Sexual Exploitation and Violence during the Holocaust

doi:10.1017/9781108900447.022

19 - Sexual Exploitation and Violence during the Holocaust

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025

Regina Mühlhäuser

Edited by

Marion Kaplan and

Natalia Aleksiun

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Marion Kaplan: Affiliation:
New York University
Natalia Aleksiun: Affiliation:
University of Florida

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Summary

German men and their collaborators perpetrated sexual violence during the Holocaust and throughout the war, during pogroms, in ghettos and labor-camps, as well as in concentration and extermination camps. They committed this violence against women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people as well as against minorities, such as Roma. Sexual coercion and abuse also occurred within the societies of those persecuted, for example in ghettos, camps, or partisan groups. In hiding or during liberation, people also experienced sexual violence at the hands of protectors, allies, or liberation soldiers. This chapter focuses on the experiences of women, but importantly also addresses those of male victims. It also addresses how sexual violence was part of Nazis’ and their collaborators’ acts of genocidal violence against Jews.

Keywords

sexual enslavement rape “racial defilement,” sexual crimes testimonies feminist male survivors homosexual Kristallnacht nakedness/naked SS Wehrmacht sexual experiments family

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 314 - 329

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108900447.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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