Academic literature on the topic '1939-1945 Personal narratives'

The War in One Fate: Biographical Narratives of Widows of Soviet Servicemen on the Basis of Letters to the Authorities of Lviv in 1944-1945The article analyzes letters written in late 1944 and in 1945 by widows of Soviet servicemen to the authorities of the city of Lviv requesting a permit to move or return to Lviv, the construction of women’s biographical narratives and the image of women in the war. The main topic discussed in post-war correspondence was the war trials and different fates of women sharing the experience of life in Lviv in 1939 -1941. It demonstrates similar strategies of survival and communication with the totalitarian state, and the contradictory image of woman in war time. The personal drama of her husband’s death, the sudden collapse of the social hierarchy, and, in particular, the destruction of “pre-war” housing stock in Lviv and other livelihood opportunities in a big city, prompted woman, in the already partly assumed role of the head of the family, to look for ways to regain their former position. Probably, they wrote special letters, among many other quite similar appeals to the government, in order to attract attention to themselves. The narrative analysis of the letters has made it possible to isolate the images of Lviv in the representations of people of the (post)war period, to disclose the „Soviet language” and the (un)typical gender-related aspects of texts written by women.

Introduction.The article deals with the problem of forced labor in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Despite the existence of profound scientific publications devoted to this problem in Russia and abroad, it still needs to be developed. The article emphasizes the urgency of its research in historical, anthropological and humanities perspective, because personal experience of those who survived after forced labor in Nazi Germany, must be stored in collective memory and comprehended by subsequent generations. Methods and materials. Digital Humanities based on the method of oral history allows to solve this problem. The article presents two options of practical implementation of the issue: the online archive of the interview Forced Labor in 1939-1945. Memories and history and related online platform Learning based on interviews. Forced labor in 1939-1945. The archive includes about 600 narrative biographical interviews with victims of Nazi forced labor in 26 countries. The site accompanying the archive is now available in English, German, Russian and Czech. The second project is based on six specially selected interviews from the archive. Broad source base and nationally-oriented concept of forced labor in Nazi Germany, presented on the platform, create the historical context necessary for using this resource primarily in the secondary educational system of the Russian Federation. Analysis and results. The article shows the possibility of using archive-interviews in science and education, and emphasizes that traditional and new methods of historical research can complement each other. The article emphasizes that biographical films created on the basis of interviews can make the memory of forced labor in Nazi Germany, first of all, of “eastern workers” and Soviet prisoners of war more visible in Russian cultural memory. Contribution of authors to writing an article. Characteristics of peculiarity of oral historical sources, online collections of interviews, compensation payments are given by D. Thousendfreund. Analytics of the project “Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memoirs and History “and online platform” Learning based on interviews. Forced labor 1939-1945”, as well as conclusions are prepared by N.P. Timofeev. Introduction, problem historiography and general editing of the article belong to T.V. Evdokimova.

This article focuses on a cluster of institutions rooted in Polish rural life that were co-opted by the German authorities into the lowest level of rule in occupied Poland from 1939-1945. It identifies these institutions as key meso-level structures that shaped the behavior of individuals on the ground. Specifically, it places the axis of analysis on the figure of the village head ( sołtys). It argues that the village security system, combined with the introduction of collective responsibility and imminent violence, was at the heart of a process of community-making, in which village heads inescapably played an important role. In this new dynamic of accountability, notions of “community” and “belonging” evolved relative to notions of “security” and “self-preservation” in the changing circumstances of life under occupation. The reimagined community forged in this wartime crucible was one of transformed identities, ingrained ethnic categories, new lines of solidarity, and new antagonisms. A collective biographical approach to village heads in this period culminates in the collective ethical dilemma as a category of historical analysis. The article draws primarily on testimonies found in postwar August Decree trials of individuals tried for collaboration in historic Western Galicia or District Krakow of the General Government. It employs a thick description of the subject to map personal narratives onto the broader social processes under examination.

