Surviving the Gender Matrix of the Holocaust: The Axis of Gender-Power in the Testimonies of Yugoslavian Holocaust Survivors

As an intricate dynamic network of social identifications, expectations, and behavioral models in their use and abuse, the interrelation of gender and power uncovers more than established gender roles and relations: it reveals deeper layers of individual and collective reasoning, which further informs and influences one’s thoughts and decisions. This can particularly be important in the times of crisis and survival, since it can have a direct effect on one’s ways and chances of survival, as well as on the experiences survived. In the other words, gender-related mechanisms are in the background of the totality of conditions in times of crisis and war. In the case of the Holocaust, gender-power axis can be identified in the survival response of the survivors, as well as in the executive decisions of the perpetrators, and it can all be read throughout the texts of the survivor testimonies. In order to understand the Holocaust as a gendered event, a gender-fueled atrocity, I would like to analyze the testimonies of Yugoslavian Holocaust survivors gathered in the five book edition We survived: Yugoslav Jews on the Holocaust 1–5 (Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia/Serbia & Montenegro/Serbia 2001–2009).