Journal articles on the topic 'Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)'

In Holocaust studies, Ravensbrück has received special attention along with Auschwitz. The reason is not limited to the fact that Ravensbrück was a women's camp. Ravensbrück in the late period is a suitable place to grasp women's experiences and memories during the Holocaust, as it was a complex camp where the goals of isolation, forced labor, and extermination were implemented at the same time. It is also noteworthy that Ravensbrück was the main target of large-scale rescue operations led by Sweden and Denmark at the end of World War II. The paper first reviews the status and characteristics of the Ravensbrück concentration camp based on the research so far. Next, it deals with the living environment and the solidarity formation of Jewish women in Ravensbrück. Finally, it identifies the patterns and meanings of self-help and resistance activities developed by Jewish female prisoners for survival. The paper argues that the category of resistance in the camps should be interpreted quite widely, taking into account the harsh environment of Ravensbrück. In addition, it emphasizes that Jewish female prisoners should be fully evaluated for continuing their lives in small groups, encouraging each other not to collapse from the inside, and developing self-esteem struggles.

Abstract: The article reflects on the importance of opposing Polish women - prisoners of the German Nazi concentration camp FKL Ravensbrück - to the practices of the German authorities (guards and medical staff of this camp) used against prisoners. One of the forms of opposing the totalitarianism of the Third Reich was secret teaching. At FKL Ravensbrück, female teachers taught fellow prisoners - “the rabbits”. This term was used to describe the women who underwent medical experiments in the camp: 74 Polish women and 12 women of other nationalities. Professor Karolina Lanckorońska found herself in the camp's conspiratorial teaching staff. The source base for the analysis are the war memories of female prisoners, including Dr. Wanda Półtawska and Dr. Urszula Wińska. The summary shows the issue of the protection of values by people subjected - against their will - to life in extreme conditions.

Denisa Nešťákova, Katja Grosse-Sommer, Borbala Klacsmann, and Jakub Drabik, eds., If This Is a Woman: Studies on Women and Gender in the Holocaust, Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2021, 292 pp., $119.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9781644697108. Plachá Pavla, Zpřetrhané životy: Československé ženy v nacistickom koncentračnom tábora Ravensbrück v letech 1939–1945 (Torn lives: Czechoslovak women in the Ravensbrück Nazi concentration camp in 1939–1945), Prague: Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, Puchra, 2021, 496 pp., €34.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9788075640628. Kata Bohus, Peter Hallama, and Stephan Stach, eds., Growing in the Shadow of Antifascism: Remembering the Holocaust in State-Socialist Eastern Europe, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2022, 340 pp., €71.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9789633864357.

The article gives a multifaceted interpretation of the functions of a concentration camp fairy tale from the perspective of folklore studies (i.e. its socio-integrative, aesthetic, didactic/educational, compensatory/cathartic and trauma management functions) and literary studies (strategies of women’s writing about the Holocaust and the war, and the camp testimony). The author analyses the novel Wakacje nad Adriatykiem (1970) and an extended interview Królestwo za mgłą (2017) by Zofia Posmysz, an inmate of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe, who stylised her camp memories as a traditional folk tale, thus commemorating the fairy tales told by her camp friend Zofia Jachimczak, who did not survive Auschwitz. The author comes to the conclusion that a concentration camp fairy tale seems to be a complete genre and a comprehensive structure of meaning that makes it possible to express the inexpressible.

The author analyses the novel Wakacje nad Adriatykiem (Holiday on the Adriatic, 1970) and an extended interview Królestwo za mgłą (The Kingdom Behind the Mist, 2017) with Zofia Posmysz – a prisoner of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe, who stylized her concentration camp memories as a traditional folk tale, thus commemorating the fairy tales told by her camp friend Zofia Jachimczak, who did not survive Auschwitz. The author introduces the concept of a camp fairy tale. In the first part of the article, she analyses the elements of folk fairy tale in Posmysz’s texts (space, time, characters, magical objects). In the second part, the author outlines a definition of a separate prose genre – a camp fairy tale, characterized not only by the adaptation of folk fairy tale motifs to concentration camp realities, but also by the fact that this fairy tale, originally told in the concentration camp, is narrated or written down from memory and recounted to listeners by a former prisoner who gives a testimony of life and death in the camp.