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Focusing in the documentary cinema as a way of representing the testimony of traumatic experiences in cinema, this project emphasizes the creative procedures found in the film Shoah (1985), by Claude Lanzmann, and in the series Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1988/1998), by Jean-Luc Godard. More specifically, it reflects on how documentary films has put us in contact with painful historical events, understanding the creative procedures used in its conception. Our corpus is based notably on the works above mentioned. The most important theoretical frameworks are the studies who deal with documentary theory, as presented by Bill Nichols theory and, in Brazil, Fernão Ramos. Our research also counterpoints the issue of representation of the catastrophe, using the studies of both Georges Didi-Huberman and, in Brazil, Márcio Seligmann-Silva. The relevance of the research is related to the intense debates that surround today the testimony, assigning to the images a role in the representability of the extreme, previously interdicted
Este projeto enfoca o cinema documental voltado à temática do testemunho no campo da experiência traumática, com ênfase no documentário Shoah (1985), de Claude Lanzmann, e na série em vídeo Histoire (s) du cinéma (1988-98) de Jean-Luc Godard. Mais especificamente, trata-se de perguntar como o cinema documental nos tem colocado em contato com eventos históricos dolorosos, assinalando os procedimentos criativos de que se tem valido. O corpus da pesquisa compõe-se principalmente das obras acima referidas. Os principais referenciais teóricos envolvem estudos abalizados sobre o gênero documentário, como os de Bill Nichols e, no Brasil, Fernão Ramos, e trabalhos em contraponto sobre a questão da representação da catástrofe, como os de Georges Didi-Huberman e, no Brasil, Márcio Seligmann-Silva. A relevância da pesquisa liga-se aos intensos debates que voltam a cercar hoje o testemunho, atribuindo às imagens um papel na representabilidade do extremo, antes interditado

The personal archive of Dr Alfred Huhnhäuser (1885-1950), a German civil servant, is examined with regard to this thesis. The archive consists of an unfinished personal memoir, Aus einem reichen Leben, five chapters of a political memoir concerning Huhnhäuser's time in Norway during the German occupation, publications edited by Huhnhäuser and other personal documents. A full catalogue of the contents of the archive has been included in this thesis. An attempt has been made to identify the significance of the Huhnhäuser archive within a literary framework and, therefore, a brief analysis of the study of autobiographical writings has been undertaken. The importance of the archive within the context of social history has also been stressed, for Huhnhäuser was an "ordinary" German and not one of the Great and the Good. The personal memoirs operate on three levels - personal, worldstage and cultural- and extracts from the archive have been used to illustrate this. A brief historical summary of events in Norway prior to and immediately after the German occupation is given in order to place the events described by Huhnhäuser in context. The contents of the personal and political memoirs are summarized and analyzed in this thesis. Recurring themes are identified and examined. Perhaps the most significant is Huhnhäuser's repeated claim that he is an inherently ''unpolitisches We sen". Evidence has been obtained from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin which proves that Huhnhäuser joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933. Huhnhäuser does not refer in the memoirs to his membership of this party, claiming instead that he has never voluntarily been involved in party politics. A second volume of materials has been included in this thesis in order to provide more detailed information as regards to the composition and contents of the archive. Extracts from the memoirs and letters have also been selected.

The approach I have chosen for my study is to analyse the narrative techniques in Wiesel's fiction, with particular emphasis on the role of the narrator and listener in the narratives. This will not only highlight aspects of his authorial strategy involving the reader's response to various dimensions of the Holocaust, but will allow an appraisal of the literary merit of Wiesel's novels. The hushed reverence that tends to accompany allusions to Auschwitz and its literature has impeded certain theoretical investigations, with the result that most critical studies undertaken on Wiesel's works have dealt predominantly with themes and content rather than with form. A narrative approach, however, while it accounts for themes, does so within the narrative process of the work. Form and content are examined as interwoven entities in the particular context of an individual work. My decision to adopt this pursuit is based on the conviction that Wiesel's fiction is a significant contribution to the literature of testimony, not only because of its subject matter, but also because of the way in which his narrators unfold their stories with words suspended by silence in the text. The paradox of the mute narrator, the title of my study, is intended to convey the paradoxical quality of Wiesel's fiction and to show how silence, which is manifested in the themes of his work, is concretized by his strategy of entrusting the transmission of the tale to narrators, who, for various reasons have been silenced. A mute by definition cannot emit an articulate sound. A narrator, on the other hand, is a storyteller who is reliant on verbal articulation for communication. This contradiction in terms is dramatized in the novels and is symptomatic of the dilemma of Wiesel's narrators who are compelled to bear testimony through their silence. In my study of Wiesel's fiction, I will follow the chronological sequence in which the novels were written, although I will not be using a developmental approach, except to point out that the trilogy which marks the beginning of his exploration into narrative strategies, and The Testament, the last book I will be dealing with, are a culmination of his previous fictional techniques. While a developmental analysis of his fiction, particularly from a thematic point of view, enables the reader to gain insight into his background, which is important in a comprehensive study of his works, I feel that this avenue of investigation has been competently dealt with by other critics. Ellen Fine's Legacy of Night, one of the first book-length studies of Wiesel, puts forward a convincing argument for examining his fiction in chronological sequence as a kind of serialized journey from being a witness in l'univers concentrationnaire to bearing - witness in a post-Holocaust world. Furthermore, it is possible to trace the direction Wiesel's fiction follows, as in each book the seeds are sown for new ideas which are expanded upon in subsequent books. My discussion, however, will deal with the narrative process of each novel as an individual work in its own particular context. Apart from the trilogy which is examined in one chapter, and The Testament which serves as a conclusion to the study, I have not used cross references to Wiesel's other fiction when analysing specific books. Moreover, I have deliberately avoided including Wiesel's comments on his works and references to them in his essays, interviews and non-fiction writing. The reason for this approach is that I consider each novel to be a separate narrative work which merits an interpretative response that is independent of the comparative criteria that has up to now influenced the assessment of his fiction. (Introduction, p. 12-14)

