| dc.description.abstract | In 1943, the New York Times ran an article titled “93 Choose Suicide Before Nazi Shame.” The article described the story of ninety-three Bais Yaakov girls, Orthodox schoolgirls, in a Polish ghetto who committed suicide to avoid forced prostitution at the hands of Nazi soldiers. Similarly, in the immediate postwar era, House of Dolls told the story of a prostitute in a Nazi brothel who commits suicide to restore her honor and dignity. Whether these are true tales or pious fiction, both stories resonated with Israeli society as they exemplified heroism and rebellion. This paper examines the direct conflict these myths had with individual testimonies and memories. By juxtaposing the myth of the 93 with sexual violence that took place in the ghettos and House of Dolls with what occurred in the camps, this article argues that these stories simplified the multiple layers of complexity of sexual violence in both locales. In reality, Jewish women faced sexual violence such as rape, barter, and sexual humiliation at the hands of German and non-German perpetrators. Stories like the 93 and House of Dolls created a dominant image that did not align with women’s experiences of sexual and sexualized violence. These forms of media contributed to popular Israeli memory of the Holocaust by making these women active resisters of this form of violence. By transforming these women into heroes, Jewish women who did not “resist” this form of violence felt shame and were ultimately silenced. Overall, sexual violence in Holocaust literature paradoxically crafted a dominant narrative in popular discourse while simultaneously contributing to a public silence of the complexities and nuances of women’s experiences and memories. | |
