”Elie Wiesel” Institute`s Journal:
Holocaust. Studii şi cercetări, vol. IX, issue 1(10), 2017
Title: Holocaust. Studii şi cercetări, vol. IX, no. 1(10)/ 2017
Price: 38 lei
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List of Authors
Adina Babeş is a senior researcher at the “Elie Wiesel” National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, and she holds a PhD in Political Sciences from the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration of Bucharest. She is presently working on European Holocaust Research Infrastructure with Horizon 2020-EU funds. Adina Babeş has authored several articles and research studies published in volumes and academic journals, and presented scientific pa- pers during conferences, seminars and round tables. Previously, she held the posi- tion of associated lecturer at the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration of Bucharest. In 2017 she worked as project adviser (trainee) for Erasmus +: Support for Policy Reform key action of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission. E-mail: adinababesh@ yahoo.com
Ana Bărbulescu, PhD in sociology, is a researcher at the INSHR- EW, and an associate professor at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Department of Jewish Studies. She has published nu- merous studies in the fields of antisemitism, nationalism, xenophobia, negation- ism. She is the author of Evreul înainte si după Cristos (Curtea Veche Publishing, 2016) and co-editor, together with Alexandru Florian, of Munca forţată a evreilor din România (Polirom, 2013). E-mail: ana.barbulescu@lls.unibuc.ro
Marius Cazan is a researcher at the “Elie Wiesel” National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. He received a BA from the University of Bucharest,
Department of History in 2009 and an MA from the same institution in 2011. In June 2015, he defended his PhD thesis, entitled The Dynamics of the Urban Habitat in Bucharest (1948- 1989), Constructions, Facilities, Perceptions. He is also a member of the research team of the project “Economic Planning, Higher Education and the Accumulation of Human Capital in Romania during Communism (19481989)”, developed at the Centre for Administrative, Cultural, and Economic Studies, Department of Administration and Business, and financed by the National Research Council. His research areas of interest are the Holocaust in Romania, Romanian communism, urban history, the history of Romanian higher education, the history of everyday life during communism. E-mail: mtcazan@yahoo.com
Tim Kucharzewski is currently a PhD candidate in the field of War & Conflict studies at the University of Potsdam, from which he also received his MA. He gives seminars on democracy, parliament, and other topics at institutions like the Parliament of Brandenburg. Most of these seminars are directed at adolescents. He holds a BA in History and Anglistics/Americanistics from the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn. He has published on the topics of war, terrorism, video games and PTSD, his latest article being: “I, Terrorist” in Responding to Call of Duty. Criticai Essays on the Game Franchise, ed. N. Garrelts (North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., Publishers, 2017), 107-118. E-mail: timkucharzewski@gmail.com
Petre Matei is a historian and researcher at the “Elie Wiesel” National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. Since October 2016 he has taught a course in Roma history at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest. He obtained his PhD in History at the University of Bucharest with a thesis on the 20th century history of the Roma of Romania, and received a Tziporah Wiesel Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the USHMM (2012) with a project on the role of the police in the deportation of Roma to Transnistria. Since 2014 he has coordinated the project “Roma Survivors of the Deportations to Transnistria”, and has conducted numerous interviews with Roma survivors. E-mail: matei.petre.ro@gmail.com
Adele Valeria Messina is a historian of contemporary Europe whose interests revolve around a wide set of arguments about the Holocaust, antisemitism, totalitarianism. She is a member of the Research Laboratory in History, Philosophy, and Politics at Unical, where she received her doctorate in “Politics, Society and Culture” in 2013, and of the Central European History Society (2017). Her American Sociology and Holocaust Studies: The Alleged Silence and the Creation of the Sociological Delay (Boston: ASP, 2017) offers original insights on the nature of American sociology with implications for post-Holocaust sociology development. E-mail: adelevaleria@gmail.com