Introduction: The article aims at analysing the influence of beauty on the spirituality of women (in a philosophical sense) and the value of art history education during the secret teaching that women received in the all-female German Nazi concentration camp – FKL Ravensbrück. The clandestine lessons were initiated by the Polish teachers to save fellow prisoners, young Polish women, who were subjected to some criminal medical experiments conducted by the Germans. The researcher examines the role of telling stories about beauty and works of art in the extreme conditions, when the excruciating suffering was cumulating and depriving the prisoners of hope for survival. The author indicates the importance of influencing the listeners’ with the value of beauty contained in the lecturer’s words concerning the works of art and the emanation of her personal spiritual beauty. The research also underlines the role of the ancient method of learning through ekphrasis and emphasizes the therapeutic value of beauty. Method: Analysis of the source documents: the mémoires of the former Ravensbrück inmates and the results of Urszula Wińska’s survey. Conclusions: Attending the secret classes by the Polish women-prisoners (so called “Rabbits”, as they were subjected to the medical experiments) at FKL Ravensbrück and their education in the field of art history and aesthetics provided by prof. Karolina Lanckorońska had a double meaning. On one hand, it allowed the women to survive the camp (ad hoc effect of teaching), and on the other hand, it strengthened their need for a stronger attachment to their Polish roots and returning to the family home. It also boosted their love for the model of social life, in which one is to start one’s own family and protect the lives of its members.

In 1985 one of the earliest memorials dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust was installed in East Berlin. The Monument to the Deported Jews was an arrangement of thirteen bronze figures in expressionist style. Will Lammert, the artist, originally designed the figures for the base of his monument for Ravensbrück in 1957. The artist died in 1957, however, before finalizing his design for the monument. Only two figures on a pylon were installed at the concentration camp in 1959. The figures meant for the base of the Ravensbrück memorial were unfinished, but were nonetheless cast in bronze by the artist’s family. Thirteen of those figures were installed on the Große Hamburger Straße in 1985 by the artist’s grandson, Mark Lammert. This essay analyzes the Große Hamburger Straße monument in three ways: first, it returns to the literature on the Ravensbrück memorial in order to better understand the role that the unfinished figures would have played, had they been installed. I argue that they originally were most likely meant to depict “Strafestehen”—or torture by standing—at Ravensbrück. Secondly, it aims to explain why and how Lammert’s seemingly expressionist memorial would have been acceptable to East Germany in 1959. While Western art historical attitudes toward East Germany up until the 1990s assumed that Soviet socialist realism was the de facto art style of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), some elements of expressionism were being theorized in the late 1950s, at precisely the time when Lammert designed the Ravensbrück monument. Finally, I analyze the role that a monument for Ravensbrück plays in this particular neighborhood of Mitte, Berlin: standing silently, they are no longer legible as women being tortured by standing. Instead, the sculptures signify, at the same time, the deported Jews of Berlin and the harrowing aftermath of their deportations, the improbable return of the deported Jews, and the changing attitudes toward the history of the neighborhood in which the sculptural group is located.

How can museums pass on the remembrances of the survivors of Holocaust in ways that engage visitors? This article looks at the ways museums remember the Holocaust by focusing on an exhibition entitled To Survive - Voices from Ravensbrück at the museum of cultural history, Kulturen, in Lund, Sweden. The exhibition centres on a unique collection of small objects secretly and illegally created by women in the Ravensbrück concentration camp as acts of resistance against the inhuman conditions in the camp. Exhibits on the Holocaust represent a particular tradition of museum pedagogy, associated with the imperative of ‘never again’, often read as an attempt to evoke empathy and responsibility for other human beings. In line with this tradition, the educational aim of To Survive is to encourage the viewers, to be moved to a greater sense of responsibility. The article provides a detailed description of the exhibit, discusses the choice of the museum to tone down the dark aspects of the story, and looks into how the exhibition realizes various appeals to the visitor, but also how it makes some voices mute. As such this article contributes to the ongoing museological discussions of the complexities of putting so-called difficult knowledge on display.Key Words: Museum Pedagogy, Visual Pedagogy, Memory Studies, Holocaust Studies, Difficult Knowledge, Ethical responsibility, Visitor involvement.

