Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Department
Comparative Literature
First Advisor
Agnes Mueller
Abstract
This dissertation combines cultural theory and gender theory with literary criticism to evaluate the treatment of lesbians during the Holocaust and in narratives about the Holocaust. Responding to the kissing-scene controversy of the Berlin memorial for the homosexual victims of the Holocaust I claim that lesbian women’s experience of suffering is downplayed and disappears under the umbrella term ‘homosexuals.’ Employing a critical historical conceptualization of “lesbian love,” I consider examples from Claudia Schoppmann’s Days of Masquerade and Verbotene Verhältnisse as well as the personal estate of political activist Hilde Radusch to trace the personal view lesbians have of themselves. Shifting focus onto lesbian suffering in Erica Fischer’s Aimée & Jaguar and Alexandra von Grote’s Novembermond, I specifically argue that narratives with lesbian love stories set during the Holocaust only work in the context of one partner being Jewish. Religious persecution and discrimination based on sexual identity are conflated to overshadow each other: a reading as either Jewish or lesbian suffering is rejected in favor of the novelty of a lesbian love story. Employing critical conceptualizations of “identity” and “memory” I further develop the idea of what the representation or misrepresentation of lesbian persecution during the Holocaust means for a shared identity and collective memory of a German lesbian community today.
Rights
© 2015, Isabel Meusen
Recommended Citation
Meusen, I.(2015). Unacknowledged Victims: Love between Women in the Narrative of the Holocaust. An Analysis of Memoirs, Novels, Film and Public Memorials. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3082