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.
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.