Jody - # 3 Browning

Title:

Browning, Christopher R. Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp (New York: Norton, 2010)

 Question:

How does a historian reconstruct history from [just] oral testimonies? What was life before, after, and during for Jews sent to the Starachowice slave-labor camp? What factors led to survival or murder?

 Method: MOST IMPORTANT!!

Micro-history of the medium-sized Starachowice slave-labor camp(s) through [some 292] testimonies by accumulating a sufficient critical mass so they may be tested against one another. Justification follows that we must use testimonies or there is NO history of this camp. In other words, "if the historian must wait until he or she has perfect evidence, very little history would ever be written" (12). Browning states, "Indeed, if one can attempt to write a history from sources in which the witnesses are mostly trying to lie ["Ordinary Men"], surely in the case of the Starachowice factory slave-labor camps I can try to write a history from sources in which the witnesses are mostly trying to tell the truth" (12). 

Sources:

292 survivor testimonies given in numerous ways as well as personal interviews.

Historiography (how it fits in):

Almost non-existent except to back-up or refute discussion or methodology.

Summary of Argument:

Since ALL reviews and accolades focus on methodology I turn to the history presented [paraphrased from Norton]: The stories of these survivors began before WWI, when the village of Wierzbnik in south central Poland became home to a growing population of Jews. The initial German occupation took them by surprise for its myriad humiliations and the cooperation of Polish neighbors. Strict laws about identification, dress, property, and other basic rights gave way to ghettoization and the subsequent, brutal destruction of the ghetto. Of the 5,400 Jews in Wierzbnik, some 4,000 were sent to Treblinka; others - men, women, and children who were strong enough to receive a labor card or whose families had the resources to bribe the Germans - were moved to the Starachowice labor camp. Camp life was marked by the non-monolithic motivated German officers. In other words, the perpetrators had choices [classic Browning]. Not all indict just Germans however, and testimonies have the harshest words for fellow Jews who were seen as receiving preferential treatment or held authoritative positions. In 1944, with the Soviets advancing, the surviving Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where they found conditions a bit "better". 600 to 700 Jews living in Wierzbnik survived the war, a tragically low percentage and yet many more than in other comparable camps. In the end, postwar perpetrator trials were laced with injustice as survivor testimonies were thrown out as biased, but now Browning returns their stories.

Comment:

Important methodology! And yet highly problematic. After having just gone through 23 Oświęcim native VHA testimonies [and more to go] - it is rather clear that NOTHING is clear or consistent, and rarely can one piece together a cohesive experience. On top of that, it is "Remembering Survival" - only those who made it. And while I do agree that it is important to utilize this resource - I am still out on using them to construct a whole history. Browning [though I would not state it so violently] does hit the nail on the head however about the interview process: "Quite frankly, there were several occasions in which I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle an interviewer who had just shut down a survivor's seeming digression into a topic of vital interest to me" (6). Nevertheless, very clear and concise writing and very short chapters - easy for pedagogical consumption. Seamlessly combines narrative of camp and Jewish life with major events of the Holocaust (ie. 65). Lastly, Browning masterfully breaks down history into clear dominant paradigmatic narratives (ie. 97). Overall, great work on an ignored subject - at the same time, I believe that only a senior academic could whack through the thicket to paint a decent portrait. Even Browning, while not an expert on this particular subject, got caught in the quagmire of Polish-Jewish Relations.

