Gluckel of Hameln’s Memoirs

The history of Jews in host cities often depict a story of success or of failure when it comes to relations between the Jews and the Christians in Europe. Historian Jonathan Elukin, author of Living Together, Living Apart, presents the integration as a success process with rare, and special cases, of failure. On the other side of the spectrum is historian Raymond P. Scheindlin. Scheindlin’s novel, A Short History of the Jewish People, presents many cases of integration between the Christians and Jews that led to massacres and brutal endings for the Jewish community. There are many monumental events that take place during the long span of time that oversees European Jewish history, and both historians study and evaluate the events, however, they do so through different lenses.

“The War Against The Jews” by Lucy Dawidowicz explores a very dark time in history and interprets it from her view. Through the use of other novels, she concurs and agrees to form her opinion. This essay will explore who Dawidowicz is, why she wrote the book, what the book is about, what other authors have explored with the same topic, and how I feel about the topic she wrote about. All in all, much research will be presented throughout the essay. In the end you will see how strongly I feel about the topic I chose. I believe that although Hitler terrorized the Jews, they continued to be stronger than ever, and tried to keep up their society.

The main theme of this story was to show the miraculous and courageous struggle of one loving and devoted family, who put their own lives at stake to protect the lives of many others. Every night, before they were placed in the concentration camp, the tiny family of three read a scripture from the Bible. While in the “hell”, they prayed that God would forgive the retched and brutal souls of the Nazi guards who beat and killed many people. They put their Christian beliefs above all else. It was more important to them that they gave up their lives to rescue others because it was the Christian thing to do

Jews have perished because of their beliefs since the beginning of time but never have so many Jews been persecuted worldwide as they were in World War II. Anne Frank’s diary reaches a place within all of our hearts because it reminds us how easily the innocents can suffer. Sometimes we may choose to close our eyes or look the other way when unjustifiable things happen in our society and Anne’s tale reminds us that ignorance, in part, claimed her life. Sadly, her story is but one of many of those who died in the Holocaust and as with other Jews, her fate was determined by the country she lived in, her sex and her age.

During this meeting the German women relayed all the information she had on the what was happening in the war. She writes, “very quickly, as fast as I can speak, I report what news I’ve gleaned from Russian papers and from the Russians themselves” (pg. 84). Her connection with Russia military men (while not very pleasant) did give her the ability to gain information on what was happening. These meeting are time to spread information about the war as well as about the people in this community. A woman from Hamburg tells the group that she had been hiding her from the Russians in a false ceiling (pg. 84). The Germans had to have some type of organization and strategies to survive under the harsh rules of the Russians.

Burleigh is further substantiated by Heyman who states that ‘women lost most of the new positions in the labour force they had occupied during the wartime year”. This suggests that women were easy and cheap to employ and when no longer needed they were dismissed so men could return to their old positions, thus showing the decline in their status. Women were unhappy about being forced into their homes and were treated like servants rather than respected for this role. Victor Klemperer, a diarist whose journals, published in Germany in 1995, detailed his life under Nazi rule during the third Reich. He states, ‘a son even the youngest today laughs in his mothers face. He regards her as the natural servant’.This shows how the next generation saw women’s role as worthless therefore decreasing their status. Victor Klemperer experienced this first hand and wrote them in his diaries and from his own memories so can be considered as credible source. Furthermore women were removed from many jobs as time went on. This therefore left them with no other choice but to have children. “Moreover, in the economy as a whole two thirds of married women were still not registered as employed on the eve of the war in 1939. If they did work, it was often as unregistered, part time cleaners

Elisheva Baumgarten’s work stands as a model for students and scholars alike in its comprehensive review of little-known writings and other sources from medieval Ashkenazi Jews as well as in its meticulous analysis of the often ambiguous writings. In Mothers and Children, Baumgarten examines a plethora of primary sources to explore the inner dynamics of Jewish families; she then uses this information to draw objective conclusions about the relationship between the Jewish and Christian communities in the middle ages.