This article compares two different approaches to the humanities in general and to anthropology in particular, represented by two renowned French scholars, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) and Germaine Tillion (1907–2008). While Lévi- Strauss emphasized the importance of an objective stance in the humanities and wanted to eliminate all subjectivity, Tillion desired to reserve an exclusive role for subjectivity, preferring human individuals to abstractions. The article suggests looking for the reason for these opposite positions within the disparate experiences the two scholars had during World War II: an American university life for Lévi-Strauss, and “humanist classes” in a German concentration camp for Tillion. A person who had been through the schooling at Ravensbrück could not arrive at the same conception of the field as another whose experiences came from the campus of an American university.

Quand Germaine Tillion et ses compagnes mettent au point leur « opérette-revue » à Ravensbrück, elles choisissent comme support à leurs paroles plusieurs mélodies provenant d’opérettes. Leur choix se porte tout naturellement sur des œuvres importantes dans l’histoire du genre. L’opérette, genre marqué par une certaine oppression dès sa naissance et tout au long de son histoire, se retrouve ainsi étrangement à sa place dans un camp de concentration. Déjà, le titre du Verfügbar aux Enfers fait référence au chef-d’œuvre de Jacques Offenbach, Orphée aux Enfers (1858) et, chacune à sa manière, les autres œuvres citées, soit La fille de Madame Angot de Charles Lecocq (1872), Phi-Phi de Henri Christiné (1918), Ciboulette de Reynaldo Hahn (1923) et Trois valses d’Oscar Straus (1937), marquent des moments importants de l’histoire du genre. Elles mettent en scène des héroïnes délurées, débrouillardes et joyeuses, qui se tirent d’affaire grâce à une intelligence égale et souvent supérieure à celle de leurs comparses masculins. C’est cette force d’évocation qui transparaît dans Le Verfügbar aux Enfers, refuge de femmes dans la tourmente qui ont puisé dans la musique légère la force de survivre.

Wanda Półtawska belonged to the departing generation of „Columbus”. Born in Lublin, where she was deprived of any of youth well-being, she always preferred to use the term “providence” to describe her adolescence. During the World War II she became the victim of medical experiments in concentration camp Ravensbrück. After the war she lived in Cracow. In her search for spiritual consolation from post-camp trauma she encounters a charismatic priest – Karol Wojtyła. This meeting developed into a genuine friendship, crowned with spiritual adoption. Półtawska turned out to be not only a devoted trustee of the bishop Wojtyła, but also his intellectual superstructure. She was and still is a voice of conscience, advocate of marital chastity und relentless defender of conceived life. Throughout her post-war life she was engaged in numerous initiatives created and developed by bishop Wojtyła, such as marriage counselling or Institute for Theology of the Family. After election of cardinal Wojtyła to the Pope she had been called to Rome, where she soon became an expert on the encyclical “Humanae Vitae”. She worked as a lecturer at the Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family, a subsidiary of Pontifical Lateran University. She also became a member of an elite academy Pro-Vita, where a famous event of miraculous healing from a cancer through the intercession of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina took place. She was present at John Paul II’s death bed. She is also known as author of many scientific and popular-scientific papers dealing with pastoral medicine. She was decorated with numerous medals and awards and is still ready to serve despite her age and devastating illness.

In her article, Barbara Czarnecka analyses Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz’s artwork at the concentration camp in Ravensbruck through the prism of somatic personalism. The contemporary discussion on historical matters in the public space is far-reaching and multi-threaded; it is co-created – according to the researcher – by topics not only strictly museum-related, but also those related to unconventional memorial sites, or even memorial (non-)sites in public space, historical tourism and historical restoration movements, historical performance, the role and potential of oral history, contemporary archival work and social archives, visualizations of history and its presence in the media, not only in historical film and radio, but also, for example, comics, popular music, board games and computer games. Nevertheless, the optimistic aspect of most of these activities and perspectives is democratization assuming the inclusion of individual voices, faces and bodies, such as those recorded in the camp works of Simon-Pietkiewicz, in the macrohistory discourse.