Argument (Chapter Outlines):

PART I: THE JEWS OF WIERZBNIK

Introduction

1. The Prewar Jewish Community of Wierzbnik-Starachowice

2. The Outbreak of War

3. The Early Months of German Occupation

4. The Judenrat

5. The German Occupiers in Wierzbnik-Starachowice

6. Coping with Adversity in Wierzbnik, 1940-1942

PART II: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WIERZBNIK GHETTO

7. Wierzbnik on the Eve of Destruction

8. The Aktion, October 27, 1942

9. Into the Camps

PART III: TERROR AND TYPHUS: FALL 1942-SPRING 1943

10. Personalities and Structures

11. The Typhus Epidemic

12. The Althoff Massacres

13. Tartak

PART IV: STABILIZATION

14. The Kolditz Era: Summer-Fall 1943

15. Jewish Work

16. Food, Property, and the Underground Economy

17. The Ukrainian Guards

18. Poles and Jews

19. Children in the Camps

20. Childbirth, Abortion, Sex, and Rape

21. The Schroth Era: Winter-Spring 1944

PART V: CONSOLIDATION, ESCAPE, EVACUATION

22. Closing Majówka and Tartak

23. The Final Days

24. From Starachowice to Birkenau

25. The Starachowice Women and Children in Birkenau

26. Escapees

PART VI: AFTERMATH

27. Return to and Flight from Wierzbnik

28. Postwar Investigation and Trials in Germany

29. Conclusion

Notes:

• Camp: 27 October 1942 - 28 July 1944
• Killing Zenith: December 1942 - March 1943 [Althoff] (125)
• Palimpsest (7) Many Layers (292)
• "Core Memory" (9)
• Starachowice - Armaments town (16) [town name = camp]
• "Terror Ridden"
• Polish-Jewish Relations: some-okay/good; largely-bitter (21)
• Germans round-up Jews to send the Russia (26)
• German police most remembered for brutality - not the Wehrmacht (40)
• Doubts of death due to labor use (71) "wouldn't kill factory labor force" (71)
• Fall of 1942: Himmler's orders/conditions for Jewish labor (77)

            1. must work for armaments/war production

            2. employers must isolate Jewish workers

            3. Jews would be employees of SS & paid salaries to SS

• 27 October 1942 - Liquidation Aktion (83)

            - 1,600 to work camps - to Tartak lumber, Strelnica "shooting rang" and    onto Starachowice factory

            - 4,000 to Treblinka - robbed in Starachowice

• 2 Factors of power over prisoners experience in camps (113):

            1. German factory and camp managers

            2. Jewish "privileged" prisoners

• Factory taken by Göring Werke and run by Germans and Ukrainians (104)
• There was no SS, just factory managers
• Prisoner elite enjoyed many comforts and privileges (117)
• Wilczek - "Bad" Jewish prisoner in charge of work camp police (119)
• "Dirtier" than Auschwitz-Birkenau and Płaszów (121)
• Tartak sawmill/lumberyard had NO barbed wire or guards (135)
• Not killing Jews stabilization period = economic benefit (143)
• Newcommers: hard work, old prisoners not taken care of, lice infested camp, and negative image of Jewish camp administration (145)
• 8 November 1943 "Great Camp Selection" (147)
• Why Jewish work? -> varies time/place - no consistent general narrative (153)
• Starachowice = Economic utility and military exigency for Jewish labor (158)
• Poles provide food [with exchange, of course] (161)
• Polish-Jewish Relations postwar (163)
• **Excellent analysis of Polish-Jewish Relations in testimonies (175)
• 50 children estimated to be in camp (176-7)
• Why children?

            1. children of privileged prisoners

            2. falsified documents/age

            3. survived [in hiding] Althoff era of murder

            4. came with new transport

• 6 births during camp - all killed (185)
• Women [entered camp pregnant] allowed to birth but must kill babies
• Rape (190-1)
• Escape of Lubliners (200-1(
• Resistance (217)
• Revenge killing of Jewish leader in train on way to Birkenau (232)
• **Power of media to shape Holocaust memory (237)
• Sent to Gypsy camp at Birkenau (237)
• Birkenau was "clean" compared to Starachowice - less/no lice, less starvation, and they were camp veterans by the time of arrival
• Women had higher life expectancy (241)
• Postwar killing by Poles (260)
• **Polish-Jewish Relations: Individual vs. Collective DIFFERENTIATION (294-5)