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Nazi Concentration Camp And Gulag Research Paper

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Nazi concentration camps and Gulags brought together various connections of fellow prisoners, there were men and women, Jews, Germans, Russians, and several other diverse groups of people contained. I will be focusing on female prisoners in both Nazi concentration camps and in the Gulags, identifying particular aspects of living situations in both camps and prisons, and also analyzing women’s perspectives of the circumstances they were forced upon. Women suffered from continuous dehumanizing conditions, which included vicious rape, discriminatory murder, and endless embarrassment. I will be exposing women’s physical and biological concerns during their time in the Nazi concentration camps. We can look at men and women sharing their tragedies…show more content…
Concentration camps were first conducted by Nazi Germany in 1933 and continued into 1945. The camps were established immediately after Adolf Hitler became chancellor and was given, which seemed to be, complete power over Germany. “The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to the legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.” When entering the camps the prisoners were sent to the registration, men and women were separated with children remaining with their mothers. Families were disconnected from each other and were left to envision the awful conditions their loved ones were faced with. Human dignity was immediately taken away from the female prisoners; their hair was instantly shaved from their bodies and clothing was exchanged for rags, their personal identity was abolished. Many women accounted that the loss of their hair was one of the most devastating experiences they were faced with in the camps, even more devastating than having their breasts and genitals exposed to unwanted viewers. “My hair was part of me, it kept me different from the other girls, it was degradation for a woman to lose her hair.” With the embarrassment of losing their hair, women also had to suffer from men shaving their private…show more content…
“There was nothing about the camps’ overall structure that would prevent interaction between men and women.” This meant that sex was inevitable in the Gulags, sex was a source of pleasure and resistance, however, it was also exchange for protection, rations, and better food. Women used their sexuality to better their living situations in the Gulags; they were able to have a sense of sexual autonomy. “They could choose to use relationships with men to negotiate power dynamics and limit the harshness and isolation of daily life.” With intimacy taking place in the Gulags there was often a chance of conceiving a child, pregnant women in the prison were not often forced to have abortions but they were forced to raise their child in a difficult environment. In Hava Volovich’s memoir she describes the horrible conditions her baby girl was delivered in, “She was born in a remote camp barracks, not in the medical block…bedbugs poured from the ceiling walls; we spent the whole night brushing them off the
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