berenbaum: Essentially, went to public schools and the older women who had a function before there was based yaakov went to public schools and they had a greater native command of the language.

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Michael Berenbaum: And they also had therefore spoke, the language without an accent, in order to hide you needed to there were two types of it.

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Michael Berenbaum: Hiding number one was trying to pass as a non Jew, and for that you needed language skills for that you needed a certain measure of looks or else to dye your hair blonde, as it were.

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Michael Berenbaum: Under the myth that that that the aryans were blonde and blue eyed the Jews were dark haired not really the truth but we'll stick with the myth for a moment.

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Michael Berenbaum: And you needed linguist link linguistic skills in order to function.

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Michael Berenbaum: The second means of hiding was to hide clandestinely which depended on on finding somebody.

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Michael Berenbaum: Who would hide you and not appearing in public and the like, and that was the alternative to ghetto ization.

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Michael Berenbaum: or very much the alternative to the mobile killing units and being victimized as the mobile killing units in 1941 42 one from town to town village to village Hamlet Hamlet.

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Michael Berenbaum: and killed Jewish men, women and children bullet bullet bullet and the only alternative to that was to find a place to hide.

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Michael Berenbaum: It was significantly easier for women to find a place to hide, even though that they had that extra special vulnerability, because they were women and could be violated.

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Michael Berenbaum: Because they had greater linguistic skill and very often had greater knowledge of the non Jewish community then then did the religious Jewish men who had studied in Jewish school with fellow Jewish students and to therefore.

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Michael Berenbaum: had less able skills.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to at least survive by hiding.

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Michael Berenbaum: There is another aspect of ghetto life which we don't necessarily.

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Michael Berenbaum: appreciate fully, and that is that if the man was defined by work.

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Michael Berenbaum: The loss of job left a measure of greater responsibility on women.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to function in the ghetto, and they very often had to assume primary responsibility for the family and we hear this again and again and again in testimony We also know that in contacts between ghettos.

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Michael Berenbaum: Women were used as couriers.

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Michael Berenbaum: They were the link between ghettos and the reason they were the link between ghettos, is because a they had linguistic skills.

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Michael Berenbaum: And secondly, for a very basic reason, which is their Jewish identity, could not be determined in the same way that a man's Jewish identity could be determined by the Brits me law by the circumcision.

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Michael Berenbaum: And consequently they were part of the great network that was used to connect you knows, and therefore to have greater information.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's now move for a moment to camps and understand this, we spoke before about the fact that women who arrived with children were sent immediately to their death, you also have.

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Michael Berenbaum: Enormous any number of examples.

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Michael Berenbaum: And let me give you two that i've heard from testimony.

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Michael Berenbaum: Even in recent weeks.

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Michael Berenbaum: So seal climbing.

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Michael Berenbaum: arrived in Camp with her mother and her sister.

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Michael Berenbaum: and her mother said to her upon arrival almost in tooling.

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Michael Berenbaum: What was about to happen, give me the baby.

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Michael Berenbaum: Because they will treat.

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Michael Berenbaum: Very will treat women with children, better than they will treat an old woman, like me, if i'm alone.

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Michael Berenbaum: And she had her two younger daughters, who were in the age where they would be selected to work go on, and she took the grandchild she took her a nickel and the bubby took her a nickel.

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Michael Berenbaum: And what march to her death, the mother was then forced to live with the consequences of the fact that our mother, on the one hand saved her life.

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Michael Berenbaum: And on the other hand, she separated herself from her child.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that became enormously.

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Michael Berenbaum: As you can imagine, psychologically burdensome and difficult for the remainder of her life.

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Michael Berenbaum: Another woman.

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Michael Berenbaum: her son describes the experience there was a woman in the train with us, who had three children, all under the age of five.

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Michael Berenbaum: And my mother turned to her and said look, let me give you a hand and help you with the child and she came off the train with the child in her arms and, consequently, she was marched to her death, with the child were given her age, I was a 13 year old boy my mother was under 35.