How war is depicted matters vitally to all of us. In the vast literature on war representation, little attention is paid to the fact that where the war recorder1stands crucially affects the portrayal. Should the writer be present on the battle-field, and, if so, where exactly? Should the recording figure be present in the text, and, if so, in what guise? 'Standing' differs from person to person, conflict to conflict, and between genders. Therefore, this thesis focuses on one particular war recorder in one particular war: the American journalist and fiction-writer, Martha Gellhorn (1908-98), in the European Theatre of Operations during World War Two. The fact that Gellhorn was a woman affected how she could and did place herself in relation to battle - but gender, though important, was not the only factor. Her course in and around war was dazzling: hitching rides, stowing away, travelling on dynamite-laden ships through mined waters, flying in ancient planes and deadly fighter jets, driving from battle-field to battle-field, mucking in, standing out. Her trajectory within her prose is equally versatile: she zooms in and out like a camera lens from impassiveness to intense involvement to withdrawal. The thesis is organised along the same spectrum. The first two chapters plot the co- ordinates forming the zero point on the graph of Gellhorn's Second World War writings (earlier American war correspondence, the 1930s' New Reportage, Gellhorn's upbringing and journalistic apprenticeship). Chapter Three then shows her in the guise of self-effacing, emotionally absent recorder. Moving from absence to presence, Chapter Four considers Martha Gellhorn in the field and Chapter Five 'Martha Gellhorn' in the text. Chapter Six describes the shift from presence to participation, before reaching the end of the parabola in Gellhorn's disillusionment in the power of writing to reform and her concerns about women's presence in the war zone. Given that positioning is the central concern, it is important to note the placement of Martha Gellhorn within the thesis itself. She stands as the central, pivotal example of the war recorder, illuminated by various contexts and comparisons with other writers (notably Ernest Hemingway, to whom she was married from 1940 to 1945). As a result of this approach, there are necessarily stretches of the text from which she is absent, as the survey turns to theoretical and comparative discussion. The hope is that this methodology reveals why Gellhorn, in the field and in the text, went where she did.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis narrates and analyses the experiences of a sample of South Africans who were captured during the Second World War. The research is based on oral testimony, memoirs, archival evidence and to a lesser degree on secondary sources. The former prisoners-of-war (POW) who participated in the research and those whose memoirs were studied were all captured at the Battle of Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 or during the fall of Tobruk in June 1942. The aim of the research is to present oral and written POW testimony in order to augment the dearth of knowledge regarding South African POW historical experience. The scope of the research includes the decision to volunteer for the Union Defence Force, the experiences in North Africa, capture and initial experiences in the so-called ‘hell camps of North Africa’, the transportation to Italy and life in the Italian prison camps, events surrounding the Italian Armistice and the consequent escape attempts thereafter. For those POWs who did not escape, the experience of captivity continued with transport to Germany, experiences in German camps, including working in labour camps and the Allied bombing campaign. Lastly, the end of the war and the experience of liberation, which in most cases included forced marches, are dealt with before the focus turns once again towards South Africa and the experience of homecoming and demobilisation. The affective and intellectual experiences of the POWs are also investigated as their personal experience and emotions are presented and examined. These include the experience of guilt and shame during capture, the acceptance or non-acceptance of captivity, blame, attitudes towards the enemy and towards each other, as well as the experience of fear and hope, which was especially relevant during the bombing campaign and during periods when they were being transported between countries and camps. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the POW experience which looks at aspects relating to identity among South African POWs. The final conclusion is drawn that the POW identity took precedence over national identity. As a result of the strong POW identity and their desire for complete freedom and desire to claim individuality, the POWs did not, on the whole, display great interest in becoming involved in South African politics after the war even though many of them strongly disagreed with the Nationalist segregationist ideologies that claimed increasing support between 1945 and 1948.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis beskryf en ontleed die ervarings van dié Suid-Afrikaners wat tydens die Tweede Wêreldoorlog gevange geneem is. Die navorsing is gebaseer op mondelinge getuienis, memoires, argivale bewysmateriaal en, in ’n mindere mate, op sekondêre bronne. Die voormalige krygsgevangenes wat aan die navorsing deelgeneem het en wie se memoires bestudeer is, is almal in November 1941 by die Geveg van Sidi Rezegh of in Junie 1942 met die val van Tobruk gevange geneem. Die doel van die navorsing is om mondelinge en skriftelike getuienisse van krygsgevangenes aan te bied ten einde die gebrekkige kennis ten opsigte van Suid-Afrikaanse krygsgevangenes se historiese ervaring uit te brei. Die omvang van die navorsing sluit die besluit in om vrywillig diens te doen vir die Unie-verdedigingsmag, die ervarings in Noord-Afrika, gevangeneming en eerste ervarings in die sogenaamde “helkampe van Noord-Afrika”, die vervoer na Italië en lewe in die Italiaanse gevangeniskampe, gebeure rondom die Italiaanse wapenstilstand en die daaropvolgende ontsnappingspogings. Vir die krygsgevangenes wat nie ontsnap het nie, het die ervaring van gevangenskap voortgeduur deur vervoer na Duitsland, ervarings in Duitse kampe, waaronder strafkampe, en die bombarderings deur die Geallieerdes. Ten slotte word aandag gegee aan die einde van die oorlog en die ervaring van vryheid, wat in die meeste gevalle gedwonge marse behels het, voordat die fokus terugkeer na Suid-Afrika en die ervaring van tuiskoms en demobilisasie. Die affektiewe en intellektuele ervarings van die krygsgevangenes word ook ontleed, aangesien hul persoonlike ervarings en emosies ondersoek en aangebied word. Dit sluit die ervaring van skuld en skaamte tydens die gevangeneming in, die aanvaarding of nie-aanvaarding van gevangeskap, blaam, houdings teenoor die vyand en mekaar, sowel as die ervaring van vrees en hoop, wat veral belangrik was gedurende die bombarderingsveldtog en vervoer tussen lande en kampe. Die tesis sluit af met ’n ontleding van aspekte wat verband hou met identiteit onder die Suid- Afrikaanse krygsgevangenes. Die bevinding is dat die krygsgevangene-identiteit voorrang geniet het bo die nasionale identiteit. Verder het die sterk drang na volkome vryheid en die begeerte om hul individualiteit terug te kry daartoe gelei dat die voormalige krygsgevangenes na die oorlog oor die algemeen ’n ambivalensie jeens Suid-Afrikaanse politiek openbaar.