Catherine Mooney is currently completing a PhD at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, on “Understanding and Judgement in ‘The Grey Zone’ Moral Ambiguity and the Holocaust”. She holds an MA in Politics/Economics and an MLitt in Philosophy from the University of Glasgow. Mooney is author of “Ethics of the Grey Zone”, in A. Chapman and M. Vuohelainen, Eds., Interpreting Primo Levi: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. E-mail: mooney@post.bgu.ac.il
Silvia-Lucretia Nicola is a Romanian-born researcher, focusing on Conflict Research and Dealing with the Past. She holds a BA in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin and the University of Granada, as well as an MA in Military History and Sociology from the University of Potsdam. Silvia is also giving seminars for young people on topics such as, but not limited to, diversity, intercultural communication, or prevention of right-wing extremism in Europe. Silvia has published several articles regarding the MENA region and Afghanistan, her latest being: “Timeline: The Middle East and Palestine in Selected Data”, in G. Gurbey/S. Hofmann/F.I. Seydar [Eds.], Between State and Non-State: Politics and Society in Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine, Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2017. E-mail: silvia.nicola27@gmail.com
David Patterson is a winner of the National Jewish Book Award and Koret Jewish Book Award, he has published more than 35 books and more than 200 articles, essays, and book chapters on various topics in literature, philosophy, the Holocaust, and Jewish studies. His most recent books include The Holocaust and the Non-Representable (2018); Antisemitism andIts Metaphysical Origins (2015); Genocide in Jewish Thought (2012); and A Genealogy of Evil: Antisemitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad (2011). E-mail: david.patterson@utdallas.edu
Ruth Reches is a lecturer and a PhD student at the Institute of Psychology, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania. Her major interests include the traumatic experience of the Holocaust, trauma, and resilience. E-mail: ruthreches@gmail.com
Arye Schreiber has an MBA from Stanford University and a BA from the University of Cambridge. He is a corporate and commercial lawyer, with emphasis on privacy and data protection, and proven executive leadership experience in tech companies. Schreiber has an extensive track record of initiating and leading strategic deals, being involved in over $1B of tech M&A. He has a strong blend of varied real-world law and tech execution with excellent commercial and legal training. E-mail: arye@schreiberlaw.co
Jolanta Sondaite is a professor of Psychology at Mykolas Romeris University. She received her doctorate in Psychology from the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences & Vilnius University. Her research interests include conflicts, relationships, identity, and subjective experiences. She is mostly doing qualitative research. E-mail: jsondait@mruni.eu
Alina Tăriceanu holds a PhD in Political Science and is an associated lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, in the Department of Hungarology, Jewish Studies and Romani. The gender perspective of Judaism represents one of her major research interests, concretized in an academic course on Feminine models of the Hebrew Bible. E-mail: tariceanu_alina@yahoo.com
Iulian Warter is Founder and President of the Center for Socio-Economic Studies and Multiculturalism in Iasi, Romania (http://csesm.warter.ro/). He holds a PhD in Intercultural Management. He is the author/co-author of several articles and book chapters on: the economic implications ofthe Holocaust, business ethics and Judaism, intercultural management, intercultural negotiation. E-mail: iulian@warter.ro
Liviu Warter is Founder and Vice President of the Center for Socio-Economic Studies and Multiculturalism in Iasi, Romania (http://csesm.warter.ro/). He holds a PhD in Intercultural Management. He has published several articles and book chapters on: the economic implications of the Holocaust, business ethics and Judaism, cross-cultural management, intercultural synergy. E-mail: liviu@warter.ro
Abstracts
MARIUS CAZAN
Abstract
This article brings into light new information about some episodes of the Bucharest pogrom which have not been sufficiently documented, so far. Due to documents found by the author in spring of 2016 in the archives of the National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives (CNSAS), this paper focuses on the use of criminal cases for the conviction of those who participated in the legionary rebellion, in January 1941. Many of these people were investigated and prosecuted for crimes committed against Jews. The newly discovered archive documents open different paths of research and make it possible to launch new assumptions about the perpetrators. The article displays the variety of offenses they committed during the pogrom, as well as the different fates of the perpetrators.