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Michael Berenbaum: My mother could have possibly survive and she come off the train without volunteering to what to carry another child.

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Michael Berenbaum: in camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: themselves in the concentration camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: There are a couple things we have to say i'm going to be number one.

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Michael Berenbaum: Women testify repeatedly to something that is not true and that's had an impact in the post war years enormously.

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Michael Berenbaum: Which is they cease to men straight.

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Michael Berenbaum: And they presume that the Nazis put something in the food that forced them to cease to men straight, we now know biologically that the pressures.

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Michael Berenbaum: The enormous pressures of.

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Michael Berenbaum: Lack of food and tension caused the city a cessation of menstruation and, therefore, one of the important questions that women had throughout the camps is will I ever be able to give birth.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that's one of the reasons that immediately after the war in the displaced persons camp, the Jewish response to death was to recreate life.

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Michael Berenbaum: Part of that was an instinctive sense of the last word in Jewish life cannot be in in the Jewish history cannot be death, but life itself, but the second is many women were desperately afraid that they would never again be women.

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Michael Berenbaum: Now let's talk about the notion of Camp sisters.

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Michael Berenbaum: Women developed and you must listen to hundreds of testimonies in order to understand it women developed a network of mutual support in the camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: And they use a couple of words they use camp sisters and camp mothers, the interest for camps sisters is restless and let me describe it to you in.

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Michael Berenbaum: In one woman's testimony which you can see in the United States Holocaust Memorial museum.

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Michael Berenbaum: I had a comrade a a friend and camp we became sisters.

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Michael Berenbaum: We shared everything.

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Michael Berenbaum: And then she goes on to say.

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Michael Berenbaum: We shared all of our food.

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Michael Berenbaum: If we got one piece of food we split it.

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Michael Berenbaum: And she said, even with soup we ate the soup together.

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Michael Berenbaum: But then she said something else.

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Michael Berenbaum: I am certain that she never.

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Michael Berenbaum: took an extra drop of soup splitting the bowl of soup in half.

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Michael Berenbaum: But i'm equally certain that she never.

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Michael Berenbaum: left an extra drop of soup.

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Michael Berenbaum: That was not going to be hers, in other words we split it 5050 we split it up in a very basic way so that was guaranteed.

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Michael Berenbaum: Another group of women described the following.

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Michael Berenbaum: that whatever we got we split.

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Michael Berenbaum: And in order to make sure that when you cut something.

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Michael Berenbaum: You cut it as equally as imaginable we developed this system, where we had straws.

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Michael Berenbaum: And one person cut the food.

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Michael Berenbaum: And we each had a straw and then we picked the portion number one number two number three number four based on the straws and since we never knew, whose portion that would be.

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Michael Berenbaum: We understood that somebody tried to divide it as equally as possible.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to be fair, and in order to develop what we would call mutual support.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's take a second example, this is a survivor from skokie Illinois who recently died, she was also a survivor who had a very unique experience.

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Michael Berenbaum: of which I only know of one moment in time, in which this happened, and that is she was in a guest in a gas Chamber crematoria.

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Michael Berenbaum: In the dressing room on October 7 1944 when there was an uprising in these under commando in the vicinity of the gas chambers and what did they do, they then brought the women back from the gas chamber.

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Michael Berenbaum: And they came back into the barracks and that was not supposed to happen, I have heard testimony from about five women who were part of that experience.

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Michael Berenbaum: And consequently they are the only people we know who went into the gas chamber and came out precisely because of the fact that it was the sonderkommando that engaged and uprising at crematoria.

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Michael Berenbaum: To.

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Michael Berenbaum: On October 7 1944 they were ironically helped.

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Michael Berenbaum: By four women who brought.

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Michael Berenbaum: To them some gunpowder which could be used for explosives when they set the crematorium on fire, and these four women were killed on January 6 1945 among them were Rosa rebekah and.

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Michael Berenbaum: As the sacristy.

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Michael Berenbaum: and the like, and Rosa butters last word she was a young.

