Concluded projects

of the Institute of Conflict Research

Sexualised Violence against Female Victims of National Socialism

Project Management:	Professor Dr. Erika Thurner
Project Team:	Mag.a Dr.in Helga Amesberger Mag.a Katrin Auer Mag.a Dr.in Brigitte Halbmayr
Concluded in	June 2003
	German

Starting from the question, which direct and structural forms of sexualised violence women had to endure in the course of persecution, we examined 42 life stories and several topic centred interviews with Austrian survivors of the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp.

The study (“Sexualisierte Gewalt. Weibliche Erfahrungen in NS-Konzentrationslagern”), which has meanwhile been published, gives a historical overview of the National Socialist concepts of gender and of National Socialist policy regarding sexuality and population as well as of the internal structure of concentration camps, which is essential for understanding this kind of violence against women. In other words, the forms and the regime of sexualised violence are interdependently related to the Nazi ideology, on the one hand, and to the biological sex of the victims, on the other hand. Thus we need to distinguish between types ofviolence according to their sexualised-misogynist, sexualised-racist and anti-Semitic, sexualised-eugenic as well as hetero-sexist functions and motif-structures. This implies that sexualised violence against women is not exclusively an expression of misogyny.

In our study we focus on the description and analysis of sexualised violence against female prisoners experienced and witnessed in the course of inquiries by the Gestapo, during the registration process in the concentration camp and later on, of the symbolic meaning of hair and the implication of (repeated) hair-shaving, of menstruation and sexuality. Further we deal with the topics of enforced sex work and camp brothels on the basis of the case studies of two women who were sexually exploited by the SS. These case studies give insight into the circumstances, coercions, and experiences as well as the way these women are able/unable to speak about it. Other major topics are pregnancy and motherhood during persecution, where one can clearly show how differently women were treated on account of persecution. Finally, we ask which consequences the experience of persecution in general and of sexualised violence in particular had on marriage, partnership and the generative behaviour of the female survivors.

[GERMAN]