Module 2: Gender and Sexuality
Gendered Bodies and the Camps
Margó Kaufman’s Diary: Read by granddaughter Jillian Deri.
Listen to Jillian Deri read her grandmother’s description of her deportation. Margó Kaufman wrote this passage as part of her diary on her survival experience.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
- How does Margó Kaufman help us understand her experience of deportation through bodily needs and embodied experiences?
- Why is it significant to Margó that these experiences of deportation are happening at the hands of her fellow Hungarians?
Oral History: Liselotte Ivry
As you listen to Liselotte Ivry speak about her experience in Auschwitz, take note of how gender and sexuality is interwoven through her story. Consider how she highlights the gendered dimensions of bodily experiences in the camps: the challenge and importance of maintaining hygiene, sexual activity and unwanted pregnancy, the significance of retaining one’s hair or having one’s head shaved, and being stripped for selections for Mengele.
How did women experience menstruation and amenorrhea during the Holocaust?
