This volume opens with a memorial article written by Dan Stone in honor of Lawrence Langer who passed away in January 2024. Langer was the Alumnae Chair Professor of English emeritus at Simmons University. He made a significant contribution to the field of Holocaust Studies, in particular to understanding the importance and dynamics of Holocaust Survivor Testimony, a subject that has expanded and deepened over the past few decades. Langer’s contribution pioneered an empathic and multi-layered understanding of testimony and emphasized the importance of testimony in the study of the Holocaust.\
The first article in this volume “‘I Can’t Write’: Requests for Assistance Addressed to the Jewish National Committee in Warsaw, 1943–1944”, is by Barbara Engelking and examines some 150 letters from Jews in hiding in Poland, mainly in Warsaw, who were being helped by the Jewish National Committee and Żegota; they were addressed to the Jewish National Committee asking for financial assistance. The documents are part of Adolf Berman’s collection, which he deposited in the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum Archive. While the author does not claim that these letters are representative of the state of mind of the 15,000–25,000 Jews hiding in Warsaw, they do bring to light many of the issues that these Jews faced. The next two articles relate to the relationship between history and memory. The first piece is by Fábio Koifman and Rui Afonso: “The Legality of the Visas Issued by the Brazilian Consulate in Hamburg, 1938–1939.” The authors argue against the claim that Ms. Aracy Moebius de Carvalho, who was honored as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1982, worked to obtain illegal visas for Jews who were attempting to flee Nazi rule. Based on newly uncovered documentation from the archives of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the authors argue that she and her superiors in the Brazilian consulate in Hamburg followed existing Brazilian regulations in 1938–1939, and reported to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry on every Jewish person to whom a visa was issued. This research is important in that it highlights how new materials and sources challenge previous conceptions. The next article is written by Kenneth H. Marcus, Marlou Schrover, and Simon Erlanger. “Remembering World War II Concentration Camps: Dutch Memorials and Transitional Justice” provides a clear review of the history and memorialization of three former Nazi camps in the Netherlands (Vught, Amersfoort, and Westerbork), which have been developed as memorial sites in recent decades. In this article the authors seek to argue that these “memorial camps” serve purposes not merely of commemoration and instruction but also of “transitional justice.” The last article, “Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem in Theresienstadt: Music of Succor,” is written by Efrat Buchris. Coming from the discipline of musicology, she discusses music during the Holocaust and its role in healing, protest, and contributing to survival.
The reviews in this issue cover a range of topics. The first review is by Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov on Anne-Christin Klotz’s work Gemeinsam gegen Deutschland: Warschaus jiddische Presse im Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus (1930–1941). Klotz’s book was a noted finalist in the Yad Vashem 2023 International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. Guy Miron reviewed Sebastian Huebel’s Fighter, Worker, and Family Man: German-Jewish Men and Their Gendered Experiences in Nazi Germany, 1933–1941. Arkadi Zeltzer examined Albert Kaganovitch’s Exodus and Its Aftermath: Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Interior; Gideon Reuveni reviewed Rachel Blumenthal’s Right to Reparations: The Claims Conference and Holocaust Survivors, 1951–1964, and the last review is contributed by Dariusz Stola, who appraised Yehiel Weizman’s Unsettled Heritage: Living Next to Poland’s Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust. Weizman’s work was given a special mention in the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research of 2023.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank James McIntosh for the years he has given to Yad Vashem Studies. James has been an outstanding staff member and is responsible for the excellent quality of this publication. We will miss him, but wish him well in his future endeavors. We welcome to our team Hailey Dilman Sharon who will be replacing James as our production editor for the journal and wish her every success in her new role.
In closing I would like to relate to the fact that this issue was compiled in the midst of the war that broke out on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’ attack on Israel. The ensuing war has resulted in the loss of life, destruction of property, displacement, and emotional suffering for many innocent civilians. It is my fervent hope that when we meet again our hostages will be no longer be in captivity and that the war will be over.
Sharon Kangisser Cohen
Abstract
In this article the author analyzes requests for help written by Jews hiding in Warsaw on the "Aryan" side in 1943-1944. Written sometimes on scraps of paper, they described the extremely difficult situation of those in hiding and were addressed to people who organized help. The correspondences preserved in the Berman Archive in Kibbutz Lohamei ha-Gettaot were addressed to the Jewish National Committee.
Abstract
Over the last few decades, the Brazilian consulate in the German city of Hamburg has come to be associated with having granted irregular visas to Jews, especially in the period immediately following Kristallnacht, between November 1938 and March 1939. This article is an analysis of these visas, which enabled many persecuted Jews to leave Germany. By examining the legislation, studying the ministerial circulars, and looking at the orders issued by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in addition to a comparative study of the day-to-day practices of other Brazilian consulates in Europe during the same period, the authors show that the visas issued in Hamburg followed standard consular procedures and the rules that had been established by the Brazilian government.
Abstract
One way of understanding the decimation of the Jewish community in the Netherlands, which suffered the highest proportional loss of its Jewish population of all West European countries, is by analyzing the memorials at concentration camp sites, which is a growing area of Holocaust studies. In what Harold Marcuse calls “a new genre of commemorative art,” modern memorials at camps differ from pre-World War II memorials by offering new types of symbols, forms, and materials to explain war crimes and the trauma of the victims. In a comparative analysis, this article focuses on the three largest Dutch camps: Westerbork, Vught, and Amersfoort, which have adopted innovative ways of documenting, illustrating, and explaining Nazi war crimes and Dutch collaboration. The authors argue that these sites—what James Young calls “memorial camps”—serve purposes not merely of commemoration and instruction but also of transitional justice, a UN concept of coming to terms with atrocities and trauma.
