Studies of forced labour in Nazi camps tend to stress the exceptionality of inmates’ experiences and their profound difference from common views of work. Yet examination of the wartime and postwar accounts of inmates and survivors reveals that they often combine features of the camp reality itself with phenomena from other times, places and situations. In this way, written, oral and visual depictions articulate a reality in which concepts and ideologies of work familiar from various cultural settings mix with those of the Nazi camp system, as well as with later experiences and current debates. This article traces three cultural frameworks that inmates and survivors utilized to make sense of forced labour in Nazi camps: war and the military, industrial concepts of productive destruction and destructive production, and Jewish religious culture. In exploring the relationship between the continuity and discontinuity of meaning between these cultural frameworks and the Nazi camps, we analyse a wide range of interviews, artworks, songs, memoirs and written reports from the 1930s to the early 2000s. We argue that in order not to make their suffering and work appear senseless, inmates and survivors understood forced labour within well-established frameworks of meaning. Their accounts, we suggest, use symbolic elements as creative acts that address inmates’ experiences by expanding the camp reality or going beyond it, thereby making them more comprehensible and communicable.

中文翻译：

---

有意义的工作：纳粹集中营囚犯账户中强迫劳动的文化框架

对纳粹集中营强迫劳动的研究倾向于强调囚犯经历的特殊性及其与普通工作观的深刻差异。然而，对战时和战后囚犯和幸存者的描述表明，他们经常将营地现实本身的特征与其他时间、地点和情况的现象结合起来。通过这种方式，书面、口头和视觉描述阐明了一个现实，在这个现实中，来自不同文化背景的作品的概念和意识形态与纳粹集中营系统的概念和意识形态，以及后来的经验和当前的辩论相结合。本文追溯了囚犯和幸存者用来理解纳粹集中营强迫劳动的三个文化框架：战争和军队、生产性破坏和破坏性生产的工业概念，以及犹太宗教文化。在探索这些文化框架与纳粹集中营之间意义的连续性和非连续性之间的关系时，我们分析了从 1930 年代到 2000 年代初的各种访谈、艺术作品、歌曲、回忆录和书面报告。我们认为，为了不让他们的痛苦和工作显得毫无意义，囚犯和幸存者在既定的意义框架内理解强迫劳动。我们建议，他们的叙述使用象征性元素作为创造性行为，通过扩展或超越营地现实来解决囚犯的经历，从而使他们更容易理解和交流。从 1930 年代到 2000 年代初的回忆录和书面报告。我们认为，为了不让他们的痛苦和工作显得毫无意义，囚犯和幸存者在既定的意义框架内理解强迫劳动。我们建议，他们的叙述使用象征性元素作为创造性行为，通过扩展或超越营地现实来解决囚犯的经历，从而使他们更容易理解和交流。从 1930 年代到 2000 年代初的回忆录和书面报告。我们认为，为了不让他们的痛苦和工作显得毫无意义，囚犯和幸存者在既定的意义框架内理解强迫劳动。我们建议，他们的叙述使用象征性元素作为创造性行为，通过扩展或超越营地现实来解决囚犯的经历，从而使他们更容易理解和交流。