Notre propos consiste à décrire et à analyser certains témoignages recueillis par la Fondation Auschwitz en nous inspirant des recherches menées, notamment, en sociolinguistique, en ethnographie de la communication, en pragmatique, en Analyse des Conversations et en Analyse du Discours. Il s’agit, en d’autres termes, d’évaluer l’incidence que revêt, au niveau linguistique, l’inscription de la parole des témoins dans des matrices socio-discursives et interactionnelles particulières (discours oral, témoignage, entretien filmé, récit de l’expérience concentrationnaire). Pour cette étude, nous avons donc privilégié une approche transversale des données qui consiste à observer de manière circonstanciée, et à recenser statistiquement, un ensemble bien cerné de phénomènes microdiscursifs de surface :certains mots du discours (connecteurs et autres marqueurs discursifs) et certaines séquences discursives spécifiques (interventions des interviewers, gloses, séquences justificatives, etc.). Bien qu’elle se veuille principalement inductive et descriptive, notre démarche consistera à pratiquer un va-et-vient incessant entre une observation micro-analytique et une mise en perspective macro-analytique. En somme, partant de phénomènes très fins, nous aimerions décrire ce qui fait, globalement, la particularité de nos données, caractériser le comportement interactionnel et discursif de nos témoins et, ainsi, mettre en évidence certaines des régularités qui relient entre eux les divers objets de notre corpus. En d’autres mots, nous aimerions montrer comment l’examen des phénomènes microlinguistiques permet d’appréhender des mécanismes plus généraux. Les niveaux d’analyse micro- et macro-discursifs, loin de fonctionner de manière dichotomique comme c’est habituellement le cas, seront donc envisagés de manière interdépendante.