This article explores the evolution of research ethics in the protection of human subjects. Included in the examination of research ethics are a brief history of twentieth-century critical incidents in human subjects research, a review of formal efforts to define the values and principles of research ethics, theoretical foundations of ethical research, and relevance to contemporary social work theory, practice, and education.Wisdom is sold in the desolate marketWhere none come to buy.—William BlakeGermany, 1948—Rudolph Helwig sits uncomfortably in the witness chair at the trial of accused Nazi scientists in Nuremberg. He is a young man, barely into his twenties, but he wears a look of perpetual fear upon his face. Helwig is afraid right now, and ashamed. Everyone in the courtroom is watching him. The prosecutor approaches the witness stand. Helwig's eyes dart to the defendants' bench, where rows of older men sit, drowsy and unperturbed. The prosecutor asks Helwig why he had been sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1943. Helwig doesn't know. He is asked if he is mentally retarded. Helwig doesn't know. One of the older men smiles. The prosecutor asks Helwig why he was chosen for Ravensbruck's sterilization experiments. This Helwig knows, “I suppose it was because I could not defend myself.”

Abstract This article sheds light on how gender intersected with the recruitment of three female doctors to Ravensbrück, a concentration camp in the Third Reich designated to intern only women prisoners. The favourable pay on offer, the prospect of permanent positions and their pre-existing affiliation with Nazi organizations led the female doctors to take jobs at the camp. While these women were hired to work at Ravensbrück as a result of the contemporary belief that women physicians were better suited to treating female patients than were male doctors, this gendered medical ideal was increasingly usurped in the camp hospital. Herta Oberheuser, one of the doctors, performed cruel experiments on female prisoners with venereal diseases and conducted humiliating gynaecological examinations on women arriving at the camp. Ultimately, we cannot fully understand the descent into medical malpractice in the hospital—including the types of medical atrocities enacted, who was subjected to them and who perpetrated them—without a detailed gendered analysis that incorporates the female doctors. In demonstrating how contemporary gendered medical ideals were actively violated, this article also asks how significant gender was in a women’s concentration camp.

This paper examines how gender and identity function in the personal memoirs of female Holocaust survivors. The memoirs of Nanda Herbermann and Sara Tuvel Bernstein, two survivors of Ravensbrück, the Nazis' concentration camp for women, are explored as case studies of how feminine gender identity influenced female inmates' experiences and recollections of life in Nazi concentration camps. The different backgrounds of these women, as a German Catholic and a Jew, respectively, also affected their lives as inmates, and influenced how they constructed their personal narratives and identities through memoirs. Thus, gender and other aspects of personal identity intertwined both during their time in Ravensbrück and in their writings of their experiences. Their memoirs, moreover, serve as means of personal empowerment as they rewrote themselves into history on their own terms. These memoirs, therefore, enhance our understanding of the gendered and the personal dimensions of the Nazi concentration camp systems and the Holocaust.

Resumen: Este artículo trata de la memoria colectiva de un campo de concentración nazi para mujeres. El objetivo de este texto es examinar la posibilidad de la construcción de la memoria compartida por las supervivientes del campo de concentración Ravensbrück, sus descendientes y otras personas, principalmente mujeres, dedicadas al trabajo de memoria en torno a este dominio particular. A partir de la teoría social del trauma de Jeffrey Alexander, se presentarán unos ejemplos del intenso trabajo cultural y político necesario para crear un trauma compartido. Con base en el análisis de los datos creados durante la investigación etnográfica multisitio, el artículo explorará los aspectos éticos del proceso de recordar y la fabricación de un trauma colectivo.Palabras clave: Ravensbrück, teoría social del trauma de Jeffrey Alexander.Abstract: This article deals with collective memory of a women’s concentration camp in Nazi Germany. The objective of this text is to examine the possibility of the construction of a shared memory by survivors of the concentration camp Ravensbrück, their descendants and other persons, mainly women, engaged in the memory work around this particular site of memory. Drawing on Jeffrey Alexander’s social theory of trauma, a number of examples of the intensive cultural and political work necessary for creating a shared trauma will be presented. Based on the data created during multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, the article will explore ethical aspects of the process of remembering and the fabrication of collective trauma. Keywords: Ravensbrück, Jeffrey Alexander’s social theory of trauma.

