This paper highlights two groups of Jews, Palestinian prisoners of war and Jewish penitentiary prisoners, who remained largely ‘invisible’ within the Nazi camp system as, unlike Jewish camp inmates, they were not visibly marked by the yellow star and German authorities kept their Jewish identities secret. In the industrial camp complex of Blechhammer in Upper Silesia, Palestinian POWs, Jewish penitentiary prisoners and inmates of the forced labour camp for Jews coexisted for over a year, while three different sets of legal frameworks determined their status and respective treatment: the Geneva Conventions, the Prison Regulations for Poles and Jews and Nazi anti-Jewish legislation.
Compared to the ‘visible’ inmates, the two ‘invisible’ groups had significantly higher survival rates, partly the result of their (temporary) protection from the regime’s annihilationist policy. While the workforce of all three was exhaustively exploited and food was limited, POWs and penitentiary prisoners received better medical attention and, most importantly, did not fall victim to selections for the Auschwitz death camp. However, it also became evident that their ‘invisibility’, the fact that they could not be distinguished from non-Jews, contributed to their survival.
Editorial
S:I.M.O.N. is an e-journal of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI). It appears twice a year in English and German language. S:I.M.O.N. aims at both a transnational and comparative history of the Holocaust and Jewish Studies in Central and Eastern Europe within the broader contexts of the European history of the 20th and 21st century, including its prehistory, consequences and legacies as well as the history of memory.
S:I.M.O.N. serves as a forum for discussion of various methodological approaches. The journal especially wishes to strengthen the exchange between researchers from different scientific communities and to integrate both the Jewish history and the history of the Holocaust into the different “national” narratives. It also lays a special emphasis on memory studies and the analysis of politics of memory. S:I.M.O.N. uses a double-blind review system, which means that both the reviewer’s and the author’s identities are concealed from each other hroughout the review process.
Shoah: The journal deals with the history of the Shoah from multidisciplinary, transnational and comparative perspectives. It seeks to integrate studies on Jews as well as on other groups of victims of the Holocaust, especially on Roma, and of so far less researched regions of (East) Central and (South) Eastern Europe.
Intervention. The journal reports on research projects and their transmission into public events. It also informs about current educational and remembrance programs.
Methods. The journal serves as a forum for the discussion of methodological approaches as, for instance, the everyday history, oral history, gender history, the history of violence, anti-Semitism and racism and the theory of memory and memory politics.
DocumentatiON. The journal contributes to critical approaches on using and interpreting archival materials in the 21st century.
Download the current issue S:I.M.O.N. 2017/2.
Articles
Kinga Frojimovics
Die Beziehung zwischen der Pester Israelitischen Gemeinde und der IKG Wien. Vom ‚Anschluß’ bis zum Beginn der Deportationen 1941
The Relations between the Jewish Community of Pest and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG) from the 'Anschluß' until the Beginning of the Deportations, 1938-1941 In 1938 the Jewish Community of Pest (PIH)] and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien were the two largest Jewish communities of Central Europe. By 1938, the two Jewish communities had cultivated strong relationships with one another for over a century. However, the nature of the relationships between the two Jewish communities had changed drastically in 1938.
As a consequence of the increasingly worsening official anti-Jewish discrimination, ties of social and legal aid had exclusively replaced any other kinds of relationships. Religious life, chiefly issues of kashrut, social aid for members of the community, as well as Emigration from Austria after the 'Anschluß', and issues concerning one’s Hungarian citizenship after the anti-Jewish legislation had been central to the mutual work of extending social and legal aid to one another.
A systematic study of the relationships between the two largest Central European Jewish communities between 1938 and 1941 will enable us to understand how these increasingly adversely influenced central institutions of Jewish life attempted to assist their members and one another during the first phase of the Holocaust. To show how the two communities collaborated and tried to help each other is crucial, since these Jewish institutions are routinely portrayed even in historical works as isolationist bodies that were utterly uninvolved and uninterested in the problems of the Jewish world in general. The study will explore how their ties between 1938 and 1941 (until the beginning of the mass deportation of Viennese Jews) influenced the behaviour of the two communities and their members both in the later phases of the Holocaust and its aftermath. The ties of legal and social aid provided a viable model as well as a context for later patterns of relationships within and also without the Jewish world.
SWL-Reader
Nóra Berend
Jews and the Hungarian State. Integrative and Exclusionary Models from Medieval to Modern Times
In Hungary, official memory and history discourses often distinguish between ‘Jews’ and ‘Hungarians’, harking back to the Horthy-era concept of the ‘Christian national’ state. This dichotomy clashes with modern ideas of citizenship and acts as a carrier of antisemitism. This lecture analyses the role of political authority in fostering integration or exclusion over a long time span. It begins with the attitudes of those holding political power in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages, when the distinction between Jews and Christians was based on religious affiliation. In particular, two processes will be examined: one leading to increased integration, granting protection and rights, and the other promoting segregation, demonisation and hostility. The lecture will then focus on key moments in modern history, exploring the functions of these two contradictory but related processes. It will finally tackle the question of the role of the state in (dis)continuities between medieval exclusion and modern antisemitism.
Events
Miloslav Szabó
Ein ‚antislowakischer' Oscar-Film? Zur Darstellung des Holocaust im tschechoslowakischen Film Obchod na korze
During the clerical-fascist Slovak State, "Tóno" Brtko, a docile and poor carpenter, is offered the possibility to 'aryanise' the small Main Street sewing accessories shop of Rozália Lautmannová. Torn between his good-natured principles and his greedy wife Evelyna, he finally agrees to take over the shop by making the deaf and senile lady believe he is her nephew arriving to help her out. Yet he then discovers that the business is bankrupt, and Ms. Lautmannová is only relying on donations from the Jewish community. While letting his wife believe he is making money from the shop, he gradually becomes a supporter of the old lady. More and more, a cordial relationship between the two evolves. When the Slovak authorities finally decide to deport the Jewish population of the small town, Tóno, in a deep conflict with himself and his values, finally opts for hiding Ms. Lautmannová – a decision which turns into tragedy. Obchod na korze won the 'Oscar' for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966. The film was presented on the occasion of a VWI-Visuals presentation on 29 January 2015 in Vienna's Admiralkino.
Susanne Barth: The ‘Visible’ and the ‘Invisible’ Jews. A Comparative View on the Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners of War, Jewish Penitentiary Prisoners, and Inmates of the Forced Labour Camp for Jews/Auschwitz Sub-Camp in Blechhammer, 1941–1945
„... zu lesen, wenn alles vorüber ist“
Rita Maria Rockenbauer, Briefe 1938 –1942
Wien 2014
Partituren der Erinnerung.
Der Holocaust in der Musik
Scores of Commemoration.
The Holocaust in Music
Wien 2015
Before the Holocaust Had Its Name. Early Confrontations of the Nazi Mass Murder of the Jews
Wien 2016
Akademisches Milieu, Juden und Antisemitismus an den Universitäten Europas zwischen 1918 und 1939
Academic Milieu, Jews and Antisemitism at European Universities between 1918 and 1939
Wien 2016