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Michael Berenbaum: woman from Johanna of.

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Michael Berenbaum: and her last words was Isaac velma.

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Michael Berenbaum: be strong and have great strength which are ironically, the words in the Torah that Moshe beno used when he told spoke to joshua.

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Michael Berenbaum: When he spoke to joshua and he gave him responsibility for the future of the Jewish people 14 for itself says that she was the youngest in the barracks.

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Michael Berenbaum: She was about 15 years old, she was the youngest in the barracks and she said, therefore, I had 800 mothers.

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Michael Berenbaum: Everyone was looking out for me, meaning that they felt that they couldn't save everyone they couldn't go out of their way to provide for everyone, but they could go out of their way to provide for someone and the way in which they sustained their humanity.

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Michael Berenbaum: The way in which they sustain their humanity was by providing for one person, the youngest person in the lot and, therefore, she was taken through.

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Michael Berenbaum: and able to come out of it.

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Michael Berenbaum: So women in the camps had a.

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Michael Berenbaum: Much greater social support network.

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Michael Berenbaum: of neutrality, then we hear in mail testimony and it could either be that the women speak of that because it was so important.

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Michael Berenbaum: Or that men are had less and therefore were reflecting their own experience of greater isolation.

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Michael Berenbaum: When they were in camps themselves.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's now talk about.

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Michael Berenbaum: marriage.

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Michael Berenbaum: In the ghettos and i'm going to use.

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Michael Berenbaum: Two examples.

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Michael Berenbaum: of marriage in the ghetto.

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Michael Berenbaum: One as an example of testimony by a woman named Helen K that was taken it yell.

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Michael Berenbaum: And this is what we would call a marriage of survival and marriage of safety.

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Michael Berenbaum: And Helen Jay was a very beautiful young woman.

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Michael Berenbaum: and her parents said to her, we want you to marry the wealthiest man in the ghetto.

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Michael Berenbaum: Who was the wealthiest man in the ghetto you didn't have Rockefellers in the ghetto you didn't have Bloomberg in the ghetto the wealthiest man in the ghetto was the Baker.

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Michael Berenbaum: Why was the Baker, the wealthiest man, we get off because if there was any food to be had the Baker had food.

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Michael Berenbaum: And the Baker was first able to provide for himself and for his family, with regard to food.

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Michael Berenbaum: and food was the single most valuable currency, you could have.

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Michael Berenbaum: Both in the ghetto, and in the camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: So she ended up marrying the Baker, it was a marriage of what you would call survival.

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Michael Berenbaum: there's a second story of survivors soon, some of you know.

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Michael Berenbaum: Which is the story of Ben and lot gummy.

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Michael Berenbaum: Blood camino his final final impactful and who's known the gabba gabba was Blocker tells the following story about how been and block of became quotation marks boyfriends and girlfriends.

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Michael Berenbaum: Blocker was working in the underground and being a redheaded woman who did not particularly quotation marks look Jewish.

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Michael Berenbaum: She was working on the air inside will she was sent in order to buy arms and also to smuggle out information, the most important piece of information she ever smuggled out was a map of Treblinka.

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Michael Berenbaum: And a map of Treblinka with the knowledge that Treblinka was def jam.

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Michael Berenbaum: And with the knowledge that there were people that essentially in Treblinka there was no selection there was millie annihilation, and one can say that, of all the Jews who arrived in Treblinka 99 point 99.999% were killed.

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Michael Berenbaum: The best way to put it is 920 5000 people were killed at Treblinka there were less than 100 known survivors and some viewer more skilled at math can give me the numerical calculations of that.

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Michael Berenbaum: locker says the way Ben became my boyfriend was as follows, and this couple who has been married for 50 some odd years.

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Michael Berenbaum: then became my boyfriend because I said to him i'm going somewhere.

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Michael Berenbaum: And I don't know if i'm coming back.

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Michael Berenbaum: My father has gotten.

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Michael Berenbaum: My mother and my brother are gone her mother and her brother had reported for deportation to Treblinka because they promised.

