Different Horrors, Same Hell brings together a variety of essays demonstrating the breadth of contributions that feminist theory and gender analysis make to the study of the Holocaust. The collection provides new perspectives on central works of Holocaust scholarship and representation, from the books of Hannah Arendt and Ruth Klüger to films such as Claude Lanzmann's Shoah and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. Interviews with survivors and their descendants draw new attention to the significance of women's roles and family structures during and in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and interviews and archival research reveal the undercurrents of sexual violence within the Final Solution. As Doris Bergen shows in the book's first chapter, the focus on women's and gender issues in this collection "complicates familiar and outworn categories, and humanizes the past in powerful ways."
Myrna Goldenberg is professor emerita, Montgomery College, Maryland, and founding director of the Paul Peck Humanities Institute at Montgomery. Amy Shapiro is professor of philosophy and humanities at Alverno College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Other contributors include Karen Baldner, Doris Bergen, Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Britta Frede-Wenger, Mary J. Gallant, Gaby R. Glassman, Dorota Glowacka, Bjšrn Krondorfer, Rochelle L. Millen, and David Patterson.
Foreword by Elizabeth Minnich Introduction Myrna Goldenberg and Amy H. ShapiroPart I. History of Feminist Theory and Gender: Analysis of the Holocaust1 What Do Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Contribute to Understanding the Holocaust? Doris L. Bergen2 Philosophy in the Feminine and the Holocaust Witness: Hannah Arendt and Sarah Kofman 38Dorota Glowacka3 Simone Weil: A French-Jewish Intellectual Journey in the 1930s and 1940s Rochelle L. Millen4 Patriarchy, Objectification, and Violence against Women in Schindler’s List and Angry Harvest Amy H. Shapiro5 Sex-Based Violence and the Politics and Ethics of Survival Myrna GoldenbergPart II . Practice of Feminist Theory and Gender: Analysis of the Holocaust6 From Pulp to Palimpsest: Witnessing and Re-Imagining through the Arts Björn Krondorfer in collaboration with Karen Baldner7 The Nazi Assault on the Jewish Soul through the Murder of the Jewish Mother David Patterson8 Wiedervereiningung Ersehend: Gender and the Holocaust Fate of the Müller and Gittler Families Suzanne Brown-Fleming9 The Kindertransport: Gender and the Rescue of Jewish Children 1938–39 Mary J. Gallant10 Survivor Mothers and Their Daughters: The Hidden Legacy of the Holocaust Gaby R. Glassman11 Talking to Ruth Klüger Britta Frede-WengerSelected Bibliography Contributors Index
"The book's contributions come from a formidable, impressive, and multigenerational group of Holocaust scholars. With its interdisciplinarity and international perspectives, Different Horrors, Same Hell will make important contributions to Holocaust studies and, in particular, to scholarship about women and gender in that context." John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College "The voices vary widely, from the mystical to the strident, from the autobiographical to the scholarly. Such diversity provides texture to the anthology and makes the reading experience layered and multifaceted. These essays break new ground in format and/or subject matter, bringing gendered analysis to new levels of nuance and insight." Dr Elizabeth Baer, author of The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post- Holocaust Fiction