Abstract
Verdi's Requiem, which was performed by Jewish prisoners in Theresienstadt, inspires a multi-dimensional discussion on the function of art and music in a variety of contexts. The article seeks to address the ghostly contrast between the ghetto conditions and sublime poetry. The creation of music during the Holocaust, known as "health musicking," can be understood as a form of self-healing through the use of music without a professional therapeutic framework. The multi-dimensional suffering brought about the possibility of therapeutic proprieties of the music, which would not have come to light under normal circumstances. The article details these aspects and shows that their existence explains the claim of the prisoner-musician Victor Ullman that his imprisonment in Theresienstadt only helped his art. Ullman composed and created music while surveying the process from a distant vantage point. Therefore, without his knowledge, his thoughts heralded the establishment of music therapy as a scientific tool, a process that began to be developed after World War II. Ullman's thoughts are contrasted with Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of needs, which assumes that basic environmental conditions are necessary for the development of spiritual life. The article adopts the conclusion that "man cannot live by bread alone," thereby challenging Maslow's theory. This is further supported by the testimonies of survivors, including the survivors of the "Requiem choir."
Reviews
Anne-Christin Klotz, Gemeinsam gegen Deutschland: Warschaus jiddische Presse im Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus (1930–1941)
Abstract
This review examines Anne-Christin Klotz’s debut book Gemeinsam gegen Deutschland: Warschaus jiddische Presse im Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus (1930–1941). It discusses a number of issues relevant to the transnational history of knowledge, media studies, and Jewish/Holocaust studies. Focusing mostly on the periods of 1933–1934 and 1938–1939, the author marshals an impressive collection of sources, mostly archival documents and press coverage in Yiddish, to show the role played by Jewish journalists and correspondents in transferring knowledge on Nazi Germany, shaping ways in which the Yiddish press wrote about antisemitism and National Socialism, and organizing a political protest movement against the events in the Third Reich.
Sebastian Huebel, Fighter, Worker and Family Man: German-Jewish Men and their Gendered Experiences in Nazi Germany, 1933–1941
Abstract
In this book Sebastian Huebel provides a gender analysis of German Jewish history under the Nazi regime known as "history of masculinities." Huebel argues that the Jewish masculinity in Nazi Germany must be tested not only against the experience of Jewish women—a history which already exists within historical research—but also against the stereotypical masculine perspectives that were present in German society at that time. The book traces the process of Jewish men's relegation to the margins of German society and their exclusion from the dominant concepts of masculinity. The book sheds light on the different reactions expressed by Jewish men to this process and, in doing so, illustrates their "agency"; thus documenting their resistance to the larger pressures.
The book's six chapters focus on a variety of issues, including the exclusion of Jews from "military masculinity"; antisemitic discourse that presented Jewish men as "race defilers"; the damage to the Jewish man's status as breadwinner; and the inner changes that took place within the daily life of men and their families as both spouses and fathers. The final two chapters of the book show how Jewish men were exposed to Nazi violence both in everyday life as well as in the concentration camps, and therefore illuminates the consequences of becoming victims based on a specific gender identity.
Albert Kaganovitch, Exodus and Its Aftermath: Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Interior
Abstract
The review examines Albert Kaganovich's interpretation of the modes of adaptation of evacuated Jews in the Soviet interior in 1941–1944. By drawing on numerous and diverse sources, the author creates a favorable background for the study. Another virtue of this research is the attempt to situate the subject within the broader historical context, and the analysis of the problem within the framework of the interaction of various cultures. However, the book also contains its share of questionable assertions, especially when it comes to numerical estimates. The study pays insufficient attention to Jews who were part of organized evacuations, and to Jews who belonged to the Soviet elite. The book offers an important and detailed account of the hardships of the evacuation. Yet we are still left with the question: Does the exclusively negative information reflect the historical reality?
Rachel Blumenthal, Right to Reparations: The Claims Conference and Holocaust Survivors, 1951–1964
Abstract
Established at the end of 1951, the Jewish Claims Conference emerged as a pivotal umbrella organization, initially bringing together representatives from twenty-three Jewish organizations, with the sole purpose of securing reparations from Germany. Rachel Blumenthal's book Right to Reparations offers an in-depth exploration of this crucial entity, which significantly shaped Jewish life after the Holocaust. Highlighting the Claims Conference’s efforts to obtain compensation for Jewish victims of National Socialism dispersed worldwide, Blumenthal illustrates the unique role the Claims Conference played in filling a gap in state-to-state relations. As a nongovernmental body advocating for a transnational community, it pioneered a novel form of activism that encompassed all Jewish denominations and remained, at least officially, politically neutral. This activism was not merely focused on protecting Jewish interests, but engaged in struggling for Jewish rights. In this sense the Claims Conference was an example of how a private organization succeeded in putting the issue on the world agenda and spurring substantial changes in German policy regarding compensation for non-resident victims.
Yehiel Weizman, Unsettled Heritage: Living Next to Poland's Material Jewish Traces after the Holocaust
Abstract
Thanks to his extensive research in regional Polish archives and the perceptive reading of the sources there, Yehiel Weizman offers us new insights into the history of the “post-Jewish” property in Communist Poland and into the broader history of the country. In particular the book rightly points at the early nationalization of Jewish communal property. This nationalization was the least researched part of the Communists’ great ownership revolution, and remained in the shadow of larger and more pronounced property transfers. The variety of local attitudes and practices toward the property shows that Communist Poland was less centralized in its treatment of the relics of the Jewish past than we usually assume. In turn, the evolution of these attitudes in the 1970s and 1980s shows the importance of Poland’s relative openness to the West, as well as to new ideas about the heritage, and new local actors who helped protect what was left of the Jewish traces.