Abstract In the Holocaust’s immediate aftermath (1945–1946), a small gallery in Lund, Sweden exhibited the paintings and drawings of Polish artist Jadwiga Simon-Pietkiewicz, which depicted her former fellow inmates in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. This exhibit and subsequent exhibitions elsewhere in Sweden marked rare instances of early postwar Holocaust art displayed in a country that had been relatively unaffected by the Holocaust. By analyzing the response of the Swedish public and press to the artwork in these exhibits, as well as Swedish and international responses to “atrocity photos” of the liberation, the author broadens our understanding of Holocaust art, early testimonies, and agency and resistance during and after the Holocaust.

This article provides a Swedish perspective on critical memory culture and the use of difficult history in museum education. It is based on a detailed study of the educational resource the Teacher’s Guide, published by the Swedish Museum of Cultural History in Lund named Kulturen in 2006 in connection with their permanent exhibition, To Survive. Voices from Ravensbrück. The Guide shows how women, imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, found ways to resist their situation and overcome their victim position. It also relates to the role Sweden played in the rescue of the women from the camp. First, the article explicates the narrative structure of the guidebook and examines how it characterises the survivors as resistance heroines and presents their story as a story of courage. Then, the article relates the Teacher’s Guide to two contemporary phenomena in Sweden: a governmental educational campaign to raise young people’s awareness of the Holocaust and foster engagement in resistance to present neo-fascism and a historiographical debate taking issue with negative and difficult aspects of Sweden’s involvement in the Second World War. The Teacher’s Guide is discussed based on Aleida Assmann’s concept of self-critical memory culture, Judith Butler’s notion of vulnerability and the concept of difficult history in museum pedagogy. It is argued that by emphasising courage and neglecting vulnerability in its story of resistance, the Guide deprives the audience of the opportunity of responding adequately to the difficult history of surviving the Holocaust as a history of ambiguity. Ultimately, it is argued that the Guide constitutes a hindrance to the emergence of a self-critical memory culture on the Holocaust in Sweden.

Lesbian women experienced unique persecution under National Socialism in Germany despite no specific legal discrimination being placed upon them. Through strict expectations of gender norms, lesbian women experienced oppression leading up to the Second World War, and during the war were heavily targeted and arrested under a wide range of charges. When women didn’t perform their gender roles to the standard expected of them they were socially ostracized, or directly targeted in some cases. The experiences of women in Ravensbrück concentration camp are used to illustrate the mistreatment and directed attacks on sexual minority women. Finally, the author ties together the treatment of women both before and during the war to show that lesbian women, while not persecuted through formal laws, experienced significant trauma under National Socialism through a variety of policies and practices, both social and political.

Szopki, Polish musical nativity puppet plays, were a widespread but relatively unstudied artistic response to Nazi occupation among Polish Catholics in Nazi concentration camps. Polish inmates used the szopki as an opportunity to subvert censorship, as the nativity story is only a small portion of a szopki production. The artist Maja Berezowska and Varsovian actress Jadwiga Kopijowska wrote and performed the Szopka Polska in Ravensbrück in 1942, 1943 and 1944. This article examines the adaption of traditional carols and puppets to facilitate a purposeful recreation of happy and comforting prewar memories in the play. Framing the sharing of positive memories as a form of caretaking builds on scholarship that focuses on less visible resistance, as these activities, especially communal activities led by women, are often overlooked in scholarship in favor of more overt or dramatic actions. The Szopka Polska writers drew strength from representations of childhood and motherhood. Parodied traditional songs and stock szopki scenes promoted Polish heritage and normalcy, using Poland's past triumphs as hope for future liberation. Three puppets, the Soldier, Polish Mother, and Inmate, who attend the nativity, directly address the inmates' World War II experiences, a phenomenon that rarely occurred in other forms of concentration camp theater. These three puppets, the nineteenth-century puppet Wiarus, and a skit for two children who address the puppets on stage promote survival and resistance by modeling productive reactions to oppression.  @font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0in;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-size:11.0pt;mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:Arial;mso-hansi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-ansi-language:EN;}.MsoPapDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;line-height:115%;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}

