Female Accomplices Holocaust
Female accomplices of the Holocaust were put in a peculiar environment. These accomplices embodied the symbol of the female but were voluntarily at sites of extreme violence. This proved to be troublesome for SS officers because they were under the assumption that they needed to protect these women. Instead, these women embraced the violence. One example of this environment was when Vera Wohlauf, a wife of an SS officer, was present at the liquidation of the Miedzyrzec-Podlaski ghetto. Wohlauf enjoyed being at the liquidation and made other officers uneasy because she was pregnant and they wanted to set a boundary between home and violence.
For these accomplices, no boundary between home and violence existed. Meier, who was having an affair with Hansef, joined him on hunting trips, where SS officers hunted Jews who escaped into the woods (107). Dick joined soldiers in the celebration of killing Jews by eating plundered Jewish sausage with them. Pleasurable outings became the center of violence and female accomplices could not escape the violence if they wanted power. When female accomplices embraced the violence around them, they became more masculine. Wohlauf was the Nazi ideal of womanhood physically, but she behaved like a man once exposed to violence. Instead of embracing …show more content…
Dick feared prosecutors and only offered important information in order for her to avoid a jail sentence (173). During her defense, Dick claimed that she was only naively completing her job and did not enjoy her occupation. Wohlauf acted in the same manner, pleading that she lost her memory of important brutal details. When she was finally placed at massacres by witnesses, she pleaded that she could not have been part of the massacres because she was pregnant (186). Meier additionally forgot information about the hunting trips when she could not recall if they were hunting animals or
For these accomplices, no boundary between home and violence existed. Meier, who was having an affair with Hansef, joined him on hunting trips, where SS officers hunted Jews who escaped into the woods (107). Dick joined soldiers in the celebration of killing Jews by eating plundered Jewish sausage with them. Pleasurable outings became the center of violence and female accomplices could not escape the violence if they wanted power. When female accomplices embraced the violence around them, they became more masculine. Wohlauf was the Nazi ideal of womanhood physically, but she behaved like a man once exposed to violence. Instead of embracing …show more content…
Dick feared prosecutors and only offered important information in order for her to avoid a jail sentence (173). During her defense, Dick claimed that she was only naively completing her job and did not enjoy her occupation. Wohlauf acted in the same manner, pleading that she lost her memory of important brutal details. When she was finally placed at massacres by witnesses, she pleaded that she could not have been part of the massacres because she was pregnant (186). Meier additionally forgot information about the hunting trips when she could not recall if they were hunting animals or