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Michael Berenbaum: somebody who reported to Treblinka that they would give them a piece of bread and some marmalade and even if they knew they were going to an unknown place not necessarily death.

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Michael Berenbaum: They understood that they were so desperate for piece of bread and marmalade that they reported to the death she turned to him if I don't come back I want someone to care.

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Michael Berenbaum: Therefore, you can be my boyfriend.

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Michael Berenbaum: ben's mother and father understood what was happening with this couple.

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Michael Berenbaum: And ben's mother took off her ring.

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Michael Berenbaum: And took a glass of water.

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Michael Berenbaum: And said Benjamin give this to lock up.

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Michael Berenbaum: which he did she lifted a glass of water and she said so assignment Mazel let it be, with luck.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that's the way in which they had their first.

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Michael Berenbaum: of several wedding ceremonies they let her were robbed more married by a rabbi and the hoop up and condition.

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Michael Berenbaum: But that's an example of marriage it's an example of what we would call the marriage of desperation.

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Michael Berenbaum: but also a love that was born of desperation and a marriage, that was born by a love that was forged in desperation there's going to be a book coming out.

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Michael Berenbaum: In the next couple of months, which is going to describe the various ways in which people found each other and married each other.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to show that not every experience of male female relationship was one of violation and taking advantage of but there were a whole range of other examples of what happened.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's now talk for a moment, because we want to leave time for questions and answers let's talk for a moment about the post war.

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Michael Berenbaum: In a very important way.

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Michael Berenbaum: The experience of women in the post war situation was also unique.

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Michael Berenbaum: First of all, there was tremendous sense of isolation, there was also tremendous fear that they could no longer give birth, that they had been deprived of their womanhood and of their capacity, there also was a very important rabbinical question that had to be raised.

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Michael Berenbaum: In a very dramatic way, which is that.

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Michael Berenbaum: Normally, in order to remarry if a woman had been married you needed a witness to the fact that the man had been killed or had died normally a death certificate suffices in that, and then the woman is free to remarry.

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Michael Berenbaum: The problem is that if you went to Treblinka.

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Michael Berenbaum: 925,000 killed less than 100 known survivors, how do you know if your husband was not among those survivors.

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Michael Berenbaum: And how do you know that he or he ended up being killed, if you.

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Michael Berenbaum: What if you went to a place like.

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Michael Berenbaum: Belgium.

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Michael Berenbaum: 500,000 killed two known survivors, therefore, interestingly enough in both belts and in Treblinka.

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Michael Berenbaum: There was very little known about the camps too much, much, much later because, unlike Auschwitz, there were very few survivors who could testify to what happened in the camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: And there was a tremendous effort by the rabbi's to find the means in order to free these women and allow them to remarry.

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Michael Berenbaum: And one of the most important rabbinic decision rabbinic deciders was a men by them rabbi mizell who himself was a survivor of Auschwitz.

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Michael Berenbaum: And therefore understood precisely precisely the questions that had to be asked in order to allow for marriage to take place, the point we want to make also is that in the dp camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: There was a dramatic return to life, first of all people got married sometimes they got married out of love the sometimes they got married out of loneliness I heard the following testimony i'm all alone, I have no one you're all alone, you have no one let's be alone together.

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Michael Berenbaum: But out of that there was what out of that they're developed a long lasting and a happy marriage, but it was a marriage, born of despair and isolation and then women dare to do something which was the, to my mind, the most courageous, but in one sense, on imaginatively a bold.

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Michael Berenbaum: decisions to make, and that is before they knew where they were going to be before they were no know how they were going to create their life before they knew that the world would be safe for them, they dared to have faith in the future and to bring a young child into the world.

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Michael Berenbaum: And because these were Jewish children when they were boys they dared to circumcise them.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that in in a very real sense is something we don't particularly think is anything other than the most ordinary thing in our world.

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Michael Berenbaum: But in that world be after six years which of a man was as blower his trousers, he was dead to bring a child into the world and to make an indelible sign of the Covenant on that child on that boy.