Notre dissertation s’articule en cinq grandes parties, qui abordent toutes, peu ou prou, la notion de genre. Nous commençons (partie I) par envisager cette question de manière frontale, en essayant de définir le concept de genre en termes théoriques. Il s’agit d’expliquer clairement en quoi la problématique de l’appartenance générique peut s’avérer pertinente pour l’appréhension et la description de nos données. Dans la deuxième partie de ce travail, nous offrons une caractérisation très générale et succincte des récits sur la Shoah. Nous soulignons, notamment, les particularités nées du contexte politique et socioculturel où ces textes ont été produits. Ces précisions nous permettent de présenter plus en détail nos propres données, et de les comparer aux autres témoignages relatifs au phénomène concentrationnaire. Entrant ensuite dans le vif du sujet, nous consacrons notre troisième partie à la dimension testimoniale des données. Dans un premier temps, nous essayons de définir la notion même de témoignage, en cernant le plus précisément possible les contraintes définitoires propres à l’énonciation testimoniale et les questions épistémologiques qu’elles peuvent engendrer. Dans un second temps, et en accord avec notre projet méthodologique, nous relevons et analysons un certain nombre d’indices linguistiques qui nous paraissent spécifiques du discours testimonial. Dans la quatrième partie, qui se veut plus personnelle, nous nous attardons sur la dimension interactionnelle de notre corpus. Nous commençons par décrire les aspects liés à l’organisation structuro-séquentielle des interactions, en présentant deux modèles d’analyse élaborés à cet effet :le système de prise de tour et le modèle des paires adjacentes. Nous décrivons ensuite, dans ce cadre, les traits caractéristiques propres au format de l’interview. Enfin, grâce à l’analyse – qualitative et quantitative – à la fois des interventions produites par les interviewers et de certains marqueurs microdiscursifs utilisés par les interviewés, nous nous efforçons non seulement de cerner les phénomènes microdiscursifs propres au mode interactionnel de l’entretien, mais aussi de souligner, de façon peut-être paradoxale, les transgressions qui s’observent par rapport à ce format prédéterminé. Ce faisant, nous rejoignons nos réflexions antérieures sur l’instabilité inhérente à la notion de genre. Pour boucler la boucle, nous revenons sur cette question dans notre cinquième partie, où nous illustrons les réussites et les échecs discursifs de nos témoins par l’analyse détaillée de trois extraits qui mettent en évidence les défis rhétoriques liés à la complexité générique des discours envisagés.
Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation linguistique
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Cette étude analyse le contexte d’élaboration et le contenu d’un corpus de témoignages de rescapés des camps nazis composé de récits de résistants et de Juifs enregistrés dans les années 1990 par la Fondation Auschwitz de Bruxelles, dont un des buts est de prévenir la résurgence de toute forme de fascisme.

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Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation histoire
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The American GI’s experience in hospital during World War II is absent from official military histories, most scholarly works, and even many oral history collections. Utilizing the papers of WWII infantryman, Leon Standifer, this thesis offers the reader a rare glimpse of WWII military hospital life and chronicles one soldier’s journey from willing obedience to subversive action. This thesis compares the stated goals and procedures of the US Army medical department to the experience of Leon Standifer, an infantryman who served in northern France during the last year of the war and the American occupation of Bavaria, whose service was marked by several periods of protracted hospitalization. Over the course of five hospitalizations, during which Standifer was treated for bullet wounds, trench foot, and pneumonia, he consistently wrote letters to his family describing his experience. A careful reading of Standifer’s wartime correspondence in conjunction with his published and unpublished writings, secondary source material, and military records, suggest that while isolated in the hospital, after killing and experiencing the death of his comrades, Standifer lost his desire to fight. He began to make calculated decisions based on his knowledge of the military medical system in an attempt to ensure his survival and control the remainder of his military service.

This chapter explores developments in and prospects for the online archival storage and retrieval of oral history interviews—with a focus on experiences and projects in Germany. The introductory section examines the contemporary history research method, oral history, which has led to extensive collections of interviews with witnesses of different historical periods, including survivors of Nazi persecution. To characterize the nature of oral history interviews, attention is given to their narrative form and the biographical dimension. Emphasizing the specific value of this material, the authors discuss the demands involved in archiving such material framed by the expectations on both sides, witnesses as interview partners and researchers and other interested persons as archive users. A German example for state-of-the-art online archiving strategies called the “Forced Labor 1939-1945. Memory and History” archive, is presented, outlining the technical challenges and research features as well as research functionality and further enhancements. Possible avenues for further development within the field are outlined: a meta-search engine covering multiple databases and an open online archive. A crucial ethical question is also presented in this chapter: How can a responsible online access policy ensure the protection of the contemporary witnesses’ personal rights?