Keywords: Holocaust perpetrators, Legionary Movement, Bucharest pogrom, legionary rebellion, Mircea Petrovicescu
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591347
PETRE MATEI
Abstract
Articolul îşi propune să înţeleagă cum s-a ajuns ca un orăşel precum Piteştiul să deporteze, în septembrie 1942, peste o mie de romi (cel mai mare număr de romi deportaţi dintr-o singură localitate). Pentru aceasta, este necesar să nu ne limităm strict la ce s-a întâmplat în perioada deportărilor, ci să analizăm istoricul comunităţii rome din Piteşti pentru o perioadă mai lungă. Riscul de a se ajunge la deportări era mai mare acolo unde existau tensiuni mai vechi şi presiuni pentru rezolvarea acestora atât din partea populaţiei civile, cât şi din partea autorităţilor locale precum primăria sau poliţia. De asemenea, dacă, din varii motive, acestor probleme nu li se găsiseră remedii adecvate în timp de pace, treptat se va acumula o presiune care va exploda în noul context al politicii regimului Antonescu faţă de romi. Practic, pentru a-şi rezolva propriile probleme cu romii, autorităţile locale profită de criteriile foarte vagi pentru clasificarea aşa-zişilor „ţigani-problemă“, forţându-le limitele. Apare astfel un spaţiu de manevră foarte mare pentru poliţişti şi jandarmi în a stabili cine sunt cei periculoşi şi deportabili, chiar şi fără ca aceştia să se fi făcut vinovaţi de vreo infracţiune. Piteştiul se distinge de celelalte localităţi prin marele număr de romi deportaţi. La aceasta au contribuit: 1) ponderea însemnată a romilor în ansamblul populaţiei; 2) concentrarea romilor în anumite zone ale oraşului, situate relativ central; 3) existenţa unor tensiuni mai vechi faţă de romi; 4) relaţia specială a lui Ion Antonescu cu Piteştiul.
Keywords: romi, deportări, radicalizare, poliţie, Ion Antonescu
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591359
The Romanianization Policies and their Socio-Economic. Implications: A Dark Chapter of the Holocaust
LIVIU WARTER, IULIAN WARTER
Abstract
The mass murder of as many as 6 million Jews in the Holocaust during the Second World War was one of the main shocking events of the 20th century. The Holocaust unquestionably had many diverse cultural, social, and psychological effects, many of which have been studied by scholars. Notwithstanding, it appears that the socio-economic consequences of the Holocaust for long-term economic development have not previously been examined in depth. In order to create a productive middle class part of an ideal society based on ethno-nationalism, the Antonescu regime (1940-1944) pursued Romanianization – a policy of excluding “foreigners”, especially Jews, from the economic domain, through property and business seizure and exclusion from employment. Romanianization was a manifestation of greediness, corruption, opportunism, antisemitism and ethno-centered policy, the government’s central domestic project under Ion Antonescu. Given the fact that such particular implications of Romanianization were insufficiently explored, in both Romanian and European socio-economic literature, it is scientifically relevant to properly investigate the emergence and development of Romanianization by taking into account its individual manifestations. In this article we investigate some of the socio-economic implications of the Romanianization policies, a dark and insufficiently researched chapter of the Holocaust.
Keywords: Romanianization, Aryanization, Holocaust, Romania, Second World War
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591372
ANA BĂRBULESCU
Abstract
This paper tums toward the work of a well-known figure of interwar Romania, Nichifor Crainic, and aims to point out the powerful connection that seems to exist between the symbolic frame he constructs to define Romanian identity and the social and political systems he proposes for this imagined community. As constructing identity means both including what is perceived as similar and excluding what is defined as different, a second emphasis will be put on the antisemitic discourse Crainic develops and its consonance with the essentialist view he proposes.
Keywords: Romanianhood, essentialist identity, autochthonous spirit, antisemitism
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591299
ADINA BABES
Abstract
The past few decades witnessed an increase and diversification of racism, xenophobia and hate crimes. The social online space is just one of the most recent examples. In this article I discuss the decisions and initiatives the European Commission made concerning this, how they were approached by the Member States, what are the latest discussions and solutions are, and how racism, xenophobia and hate crimes could be prevented and combated. A special focus will be placed on antisemitism.
