Women of Auschwitz

Memories of Surviving Jewish Women Inside the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Struggling with Racism and Sexism

By: Jim Colajuta

Narrated by: Chloe Jacobson

Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Over a million of the Auschwitz dead were Jews, and more than half of them were women. The Auschwitz concentration camp was one of the most horrific places ever conceived of by man, a place of constant torture. The experience was uniquely terrible for women, who were forced into some of the most unimaginable circumstances. Even years later, the mothers who survived couldn't escape the memory.

This book examines 11 memoirs authored by female Jewish Auschwitz survivors to show how complex their experiences in the camp were. Though identical to men's, only women dealt with sex-specific concerns such as pregnancy, infertility, or amenorrhea. Other experiences, such as shaving their heads, had a different effect on women than on males.

Sixty years after their liberation, these women's experiences in Auschwitz live on through their memoirs, even if the authors have long perished. Individuals who were not in the camps can gain an understanding of what daily life was like for Jewish women through the lens of these testimonies. Each of these people had a one-of-a-kind experience that needs to be remembered and commemorated.

©2022 Jim Colajuta (P)2022 Jim Colajuta