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Michael Berenbaum: was an act of enormous courage which took place and which was an indication of an in defeat the fatigue double spirit.

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Michael Berenbaum: and indefatigable spirit of Jews, to answer death by recreating life let's leave it here for a moment, take your questions because we've gone on and i'm going to hear from array and he's going to feel the questions, please.

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Ari Goldstein: Michael Thank you so much for that very interesting lecture.

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Ari Goldstein: To our audience, please feel free to share questions in the Q amp a box we'll start with some of the best questions that have come in so far.

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Ari Goldstein: Michael there's a question from an audience Member named sheldon about national differences between women's experiences Polish Jewish women German Jewish women Russian Jewish women.

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Ari Goldstein: How might you answer that and i'm curious about the way that those differences manifested in each of the chronologies that you discussed.

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Michael Berenbaum: well.

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Michael Berenbaum: We can we learn only say that there may have been national differences there may have also been differences between urban urban and rural.

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Michael Berenbaum: I can say that the first thing is that that if you had to hide, or if you had to go out into the forest if you had to forage women who grew up in a rural environment had better skills at that and better knowledge of it.

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Michael Berenbaum: And a greater ability to get by.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's begin with by talking about the difference between German women.

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Michael Berenbaum: Polish women Hungarian women and and Russian women.

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Michael Berenbaum: And by the way, Russian women were really talking about people that be in what was the old Soviet Union German women had a had a build up of six years.

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Michael Berenbaum: In order to understand the Nazis.

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Michael Berenbaum: And the build up of six years meant that they had lots of.

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Michael Berenbaum: Decisions along the way that they had to grapple with.

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Michael Berenbaum: And remember that the bulk of the German Jewish population left Germany before the Holocaust.

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Michael Berenbaum: Most German Jews were refugees.

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Michael Berenbaum: And sometimes I i'll tell a story, I know I know very personally, there was a great philosophy Jewish philosopher of education, been in micros back micros enact was the.

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Michael Berenbaum: First person in the Community in which I grew up with I grew up in who made alia he made on the on 1956 57 and it was a symbol to us somebody his father was a.

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Michael Berenbaum: very famous lawyer who was enormously influential.

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Michael Berenbaum: in getting Jews, to get out.

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Michael Berenbaum: and his mother went to his father, one day, and she said, I have a a woman with a child.

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Michael Berenbaum: whose husband refuses to leave because he thinks he's doing something very important.

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Michael Berenbaum: And Can you help the woman to leave with her child, because she doesn't want her child to grow up like this doesn't want her child to be subject to this doesn't want to continue to live like this.

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Michael Berenbaum: So he said, please do me a favor give me give me the woman's name, and of course i'll be able to help her.

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Michael Berenbaum: So she spelled out her name but used her maiden name.

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Michael Berenbaum: And he looked up from this desk and and she said it's time.

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Michael Berenbaum: And we're out of here.

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Michael Berenbaum: And she said we're out of here with you.

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Michael Berenbaum: or without or with without with or we're out of here without you.

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Michael Berenbaum: Let me give a second example of a choice that.

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Michael Berenbaum: A choice, the German women had some a German and by 1938 it was included Austrian women and some trek women had to make, which is the great act of rescue of 10,000 Jewish children.

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Michael Berenbaum: called kinzer kindertransport.

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Michael Berenbaum: But remember kindertransport means that parents that the British had to decide that were willing to receive 10,000 children, which they did after Kristallnacht, by the way, the Americans refused to receive 20,000 children and follow the British example.

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Michael Berenbaum: The problem was that these children would grow up to be adults and they would take American jobs.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that was called the Wagner Rogers bill it didn't even get out of committee in the United States Congress these women had to make a decision.

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Michael Berenbaum: That they love their children so much that they were willing to give them up to put them, let them go into the arms of strangers.

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Michael Berenbaum: They had to make a decision that they.

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Michael Berenbaum: couldn't protect their children.

