Jewish women were subjected to sadistic sexual abuse during the Holocaust. Now it's happening again — but feminist groups are silent
For my work documenting women’s experiences during the Holocaust, I have been characterized as “fearless,” “brave,” “sharp” and “decisive.” For me, it was never about bravery. It was about filling in what was missing in Holocaust research: how women, half of the Jews murdered and those who survived, fared in Nazi captivity. I researched their considerable involvement in the resistance, their heroic and often precarious, dangerous, difficult work of looking after families in the ghettos. I also didn’t shy away from speaking out about the barbaric sexual atrocities specifically targeting and perpetrated against Jewish women, because there was a void. A gap. I worried that if I didn’t share their (by then silenced) voices, they would be lost to history forever.
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As an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor, I was aware firsthand of women’s trials and tribulations, the sadistic abuse endured that should never be ignored — whether during the Holocaust era or in other times of war and conflict.
From 1999-2001, I collected women’s experiences and shared them through an early website, Women and the Holocaust: A Cyberspace of their Own, technically developed for me by Jeff Friedman, a friend, and later maintained by my son Jonathan. Considered groundbreaking when it was launched (the internet was still in its infancy), the site shared survivors’ personal narratives and scholarly essays by professional researchers and eminent feminist writers, reflecting on the uniquely grave situation of women during the Shoah.
As my knowledge had grown, I had felt compelled to create this website dedicated to the Jewish women who were especially earmarked for annihilation as potential child bearers should they survive the Holocaust. I chronicled the horrors they experienced as well as the added layer of gender and sex-related abuse that characterized their immensely precarious struggles to survive under the Nazi yoke.
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Today, of course, gender and feminist studies have allowed for closer examination of the particular vulnerabilities of women — physical, psychological and physiological — during war time. The Toronto Holocaust Museum, where I have been a speaker for many years, also explores the female experience through testimony and imagery in its core exhibition and its dynamic public programs. For today’s generation, it’s hard to imagine a time when the female voice would not be considered in such a discussion. As soon as the war started in Ukraine, the UN reported on their unique humanitarian approach for the women and children fleeing Ukraine to neighbouring countries.
Then Oct. 7, 2023, happened. Hamas, a listed terrorist entity in Canada since 2002, launched a surprise armed attack on Israel. They massacred more than 1,200 innocent civilians, they kidnapped children, and they raped women. Victims hiding for their lives witnessed the stunningly savage atrocities committed against women and children. The survivors shared their eyewitness accounts. The butchery was meticulously catalogued by the soldiers and first responders — and by the terrorists themselves, who proudly shared footage of their murderous assaults.
Although intentionally documented, the sexual violence has since been denied by Hamas. Many human rights groups — even those with feminist leanings — were either slow to respond, made false equivalencies, or remained silent. It was only after weeks of pressure that Mélanie Joly, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, finally condemned Hamas, in early December. Human rights organizations whose focus is on the protection of women also remained silent for months. It took the UN eight weeks to put out a statement. And yet, when a report with unsubstantiated accusations of sexual violence levied against Israel was published, Joly and many others commented within hours.
Were they silent about Israeli (Jewish) women because the UN’s women’s groups have aligned themselves with Hamas, whom they view as representing the oppressed? And, if they are the oppressed, they can’t possibly have committed rape?
Does the popular hashtag #MeTooUnlessUrAJew hold true?
Is the rape of women during wartime as inevitable as antisemitism?
While I am grateful for how far Holocaust studies have come in recognizing both the unique vulnerability and resilience of women, it is difficult to see silence about the weaponization of gender-based sexual violence continue. Once women suffered this in silence; we must not, 79 years after the end of the Holocaust, allow Jewish women, or any person, to ever do so again.
I am 95, and I am tired, but this is not the time to be idle. On International Women’s Day, we need to listen to women, to hear their voices, and to speak for those who have been silenced. Regardless of our politics, in this we must all be fearless.
Special to National Post
Hungarian-born Judy Weissenberg Cohen survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Death Camp and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. She was liberated in 1945 following a four-week-long death march. Judy immigrated to Canada in 1948 and worked in the garment industry in Montreal, moving to Toronto in 1961. She is an activist in anti-racism and Holocaust education, with a focus in women’s experiences.
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