Chairperson: Daina Eglitis
Contact: dainas@email.gwu.edu
The Sexuality and Sexual Abuse in the Holocaust workgroup is focused on developing teaching modules that are appropriate for a student audience of undergraduate and graduate students. The modules focus on a variety of topics, including the significance of women's voices in Holocaust history and recognizing the presence of sexual violence against women and girls and abuse of mothers and motherhood in the Holocaust and World War II period. Case studies developed by the group for the teaching modules include Nazi ideologies of sexuality and women's roles in society, abuse of Jewish women and mothers in the Baltic ghettos, victimization of Jewish girls and women in hiding by their rescuers, and Soviet liberator violence against survivors of Nazi camps and ghettos. The group also seeks to highlight the significance of women's historical experiences for illuminating the ongoing use of sexual violence in present-day conflicts and genocides and for both studying and stopping these crimes.
Undergraduate and graduate students.