Mears, Charlotte (2020) A social history of the Aufseherinnen of Auschwitz. (PhD thesis), Kingston University, .
Abstract
This thesis offers a comprehensive insight into the lives and motivations of the Aufseherinnen (female guards) stationed within the Auschwitz complex of Nazi concentration camps. Through a detailed examination of records and secondary sources, a picture of the feminine relationship to Nazi propaganda and the role of women as perpetrators within the Holocaust has been established. The Aufseherinnen are a subject which has mostly been neglected in previously accepted historical narratives of the Holocaust as defined by patriarchal ideas. However, through the research in this thesis, the balance is readdressed. The focus of the project is on understanding the women individually before attempting to analyse the Aufseherinnen as a whole. The research enables the return of womanhood and agency to the women as individuals. The return of agency is also of importance when seeking to analyse how these characters are now perceived in wider popular culture and the consequences that misrepresentation has had upon broader societal knowledge about the role of female Nazi guards. The thesis argues for the inclusion of all genders in the analysis of the Holocaust and recognition of the differing experiences of both perpetrators and survivors based on gender. Above all, this study offers a piece of unique inquiry as it casts a critical reflection on a group of women who have never before been studied as a whole or in detail and opens up the possibility of a further wide-ranging survey on women as perpetrators in Nazi Germany.
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