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Michael Berenbaum: And the situation was so desperate.

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Michael Berenbaum: That they love their children so much that their children could would be better off living without them, then staying where they are.

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Michael Berenbaum: 10,000 families made that decision.

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Michael Berenbaum: So imagine what it what what they perceived what they felt what they sense in order to understand that.

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Michael Berenbaum: let's talk, for example, about Hungarian women.

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Michael Berenbaum: On gehring women and remember the whole Hungarian story is intriguing because the Hungarian story occurred occurred only after March 19 1944.

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Michael Berenbaum: Germans invaded march 19 ghettoisation took place in April and May deportations occurred between the 15th of May and the eighth of July and by the eighth of July, deportations that ended and then all that was left was the Jewish community of Budapest.

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Michael Berenbaum: Because the entire countryside had been had been rid of the Jews, so the question we came for Hungarian women, how do you survive a year.

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Michael Berenbaum: Because again everybody knew, by the time of the Hungarian and this is what gives you the sense of the Nazis priority everybody knew that by the time hungering was invaded the Germany was going to lose the war.

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Michael Berenbaum: Soviet Union was advancing the Allies gone up from North Africa, then entered Italy we didn't yet know about de de de de occurred about.

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Michael Berenbaum: Halfway through the deportation of Hungarian Jews and, consequently, their experience was how do I hold out until.

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Michael Berenbaum: The war comes to an end.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that's an incredible it's an incredible story in of itself Soviet Jews Soviet Jewish women face the question of how do you deal, how do you deal with these murderous.

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Michael Berenbaum: rampages that were taking place of mobile killing units, by the way in Lithuania two out of three Lithuanians were killed by with winnings.

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Michael Berenbaum: Not by not by Germans in Latvia, the same percentage in Estonia 100% were killed by Estonians, not by not by not by Germans.

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Michael Berenbaum: So the question becomes, how do you hide, how do you escape, how do you get out of there, how do you do, and then you also have another piece of of interesting.

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Michael Berenbaum: Evidence that's being drawn up now by men been them Patrick dubois and his group, which is they are now going to the mass killing fields digging upgrades.

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Michael Berenbaum: and finding out essentially that some of these people do not have some of these skeletons do not have bullet holes in them.

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Michael Berenbaum: Which means that you had fathers that stood in and took a bullet for their children, you had mothers who protected their sons and daughters, their experience was very different.

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Michael Berenbaum: And their experience was not one of concentration camp was not one.

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Michael Berenbaum: Of of.

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Michael Berenbaum: When do we leave what was question of how do we hide in Poland, you had essentially ghettoisation deportation concentration camp, you also have instances of resistance and remember in in resistance, women and men.

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Michael Berenbaum: form alongside each other and women perform the great task of being couriers and arms merchants lot committed herself climbed over the Warsaw ghetto wall with dynamite understanding that if she jumped.

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Michael Berenbaum: Or if they shouted her, she could be exploded.

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Michael Berenbaum: because she was carrying dynamite and What did she know about dynamite she said I couldn't even pronounce the word, so there are clearly geographic geographical differences, there are also differences between peasant and urbanite.

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Michael Berenbaum: Women, you also had a cultural divide between those who had been around.

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Michael Berenbaum: forms and animals and death and dying in a way that's different.

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Michael Berenbaum: that's how I can give it as short answer looks like the next question.

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Ari Goldstein: Thank you, Michael and I appreciate everyone's patience we're going to run a couple minutes late, since we started a few minutes late Michael let's try to fit in two more questions.

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Ari Goldstein: And there are several audience Members asking about the sexual violence that Jewish women experience, both from Nazis and also sometimes from Russian soldiers, did you find that that was something most women were willing to speak honestly about in their testimony.

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Michael Berenbaum: Look, there were a couple of points at which people.

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Michael Berenbaum: boil up let's click let's begin by saying that.

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Michael Berenbaum: The sexual violence that women experienced from Russia Russian soldiers.

