“THE WOMEN ARE SAYING”: SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN THE KAUNAS GHETTO
“THE WOMEN ARE SAYING”: SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN THE KAUNAS GHETTO

Author(s): Simon Goldberg
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Social history, Recent History (1900 till today), Studies in violence and power, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), History of the Holocaust
Published by: Kauno IX forto muziejus
Keywords: Kaunas ghetto; sexual violence; gender; plunder; methodology;
Summary/Abstract: This article mines contemporaneous and postwar testimonies of sexual and sexualized violence against Jewish women in the Kaunas ghetto. It seeks to typologize the forms of that violence and document its impact on the women who survived it. At the same time, through a close reading of sources, this study explores the methodological challenges of researching the plight of women in the ghetto. It draws particular attention to the obstacles posed by indirect and indeterminate language, the longstanding taboo around sexual violence, and the gendered dynamics inherent to wartime record-keeping. This bifocal analysis underlines the need to critically integrate women’s voices into the history of everyday life in German-occupied Lithuania.

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