ABSTRACT

The existence of parasites and insects in Nazi internment centres during the Holocaust, and how it has latterly featured in the memoirs of women who survived, is largely overlooked by historians focused on anthropic and socio-political factors of the event. Yet, as this article illustrates, for many survivors life in these institutions is characterised, at least in its retelling, by turbulent relationships with parasitic creatures. This article explores, through critical reading and the lens of feminist ecocritical theory, how recurring patterns of entomological and parasitological imagery work in many women’s Holocaust testimonies to reinforce the authors’ identities as resistant, resilient survivors; how for women narrativising their ecological experiences, resistance and survival are often portrayed as reliant upon asserting traditional female identity. In so doing, this article works to allow us, using a non-traditional critical approach, to garner a deeper understanding of women’s accounts of incarceration and of the Holocaust more widely.

摘要

大屠杀期间纳粹拘留中心中寄生虫和昆虫的存在，以及它后来如何出现在幸存女性的回忆录中，在很大程度上被专注于该事件的人为和社会政治因素的历史学家所忽视。然而，正如本文所说明的那样，对于许多幸存者来说，这些机构中的生活具有与寄生生物的动荡关系的特点，至少在其复述中是如此。本文通过批判性阅读和女权主义生态批判理论的视角，探讨了昆虫学和寄生虫学图像的反复出现的模式如何在许多女性大屠杀的证词中发挥作用，以加强作者作为抗拒、有弹性的幸存者的身份；女性如何叙述她们的生态体验，抵抗和生存通常被描述为依赖于维护传统的女性身份。这样做，本文使我们能够使用非传统的批判方法，更广泛地深入了解女性对监禁和大屠杀的描述。