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Michael Berenbaum: was not particularly directed at Jewish women, it was directed at all women and was directed at women of all ages.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that's an incredible thing to see it made it It made it.

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Michael Berenbaum: It may it gave the Russians a horrendous reputation among everything.

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Michael Berenbaum: The violence directed by Nazi the sexual violence directed by Nazis against Jews is seldom spoke of on either side, because for the Nazis, it was a violation, for the most part of the.

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Michael Berenbaum: The Aryan laws with regard to sexual relations between aryans and Jewish women and for the Jewish women, it was a violation.

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Michael Berenbaum: And incredible violation, let me tell you one story which I heard, not from a.

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Michael Berenbaum: Not from the woman, but I heard from a rabbi.

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Michael Berenbaum: rabbi was a rabbi in nashville Tennessee I won't give the year.

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Michael Berenbaum: And he said a couple came to me.

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Michael Berenbaum: To get married.

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Michael Berenbaum: And I met with them, we spoken great length, it was a joyous event.

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Michael Berenbaum: And then the man left and the woman said rob i'd like to see all along.

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Michael Berenbaum: and

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Michael Berenbaum: He said okay.

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Michael Berenbaum: She said I can't get married.

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Michael Berenbaum: And then she lifted up or blouse and showed him that she had been tattooed.

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Michael Berenbaum: Between her breasts.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that is that she had been used as a.

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Michael Berenbaum: What the Japanese referred to as comfort women enforced sexual violence.

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Michael Berenbaum: In one of the camps.

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Michael Berenbaum: And the rabbi.

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Michael Berenbaum: was absolutely startled obviously never happened to him before.

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Michael Berenbaum: And he said three things that were incredibly said number one, you must get married.

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Michael Berenbaum: Number two if you want me to talk to your husband, I will be the one to talk to your husband.

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Michael Berenbaum: your husband to be.

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Michael Berenbaum: And number three I will insist on your tuba that we write the tool.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that is that we treat you as if you have never been married never been touched.

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Michael Berenbaum: And when he recited This to me he had tears in his eyes.

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Michael Berenbaum: And he said, I know I did right.

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Michael Berenbaum: But that gives you an example of it, we are now hearing much more.

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Michael Berenbaum: Interestingly enough, there are two things that we hear about at the end of testimony.

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Michael Berenbaum: Very often, when they asked us to turn off the cameras.

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Michael Berenbaum: We hear of two things that are very difficult to talk about almost impossible talk about.

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Michael Berenbaum: We hear about sexual violence and sexual violation, not only of women, but also men.

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Michael Berenbaum: And we also hear of something else which is we hear of the occasions of cannibalism.

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Michael Berenbaum: And people to this thing that's a part of memory, they can't go to there's a fellow.

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Michael Berenbaum: Who just gave his testimony in one of these holograms that are being used by the shore foundation, you have it at the Museum of Jewish heritage.

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Michael Berenbaum: And he said I was.

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Michael Berenbaum: The boy for the couple.

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Michael Berenbaum: He said and psychologically, I understand by all that i've not done learned elsewhere that I must have been violated.

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Michael Berenbaum: But I can't remember anything about that.

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Michael Berenbaum: anytime I go into the privacy of the couple's room in the barracks I go blind.

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Ari Goldstein: Thank you for those stories Michael what's good give me the chills.

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Ari Goldstein: I want to ask you one more question if you if you have the time someone in the audience in general deems mother was a campus pastor or sister and experience, these networks women supporting each other.

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Ari Goldstein: she's asking whether the campus pastors whose stories you've heard stayed close to each other stayed sisters after the war.

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Michael Berenbaum: I can't give a general answer to that, but I can only say that.

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Michael Berenbaum: They had seen each other at their most vulnerable.

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Michael Berenbaum: And consequently everything else in life was relatively speaking, easy.

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Michael Berenbaum: They also understood that when push came to shove.

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Michael Berenbaum: There was nothing that they would not do for each other.

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Michael Berenbaum: And if you think of that as a quality of human relationship.

