13th Congress of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research

Presentation Abstracts

BAR-ITZHAK, Haya

Women in the Holocaust: the story of a Jewish woman who killed a Nazi in a concentration camp

The testimonies of Holocaust survivors, remembrance volumes and history books all report the story of a Jewish woman who was brought from Bergen-Belsen to Auschwitz in a group of ‘foreign citizens’ and who shot and killed a Nazi guard on her way to the gas chambers. She herself was killed on the spot, along with the entire group.

Set against the background of the Holocaust, this is an exceptional story, particularly so given the setting of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. There are many versions of the story, all of which have a number of elements in common, namely the location, the fact that the transport is of ‘foreign citizens’, the killing of the Nazi, the name of the dead Nazi, the woman’s death, and the murder of the entire group. On the other hand, the name of the heroine varies from story to story, as well as the way in which she shot the Nazi and how she herself died.

In my presentation I will consider the different versions of the story and deal with the problem that arises when we study Holocaust stories using folkloristic tools. Unlike an historical discussion that examines the authenticity of the tale and tries to identify the characters involved, my discussion will focus on an attempt to understand the meaning of the story for concentration camp inmates and for the survivors who retold it after the Holocaust. I will also compare the story and its female heroine to stories about women in the periods of persecution in Jewish traditions of antiquity.