Keywords: racism, xenophobia, hate crimes, antisemitism, European Commission, Romania
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591295
ADELE VALERIA MESSINA
Abstract
This article is an effort to improve our picture of the post-war scholarly approach to Nazism and the Holocaust. Its aim is twofold: the work will deal with the specific topic of the Holocaust and with the relevance of the EBSCO database in unearthing less-known writings about the Holocaust. It discusses how digital tools are suitable to investigate the changes of Holocaust history in the digital era; and to re-write some features of the destruction of the Jews in Europe. It provides an overview of representative post-Holocaust sociological texts, addressing how the handling of electronic tools and open access to full-texts affects research productivity and changes consolidated schools of minds. A special attention will be given to Everett C. Hughes’s productivity (how many written works the scholar has produced), his visibility (how many times the name of the author appears in articles and reviews on EBSCO), and also his degree of appreciation in post-Holocaust sociological works (calculated based on the number of citations that the academic environment has reserved for him). Hughes’s academic activity in the Chicago School will show us that the notion of a sociological delay in confronting the Holocaust is erroneous. In conclusion, a set of situations (political, academic, and cultural) constituted a tradition of missing scholarship in post-Holocaust sociology. The delay was not due to a lack of scholarship, but rather to a reticence to support the work of scholars like Hughes. This contribution seeks to show how it is proper to readdress the problem of accessing archives.
Keywords: Antisemitism, EBSCO database, “Good People and Dirty Work”, Holocaust, sociological delay
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591317
ARYE SCHREIBER
Abstract
European data privacy laws arose largely in reaction to the horrors of authoritarian rule generally, and the Holocaust specifically. Privacy and data protection have consistently been a barrier to Holocaust justice. The Data Theory of the Dutch Holocaust, widely cited as a justification for EU data protection law, has long served as a smokescreen for extensive collaboration with the Nazis. The largest Holocaust archive was inaccessible to victims and researchers for decades, principally on account of privacy considerations. Privacy prevented publication of indictments of Auschwitz SS, and served as principle grounds for non-cooperation of banks and insurance companies in restitution of property of Holocaust victims and survivors. The EU’s new data protection regulation (GDPR) and its new Right to be Forgotten threaten to pose further challenges to Holocaust research, and bold legal positions may need to be taken in order to avoid Holocaust research being stifled, as several approaches are analysed. Holocaust justice has been central in informing legal responses to other atrocities. For all its importance, data protection law must not be allowed to prevent justice in human-rights abuses, nor to prevent proper research and victims’ healing.
Keywords: Privacy, data protection, archives, GDPR
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591301
DAVID PATTERSON
Abstract
This article explores the ethical implications of viewing the photographs from Holocaust archives by posing several questions. Does viewing such photographs ultimately render us numb? Do we add to the humiliation of the victims in the photographs by gazing upon these images? Or do the demands of history, memory, and testimony require us to view such archival material? The article argues that, while viewing the photographs is a necessary part of engaging the Holocaust, we can never do so without incurring a measure of guilt. Therefore delving into this research is always ethically charged. Elie Wiesel once invoked to me Lot’s wife, saying that the transgression that transformed her into a pillar of salt was to rob the victims of the privacy of their suffering and humiliation, and therefore of their dignity as human beings. If the Nazis set out to murder souls before they destroyed bodies – if they systematically tortured and humiliated the Jews before murdering them – then we must be very careful about adding to the crime by gazing upon the victims. Indeed, such a gaze can have something of “a Nazi gaze” about it, whether the imaged was photographed by Nazis or not.