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Michael Berenbaum: You don't know that about many people.

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Michael Berenbaum: You can count on more many of us can count on one hand, perhaps if we're lucky.

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Michael Berenbaum: That we know that about anybody about other people and other people know that about ourselves.

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Michael Berenbaum: Those type of friendships that are forged in fury.

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Michael Berenbaum: And forged by fire and by flame and by desperation and by everything else those don't happen easily and lightly.

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Michael Berenbaum: So that's the best that's the best answer I can give them remember some of these women ended up in Australia some ended up in New York, some ended up in Canada some ended up in in in Israel.

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Michael Berenbaum: And some remain.

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Michael Berenbaum: for whatever reasons behind the Iron Curtain so whether an individual.

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Michael Berenbaum: was close to his camp semester.

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Michael Berenbaum: For the rest of your life depended in part on circumstances and some became inseparable.

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Michael Berenbaum: Some became absolutely inseparable Let me close with with with one more story which I didn't get to.

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Michael Berenbaum: And I want to do this for my my.

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Michael Berenbaum: Most, especially the the people at in.

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Michael Berenbaum: Project witness there's a word that I kept hearing in women's testimony called dufka.

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Michael Berenbaum: tosca is a Hebrew word and the Yiddish word.

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Michael Berenbaum: Which means Nevertheless, despite everything.

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Michael Berenbaum: You know, absolute.

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Michael Berenbaum: Several women i've heard described, for example, fasting on Yom Kippur.

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Michael Berenbaum: And they said dufka.

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Michael Berenbaum: We fasted on Yom Kippur not particularly because a because we fasted every day and outfits.

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Michael Berenbaum: But we fasted to show ourselves and to show them, even though they wouldn't be impressed by what we were showing them that even their juice could maintain tradition, even their juice could be faithful to God.

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Michael Berenbaum: And you have another number examples you have.

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Michael Berenbaum: A group of of secular girls quayside secular girls who were in a.

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Michael Berenbaum: slave Labor camp.

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Michael Berenbaum: Who specifically took the fat that they could get in order to create a little bit of wax and let hanukkah candles.

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Michael Berenbaum: And they again use the word dufka.

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Michael Berenbaum: And that's a spirit of defiance.

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Michael Berenbaum: which, in part, showed their humanity.

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Michael Berenbaum: But strengthen their humanity.

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Michael Berenbaum: And all of that helps people to survive.

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Michael Berenbaum: And in this case help people to survive as Jews.

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Ari Goldstein: Michael when we hear from you the rabbi and the doctor in your title both come through so clearly it's it's a joy and a privilege to learn from you, thank you for being with us today.

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Ari Goldstein: Well, Michael I was just i'm not sure if you could hear me, but it was just saying that.

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Ari Goldstein: we're deeply grateful for you, sharing your wisdom with us today, thank you to all of you in the audience for joining museum of Jewish heritage and project witness for michaels lecture today.

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Ari Goldstein: Everything both of our organizations do is made possible through donor support, so we thank those of you who are already generously supporting our work.

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Ari Goldstein: And if you're not and you're interested, you can find links to both of our organizations in the zoom chat share my thanks once again and i'll hand it off to free to alicia keys to close today's Program.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Thank you very much, all right, and thank you, Dr burns down for that enlightening important and extremely moving lecture that I know will definitely stay with me for a long time, and I could safely.

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Frieda Loshinsky: assume that it will stay with everyone in this audience for a very, very long time, it was just absolutely spectacular.

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Frieda Loshinsky: on behalf of project witness We thank the museum for co hosting this event, with us.

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Frieda Loshinsky: To Dr birnbaum to every to everyone involved for everything that you do for Holocaust education, we thank each and every one of you for joining us today, for your continued participation.

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Frieda Loshinsky: And please continue to participate in these types of programs that we can continue offering these types of programs for the for you in general.

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Frieda Loshinsky: Thank you all for joining stay safe stay well.

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Ari Goldstein: Take care of here.