Wein, Elizabeth. Rose Under Fire. Mississauga: Penguin Random House, 2014. Print.Rose Under Fire is a companion novel to Wein’s bestseller, Code Name Verity. Readers of the first book will be delighted to see the return of some of the characters, including Maddie and Jamie.Rose, a nineteen-year-old pilot fresh from America, joins the Women’s Air Transport Auxiliary in England, shuttling planes to dropoff points for pilots who carry out secret missions in the late summer of 1944. She is on her way back to England from one of these missions to France, when a combination of poor decisions and bad timing leads to her capture by a German pilot. She is sent to Ravensbruck, a women’s concentration camp, where she discovers the shocking and horrifying realities of day-to-day living in cramped and horrifying conditions. With the Germans losing ground almost daily as the war draws to a close, more and more women are brought to this camp in an attempt by the Nazis to reduce the horrific appearances of other, larger camps, such as Auschwitz. Rose and her new friends attempt to use the newfound chaos to their advantage in order to escape the daily executions.The novel is written mainly in the first person in the form of a diary, both before and after Rose’s time in Ravensbruck. The tone seems at times detached and distant, which could be an attempt to show the psychological trauma Rose experienced as a result of her time in Ravensbruck. The change in Rose’s tone goes from that of a naive and hopeful girl at the beginning of the book, to a matter-of-fact and depressed young woman in the middle, to the one of renewed hope and purpose that is found at the end of the narrative. The perspective of a female pilot who is initially unfamiliar with the plight of the camp prisoner is a welcome addition to many other voices explored in the dearth of young adult literature written on this topic.Due to the dark setting of this novel, it is a much more difficult read than its companion, Code Name Verity. The living conditions of the women in this novel are closely based on real-life accounts of Ravensbruck survivors’ testimony, found both in written memoirs as well as recorded evidence against the Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials. Sometimes it is helpful to take a break in the middle of a particularly dark scene in order to collect one’s thoughts and emotions before continuing with the reading. However, the detailed descriptions only further condemn the atrocities that so many endured (and more often perished from) during World War II. This book includes graphic and realistic descriptions of violence, war, and conditions in a World War II concentration camp, which may not appeal to all readers. Recommended for those with an interest in World War II, as well as readers of other books about conditions in concentration camps, such as the Maus graphic novels and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Reviewer: Carlene Slobodian Recommended: 3 stars out of 4Carlene Slobodian is an MLIS candidate at the University of Alberta with a lifelong passion for children’s literature. When not devouring books, she can be found knitting, cooking, or discovering new kinds of tea to sample.

Despite serious attention to the issues of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed on an unprecedented scale in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, the problem of medical experiments on prisoners appears to be one of the least-studied in modern Russian historiography. Moreover, no special attention was paid to testing chemical weapons on humans. The aim of this work is to review the history of the development and testing of chemical warfare agents (CWA) in Germany in 1933–1945. During the First World War, Germany was one of the leading countries in the sphere of military chemistry in the world. After the Versailles treaty this potential was largely lost as a result of the restrictions. After the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) came to power, Germany not only restored, but also increased its military power and achieved a qualitative superiority over its opponents in the field of chemical weapons. The tests of CWA, as well as the study of the effectiveness of the means and protocols for the treatment of the lesions caused by CWA, were carried out both by the military structures of the Wehrmacht and the SS, and by civilian research and academic institutions. Experiments on prisoners were carried out in the concentration camps of Dachau, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler-Struthof, Neuengamme, etc. Basically, the damaging effects of sulfur mustard and phosgene was investigated. In Auschwitz-Birkenau «a study of the action of various chemical preparations was carried out on the orders of German firms». After the war several SS doctors, who performed involuntary experiments on humans, were convicted by military tribunals for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Seven doctors were sentenced to death and executed on June 2, 1948, at the prison for war criminals in Landsberg, Bavaria. As a result of the Nuremberg trials, the Nuremberg Code was drawn up. It was the first international document that introduced ethical standards for scientists engaged in experiments on humans. It consisted of 10 principles, including the necessity of voluntary informed consent of the patient for the participation in medical experiments after providing him with full information about the nature, duration and purpose of the experiment; on the methods of its implementation; about all the perceived inconveniences and dangers associated with the experiment, and, finally, the possible consequences for the physical or mental health of the subject, which may arise as a result of his participation in the experiment.

