The Taste Remembered. On the Extraordinary Testimony of the Women from Terezín

The article presents an attempt to combine food studies (also termed the anthropology of food) with scholarly reflection regarding memory. The analysis focuses on the book entitled In Memory’s Kitchen. A Legacy from the Women of Terezin [ed. Cara de Silva 2006], containing recipes for Jewish dishes written down by women from the Teresienstadt ghetto. But some dozen recipes that have survived do not make it a cookbook, which is essentially meant to be functional. It is more of a remembrance, a testament, and also a source of knowledge of culture at a given point in time. It is also a testimonial document. Recipes collected by de Silva tell much about their authors. They define their roles as wives and mothers. In addition, the Terezin notes point to a culinary heritage, the religious principles of food preparation and the social and economical conditions that shaped the culinary preferences and the diets of women locked in the ghetto. The article demonstrates that the actions of preparing and consuming food are a constantly repeated practice, which is connected in a network of relationships with other practices. This practice it is anchored in the everyday life, embedded in the family’s biography and fused with childhood memories. Food is presented as a sign of identity, the social bond and the community of family and friends, and also as a gift that serves to uphold these ties

Theresienstadt Ghetto Stamp

Green stamp on serated paper. Titled, Theresienstadt with green illustration of trees and hills. Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Theresienstadt Concentration Camp stamp prepared on order of the Nazis to be distributed to the Red Cross officials inspecting the ghetto. It was done to convince the inspectors that life in the ghetto was not too bad.https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/2110/thumbnail.jp

Memorializing Genocide I: Earlier Holocaust Documentaries

In this essay, I discuss in detail two of the earliest such documentaries: Death Mills (1945), directed by Billy Wilder; and Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), directed by George Stevens. Both film-makers were able to get direct footage of the newly-liberated concentration camps from the U.S. Army. Wilder served as a Colonel in the U.S. Army’s Psychological Warfare department in 1945 and was tasked with producing a documentary on the death camps as well as helping to restart Germany’s film industry. I next review the great French Holocaust documentary Night and Fog (1955), directed by Alain Resnais. This was a widely acclaimed film, winning the Prix Jean Vigo in 1956. Resnais employed a camp survivor (Jean Cayrol) to write the dialogue, and it is powerful, indeed, truly lyrical in places. The last film I review in the essay is a generally overlooked British Thames Television documentary, Genocide: 1941-1945 (1974), directed by Michael Darlow (and narrated by Sir Laurence Oliver). It was the first of the major Holocaust documentaries to focus on the point that the Nazi genocide targeted first and foremost the Jewish people, and to explore the development of Nazi racial theory, and the rise of the SS

Review of \u3ci\u3ePerforming Captivity, Performing Escape. Cabarets and Plays from the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto\u3c/i\u3e. Edited and with an Introduction by Lisa Peschel.

Performing Captivity, Performing Escape. Cabarets and Plays from the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto presents Lisa Peschel’s edited, revised, and translated into English Divadelní texty z terezínského ghetta/ Theatretexte aus dem Ghetto Theresienstadt, 1941-1945. Terezín/Theresienstadt was unusual in that it served as a ghetto with an attached prison, as well as a concentration camp. The Nazi propaganda used this camp to convince the world that life was “normal” in this supposed Jewish resettlement area. For this reason, they allowed cultural life to take place. Peschel’s work is an anthology of selected texts originating there. It contains cabarets, puppet play scripts, as well as historical and verse dramas, poems, songs, and satirical radio programs. It embraces humorous as well as serious texts, couplets, songs, radio sketches, even children’s texts. Witnesses’ and research commentaries, as well as extensive bibliographies, accompany the cited writings. Famously, the camp was portrayed in two films intended to deceive the Red Cross and the world public about the true nature of Theresienstadt. Though “formally approved,” cultural activities there were censored, limited, and conditioned. Ironically, the performances allowed prisoners to experience moments of “normal life,” although many prisoners met their death in the camp or were sent to death on the transports. This small fort town, built in the 1780s, was designed to host a population of 7,000. Nevertheless, when used as a Jewish resettlement, the population at its peak reached 60,000 prisoners, creating extremely harsh living conditions with lack of space, water, food, sanitation, and a large death toll (33,000), even though it never served as an extermination camp

Parcel Slip From Theresienstadt Concentration Camp Ghetto to Kleine Festung

Front: Tan slip with printed text and red, black and blue hand stamps. Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Theresienstadt Concentration camp ghetto parcel to Kleine Festung from the small fortress Gestapo Prison, Terezin, 1944.https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1416/thumbnail.jp

What Keeps A Man Alive: Screenplay and Analysis

Set during WWII, What Keeps a Man Alive tracks the fate of a renowned filmmaker and a crew of concentration camp inmates after they are coerced into producing a fraudulent documentary to deceive inspectors from the Red Cross. Loosely based on events that transpired in Theresienstadt concentration camp in the summer of 1944, the screenplay explores themes of documentary bias, the thin line between truth and fiction, heroism and self-sacrifice, and the strength of familial bonds as they are tested in extreme conditions

Artists of the Holocaust

It is without question that the Holocaust is one of the most horrific events of the twentieth century. While it might be difficult and emotional to think about such a terrible time in history, it is imperative that we do not forget. We must remember for the sake of preventing something like this from happening again. Memory is becoming more and more difficult as the years go by—those who witnessed the atrocities of the Holocaust and of the Nazi regime are getting fewer and fewer. It is becoming increasingly important that the survivors' stories get passed on before it is too late. One way in which this can be done is through artwork. I have examined four individuals and/or groups who were directly or indirectly affected by the Holocaust. These four individuals or groups are Alfred Kantor (Holocaust survivor), the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp, Art Spiegelman (second-generation Holocaust survivor), and Kathe Kollwitz (a German woman whose art was banned by the Nazi regime). I have provided a brief biography of each of these, replicated a piece of each of their artwork, and discussed how their works affect my artistic interpretation of the Holocaust. I have also produced a creative artwork to serve as a tribute to these artists and to those who did not live to share their story of the Holocaust.Thesis (B.?.)Honors Colleg

United We\u27ll Win our Stand : The Role of Focalization in Representing Solidarity in the Anthems of Three Holocaust Concentration Camps

Concentration camps during the Holocaust were populated by various groups of people imprisoned for reasons that were not always associated with religious beliefs. This diversity led to a natural segregation among these groups of prisoners, dependent upon the prisoner’s nationality, the camp’s classification, and its date of establishment. Because of overwhelming feelings of isolation in the majority of the prisoners, it was common to turn to music and music making as means of creating solidarity between the prisoners for survival of their day-to-day experiences. Some works became popular to such an extent through their performances by both prisoners and SS guards that they can be called “camp anthems,” and these served to unite the “community.” This thesis analyzes camp anthems from Börgermoor, Sachsenhausen, and Theresienstadt in terms of focalization, or point of view, as expressed through the text and its musical underpinning, uncovering various unifying thematic tropes