Keywords: Holocaust, archives, photographs
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591331
RUTH RECHES, JOLANTA SONDAITE
Abstract
The current study analyzes how Holocaust survivors coped with different painful situations in their lives during the Holocaust through identification of factors of resilience to the trauma they experienced. Four female and six male survivors were included in the survey. Each informant experienced life in a ghetto or concentration camp at age eight or above. A semi-structured interview was used to gather data. Thematic analysis was used to achieve the goal. Themes were formulated to describe protective factors which Holocaust survivors said enabled them to survive the war. Among the major resilience factors identified were social support (help received from close relatives, help received from other people); changes in values (changes of attitude towards people, life and God); circumstance (“miracles”, coincidence); integration of experience (acceptance of fate, sharing experiences with others) and self-reliance (self-efficacy). Our research suggests both external (social support and circumstances) and internal factors (changes in values, integration of traumatic experience and self-reliance) determine resilience to trauma by Holocaust survivors.
Keywords: Holocaust, resilience, psychological trauma, external factors, internal factors
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591370
CATHERINE MOONEY
Abstract
I will explore the ways in which Primo Levi’s concept of “the grey zone” is expressed in some of the literary and testimonial responses to the Holocaust. I hope to demonstrate that readings of testimonial literature are enriched by an awareness of the ways in which certain moral issues are expressed throughout the testimonial literature. The first text that I examine is Primo Levi’s own Story of a Coin (1981). I demonstrate that in Story of a Coin Levi takes, almost verbatim, a popular and distinctly negative portrayal of Chaim Rumkowski, and adds to that particular portrayal a moral message about the vulnerability of human character to the allure of evil. The second text that I look at is Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (1959). With this text I explore the ways in which “moral luck” frames the experience of the characters in two of Borowski’s short stories. I suggest that the concept of circumstantial moral luck allows us to appreciate one aspect of the nuanced moral message that Borowski’s stories contain. The final text that I will look at is We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz (2005). In this final section I approach the highly sensitive issue of the moral status of the Sonderkommando. I examine the testimonial accounts of three members of the Sonderkommando, paying close attention to the ways in which these individuals conceived of the moral dimension of their experience. I suggest that the concept of “tragic ethics” allows for a nuanced discussion of the ethical ambiguity that surrounds the Sonderkommando.
Keywords: Moral, testimony, grey zone, Primo Levi
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591327
ALINA TĂRICEANU
Abstract
Articolul analizează memoria socială a Holocaustului din Transnistria din perspectiva de gen. Modalitatea în care femeile evreice îşi amintesc experienţa Holocaustului este întrebarea centrală în jurul căreia este circumscris demersul de cercetare. Plasându-se în interiorul paradigmei cognitive a sociologiei şi investigând memoriile şi mărturiile supravieţuitorilor Holocaustului, articolul demonstrează că amintirile femeilor despre Transnistria redau doar o parte din experienţa socială a acestui fenomen şi reprezintă o optică, la fel de validă ca altele, asupra genocidului.
Keywords: gen, sociologie cognitivă, memorie socială, Holocaust, socializare mnemonică
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591312
TIM KUCHARZEWSKI, SILVIA-LUCRETIA NICOLA
Abstract
This study compares the education policies regarding the Holocaust and the Second World War in the German Democratic Republic and Romania starting with the communist times (1948-1989) and continuing up to the present. In order to do so, the article contrasts history textbooks and other curricular materials. Throughout the analysis, several phases of the process of Dealing with the Past have been identified for both cases. Some of the phases during the communist times have shown a broad spectrum of similarities between the two case studies, due to the comparable political, societal and ideological paradigms of the respective regimes, which had profoundly coined the historiography in use. Notable differences are registered with regard to the initial individual phase of history teaching in the 1950s, where the GDR, for (geo-)political reasons, tackled the topic of the Holocaust, even if only in ideologically tainted terms in order to expose West Germany as the allegedly only successor state of the Third Reich. Holocaust atrocities are, on the other hand, almost entirely absent in the Romanian textbooks of the same period. Another striking difference became evident during the transitional phase from communism to democracy. While East Germany had to immediately integrate into the Federal German educational paradigms regarding the Holocaust, Romania struggled with different contentious transitional phases, before acknowledging the involvement of the nation in the crimes of the Holocaust. The study concludes with recommendations for the teaching of the Holocaust, which address some previously identified shortcomings.
Keywords: Holocaust, Romania, Germany, textbooks, communism
https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=591333