Women working men’s jobs were not as welcomed in society as they were in factories. People held on to the belief that women should be house wives and not have to do much in the way of work. The man should provide for the family, and the women should take care of the family. Many of the women who worked were lower class and had to help provide for their families, or were the only providers for their families. Women who worked men’s jobs were looked down upon and thought to be no better than dirt. Although women working in factories were still women, men did not show them the same respect as they did a woman working as a secretary or teacher.

The Burgermeister’s Daughter, written by Steven Ozment, illustrates the scandalous life of a young woman in sixteenth century Germany. Anna Buschler, the burgermeister’s daughter, lived a troublesome life in the German city of Schwabisch Hall, where she spent the majority of her life, while still moving from town to town. While the book surrounds the life of Anna Buschler, it also gives insight to many other historical topics going on in the time of her life, which feed into the reasoning of how Anna was treated. While the book at the beginning shows the mishaps and discourages Anna’s wrongdoings, we later find out many topics of discussion which led her

Before 1939, the “ideal woman” was the devoted housewives whose sole purposes in life was to be devoted to her husband, raise the children, and keep a tidy house. However, all

The themes of the book “Memiors of Gluckel of Hameln” showed how family was important to the common Jew in Eastern Europe. Gluckel told her children about their relatives, from their grandparents to their great aunt’s second cousin, because in Jewish society it was especially important to know and respect one’s elders and ancestors. Gluckel wanted to be sure that her children knew “from what sort of people you have sprung, lest today or tomorrow your beloved children and grandchildren come and know naught of their family” (Hameln [32].) To make sure that her descendants would not be ashamed of their ancestors, she spent much of her time looking for respectable matches for her children. In the situation of Gluckel’s own family, she spoke fondly about her parent’s partnership: prior to the marriage, Gluckel’s mother’s family was destitute since Gluckel’s grandfather died from the plague. Gluckel’s father brought in The whole mother’s family and treated Gluckel’s grandmother like his own, showing the importance of respecting elderly family. “Immediately upon his marriage with my mother, my father brought my grandmother into his house and placed her at the head of the table. He provided for her for the rest of her life…and honoured her as though she were his own mother” (Hameln [19].)

Whether a woman was the mistress of a plantation or the wife of a yeoman farmer, her life was defined by work. Only a small number of women, those related or

Many Jews stayed without jobs for some months at a time. Cohen recalls, “I stood a while, then I walked away from the shop, ‘Where next’, I wondered” (Cohen 132). When Jews were able to secure jobs, they faced problems such as twelve-hour workdays. This meant that their lives consisted of nothing but work, eat, and sleep, which was repeated all seven days of the week. The days were long and the working conditions were harsh. Often, Jews had to attend work deathly ill or unable to physically function. Cohen recalls when she first arrived how much her father had to work and how he was hardly ever home, working to establish himself and his family in America. “When he went away in the morning it was still dark, and when he came home at night the lights in the halls were out” (Cohen, Pg. 74). By telling her story, Rose reveals the different economic obstacles Jews faced in the work force in America.

While all of the residents in the nearby village know Magda is a gypsy, they keep it quiet, because the gypsies, like the Jews, are persecuted by the Germans. She turns out to be a good witch, unlike the earlier fairy tale. That she was taken away after helping the children to flee may be evidence that life, for an ageing person, must have taken on a different importance at that time than it might in other times. Again this may be a reminder that during the holocaust older people, who were considered to be of less use overall, and were automatically annihilated. This book touches on the fact that the more useful a person was the greater their chances of survival.

With the commodification of both material goods and human beings that comes hand in hand with modernity and urbanization, prostitution became a widespread practice for young women in search of independence outside of a world of marriage or “assembly-line factories” and “mechanized offices with typewriters, filing cabinets, and switchboards” (Smith). Like Doris, these women hoped for a more exciting life that did not depend upon working for a boss you “have to hate” because they can “dismiss you” (Keun 161). To some, such as Austrian writer Vicki Baum, prostitution was regarded as an honest way of maintaining independence from the patriarchal institution of marriage that opened opportunities for young women to make a life for themselves, paved by sexual liberation. However, many Germans, especially those outside of Berlin, whose experiences with prostitution consisted only of horror stories of thousands of scantily clad young women roaming the previously dignified streets of their capital, feared that prostitution marked the decline of their