This article foregrounds the long-overlooked sexual violence perpetrated against Jewish women during the Holocaust. It calls for fuller integration of survivors’ testimonies of sexual violence into our understanding of Holocaust history and prompts recognition of the ongoing reality of conflict-related sexual violence today.
The irony is that Germany, which is often hailed as a “model” country for past liquidation by providing compensation to victims of wartime forced labor through government-industry collaboration, did not even include women forced into sexual slavery in the category of victims entitled to such compensation and still does not recognize their legal victim status.
As the history of Women in Black shows, each Women in Black group has its own approach to feminist action, growing out of their local situation, but linked to each other through international theories and conferences.
Being simultaneously vulnerable, damaged, in the midst of anger, yet refusing to be consumed by that anger, courageous, and a fighter is the unique struggle of victims. Paradoxically, victims possess a special dignity in the minute possibility of becoming all of these beings at once.