Jim Colajuta
Over a million Auschwitz dead were Jews, and more than half of them were women. The Auschwitz concentration camp was one of the most horrific places ever conceived of by man, a place of constant torture. The experience was uniquely terrible for women, who were forced into some of the most unimaginable circumstances. Even years later, the mothers who survived couldn’t escape the memory.This book examines eleven memoirs authored by female Jewish Auschwitz survivors to show how complex their experiences in the camp were. Though identical to men’s, only women dealt with sex-specific concerns such as pregnancy, infertility, or amenorrhea. Other experiences, such as shaving their heads, had a different effect on women than on males. Sixty years after their liberation, these women’s experiences in Auschwitz live on through their memoirs, even if the authors have long perished. Individuals who were not in the camps can gain an understanding of what daily life was like for Jewish women through the lens of these testimonies. Each of these people had a one-of-a-kind experience that needs to be remembered and commemorated.