Si le but premier de l'anthropologie est de faire de notre monde un endroit sans danger pour les différences humaines, tel que l’affirma Ruth Benedict, le génocide, qui a pour but ultime l'élimination systématique de la différence, pose un problème urgent pour la discipline. Au cours des dernières décennies, le rôle et les responsabilités éthiques de l'anthropologue vis-à-vis des groupes auprès desquels il mène ses recherches ont fait l’objet de nombreux débats –dont entre autres ceux conduits par Scheper-Hughes (1995), qui plaide pour un engagement militant des chercheurs au nom d’une responsabilité morale, et d’Andrade (1995), qui argue pour leur neutralité afin de préserver leur objectivité. Toutefois, dans le contexte du génocide, de tels débats n’ont pas leur place, l'anthropologue ne pouvant en être un observateur détaché. L’anthropologie du génocide n’est apparue que vers la fin des années 1990, avec la publication d’Annihilating Difference (2002) de Laban Hinton. Plus généralement, les anthropologues ne s'intéressèrent pas à la violence étatique avant leur intérêt croissant pour le discours et la défense des droits humains, à partir des années 1980. Dès lors, ils s’éloignèrent de l'étude à petite échelle de communautés relativement stables, pour se concentrer sur des objets de plus grande échelle comme l’État, les institutions ou les mouvements transnationaux. Ce changement d’approche eut pour effet de dé-essentialiser le concept de culture, complexifiant du même coup l’analyse des différences humaines et de leur construction et leur réification pour fins d’annihilation. Les approches anthropologiques du génocide en historicisent et contextualisent le concept, en en faisant remonter les origines aux lendemains de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, lorsque les atrocités commises par l'Allemagne nazie furent décrites par Winston Churchill comme « crime sans nom ». Raphael Lemkin, un juriste polonais-juif, inventa le néologisme en combinant genos, le préfixe grec pour « gens », avec cide, le suffixe latin pour « meurtre » (Power 2002). Il fut adopté par le droit international en 1948, via la Convention des Nations Unies sur la prévention et la répression du génocide, qui le définit comme une série d'actes « commis dans l’intention de détruire, ou tout ou en partie, un groupe national, ethnique, racial ou religieux, comme tel ». Bien que les anthropologues n’abordassent pas directement le génocide nazi, beaucoup furent impliqués dans ce dernier. L’anthropologue Germaine Tillion, qui fut internée dans le camp de concentration de Ravensbrück après avoir été capturée comme membre de la résistance française, en publia même une étude ([1945] 2015). Le mouvement d’autocritique de la discipline a amené nombre d’anthropologues à relire, au travers du prisme du génocide, la complicité de leurs prédécesseurs avec les projets coloniaux de l’époque. L'« ethnologie de sauvetage », par exemple, a été dénoncée comme ayant problématiquement eu pour prémisse la disparition inévitable et rapide des peuples autochtones. Nancy Scheper-Hughes (2001) a à ce titre analysé la relation ambivalente qu’eut Alfred L. Kroeber avec Ishi, alors présumé dernier survivant d’un peuple décimé. L'anthropologie biologique et physique a pour sa part été accusée d’avoir accordé une crédibilité scientifique à des idéologies racistes ayant légitimé des génocides, comme ce fut le cas en Allemagne nazie. Plus insidieux est le fait que des théories anthropologiques aient pu être appropriées par des promoteurs de discours de différenciation et d’haine raciale, comme par exemple les théories hamitiques, inspirées des études linguistiques et mythologiques de l’indo-européen, qui furent plus tard mobilisées pour justifier le génocide rwandais. La plupart des études anthropologiques contemporaines sur le génocide en examinent l’après. Les anthropologues se concentrent notamment sur la manière dont les génocides sont remémorés et commémorés, en particulier en termes de construction de « la vérité » dans le contexte de projets dits de « justice transitionnelle », ou en relation avec le legs à plus long terme de cette violence, qui peut toucher plusieurs générations. Ce type d’études se centre généralement sur l’expérience des victimes. Quelques travaux, néanmoins, étudient les origines des génocides, et portent alors leur regard sur leurs auteurs –comme ceux de Taylor (1999) sur le Rwanda, ou de Schirmer (1998) sur le Guatemala– et se penchent sur la question du passage à l’acte et de la responsabilité individuelle (Terestchenko 2005 ; Kilani 2014). Ce type d’études prend ce faisant très au sérieux le problème éthique de la représentation du génocide, tel que le décria Adorno, quand il qualifia de barbare l’écriture de poésie après Auschwitz. Si représenter le génocide se présente comme une injonction morale, demeure le danger de le mystifier ou de le normaliser. C’est pourquoi la plupart des anthropologues qui analysent ce phénomène essaient d’être fidèles à l’appel de Taussig (1984) d’« écrire contre le terrorisme ». Ils reconnaissent toutefois les limites de toute approche compréhensive de ce phénomène, le témoin idéal du génocide, comme l’ont souligné Levi (1989) et Agamben (1999), étant celui qui ne peut plus parler. La définition du génocide continue de faire l’objet de débats importants parmi ses spécialistes, dont les anthropologues. Si les cibles d’un génocide sont généralement perçues comme constituant un groupe ethnique ou religieux aux yeux de ses protagonistes, Lemkin avait initialement prévu d'y inclure les groupes politiques. Or ces derniers furent exclus de la définition de la Convention en raison d'objections soulevées notamment par l'Union soviétique, à l'époque engagée dans l’élimination des présumés opposants politiques au régime stalinien. De nombreux chercheurs continuent de plaider pour que la définition du génocide ne fasse référence qu’à la seule intention d'éliminer des personnes sur la base de leur présumée différence raciale. D'autres, cependant, s’opposent à cette restriction de la définition, suggérant au contraire de l’élargir afin d'y inclure les catastrophes écologiques, par exemple, ou la destruction systématique d'identités culturelles, telle que le projetât le système des pensionnats indiens au Canada (Woolford 2009). Si élargir le sens du génocide risque de diluer sa spécificité au point de le banaliser, reste qu’une définition trop stricte du phénomène peut faciliter la contestation d’allégations de génocide pour quantité de meurtres de masse –et dès lors entraver sa prévention ou punition. C’est pourquoi Scheper-Hughes (2002), par exemple, plaide plutôt pour la reconnaissance de « continuums génocidaires ». Selon elle, démontrer le potentiel génocidaire des formes de violence quotidienne et symbolique par le biais desquelles les vies de certains groupes en viennent à être dévaluées, peut contribuer à la prévention de ce type de violence de masse. Un autre sujet de controverse concerne le particularisme de l'Holocauste, tantôt conçu comme un événement historique singulier qui défie toute comparaison, ou comme un phénomène d’extermination de masse parmi d’autres ayant eu pour précurseurs des génocides antérieurs, comme le génocide arménien. Une autre question est de savoir si un génocide ne peut se produire que dans un contexte où ses victimes sont sans défense, ce qui rendrait dès lors l’utilisation de ce concept inadmissible dans des situations où les victimes ont eu recours à la violence pour se défendre. De nombreux travaux anthropologiques ont d’ailleurs remis en cause la nature exclusive des catégories de victime, d’auteur ou de spectateur dans des situations de violence extrême, et ce étant donnée la « zone grise » identifiée par Levi (1989) et discutée par Agamben (1999) –soit ce matériau réfractaire, dans des situations de violence de masse, à tout établissement d'une responsabilité morale ou légale, l’opprimé pouvant devenir l’oppresseur, et le bourreau, une victime. Ce faisant, la plupart rejettent une conceptualisation purement relativiste du génocide, et dénoncent la mobilisation de ce concept pour justifier des programmes politiques racistes ou anti-immigration – comme c’est aujourd’hui le cas en Amérique du Nord et en Europe, où certains groupes fascistes d’extrême droite revendiquent être les victimes d’un « génocide blanc » pour légitimer des politiques xénophobes. La question de qui a l’autorité de qualifier des actes de violence comme constituant un génocide, et au nom de qui, demeure –tel que le démontre Mamdani (2009) dans sa critique du mouvement « Sauver le Darfour ». Qualifier tout phénomène de violence de masse de « génocide » n'est pas qu’un acte de description. Il constitue d’abord et avant tout une action politique qui implique un jugement éthique.