Order for the whole number

Back to the list of journals

Philippe Mesnard, Yannis Thanassekos: Témoigner. Entre Histoire et Mémoire. Revue pluridisciplinaire de la Fondation Auschwitz (pdf in French)(pdf in Dutch)

Dossier: Questions de « bourreaux »

Coordinated by Philippe Mesnard and Yannis Thanassekos

Philippe Mesnard: Editorial(pdf in French)(pdf in Dutch)

Benoît Cazenave: La Mégère de l’Armagedon (pdf)

• After 1945, Ilse Koch was indicted for numerous crimes committed against the prisoners of KZ. She was further accused, albeit without proof, of numerous other crimes including the creation of objects made with human skin and sexual deprivation, and in the context of the Cold War and denazification her trials became symbols of german democratisation and exoneration, and of the feminisation of nazi ignominy. After having served as a muse for numerous works of sado-eroticism and nazi fascination in the 1960s and 1970s, she remains a reference point in "feminine violence" and an instrument of negationist propaganda.

Regula Christina Zürcher: Massacreur et père : un paradoxe apparent (pdf) [Parent and mass-murderer: an apparent paradox with a system]

• Parent and mass-murderer - an apparent paradox with a system Using the records of the Auschwitz Kommandantur, the memoirs of SS personnel and their trial statements, descriptions by prisoners and the research carried out to date, this article describes the family life of the SS members who ran the mass killing installations at Auschwitz.  It shows that the presence of their wives and children was essential for enabling the SS and the murder machine to function  The families, who lived a pleasant and varied life in the SS quarters, provided the criminals with distractions and rewards which enabled them to forget their "work" of killing and believe that their activities were normal.
   
  Using the records of the Auschwitz Kommandantur, the memoirs of SS personnel and their trial statements, descriptions by prisoners and the research carried out to date, this article describes the family life of the SS members who ran the mass killing installations at Auschwitz. It shows that the presence of their wives and children was essential for enabling the SS and the murder machine to function. The families, who lived a pleasant and varied life in the SS quarters, provided the criminals with distractions and rewards which enabled them to forget their "work" of killing and believe that their activities were normal.

Régine Waintrater: Les Bienveillantes, intimité forcée ou intimidation ? (pdf)

Charlotte Lacoste: De la vigilance critique (pdf)

Pierre Ayçoberry: Autoportrait d’un fanatique en quarante mille pages : le Journal de Joseph Goebbels 1923-1945

• Goebbels kept a daily journal for twenty two years in which he noted the day's activities, and remarks made by his friends, enemies, and master. Following half a century of unexpected disappearances and reappearances of partial or erroneous versions of the journals, a definitive 29 volume edition was finally published between 1993 and 2005 thanks to the perseverance of the members of the Munich Institut für Zeitsgeschichte. An abridged French edition in four volumes is in progress, of which the first three installations have already been published.
  The volume of information that these pages provide on the internal workings of the Party, and subsequently the Nazi regime, clearly needs to be approached critically and not simply taken at face value. The very nature of the manuscript (a personal diary) implies that the author presents himself to posterity as consistently being the most lucid and faithful of the Führer's acolytes on both good days and bad.
  It is precisely this professed fidelity which guarantees that he transcribed both Hitler's rages and his rational analyses with the same scrupulous care. The reader is thus able to study two fanatics, almost inseparable from their first to their last encounter.

Pierre Thys: Approche criminologique du criminel de guerre contemporain (pdf)

• Through the medium of illustrative cases drawn from contemporary armed conflicts it becomes possible to study "executioners" by taking recourse to criminology, and more particularly to criminal psycho-sociology. The war criminal could very well vary only in degree, and not in nature, to the criminal of common law. He certainly seems more "normal" than the socially disengaged criminal, but this difference becomes less clearly defined as soon as the process leading up to the crime and permitting its repetition is placed under closer scrutiny. We can thus show that the war criminal can certainly benefit from criminology in order to explain actions and their genesis. Whilst the criminal’s convictions take primacy, the crime itself, whether motivated by opportunism, profit, or ideology, remains a crime without glory, and he who commits it a criminal conscious of his actions.

Laurent Thiery: La « Gestapo de Lille » (1940-1944) : histoire et représentation

Tine Jorissen: Le Auffanglager Breendonk et le Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort : une comparaison (pdf)

Frediano Sessi: Criminels par procuration ? Sur l'auto-administration des détenus dans les Lager (pdf) [Criminals by proxy? Prisoner self-government in the camps and delegation of power by the SS]

Other subjects

Susanne Wein: Antisémitisme dans les mouvements ouvriers des années 1920 ?  Enquête sur la presse ouvrière de Brême de 1924 à 1928

• This article examines the previously neglected issue of the attitude of the left, specifically the KPD and SPD in Bremen, when confronted with anti-Semitism. The work is based on the theory that after the Empire, anti-Semitism became a universal cultural code used in interpreting the world and society as a whole.
  After reviewing the common history of the socialist parties until the First World War, the article focuses on selected specific anti-Semitic events that took place in Bremen during the Weimar Republic.
  In order to deduce contemporary attitudes the author has chosen to analyse the left wing parties' daily newspapers dating from the relatively calm period from 1924 to 1928. Trends and patterns are illustrated that permit an analysis that goes beyond Bremen. In its perpetuation of a manichaen world-view the KPD demonstrated a structural tendency not only to not recognise anti-Semitic themes but also to produce them themselves. This always occurred through the evocation of the "rich Jewish capitalist". In conjunction with this image the papers peddled conspiracy theories in which their clientele were stylised as victims. The party line of not distinguishing between Jewish and Christian capital was constantly contradicted in practice. In the SPD, the cultural convention of anti-Semitism was also manifest. The party was certainly scandalised by anti-Semitic messages and activity, but unpremeditated themes appeared. The SPD evoked the ironic stereotype of "typically Jewish" against their right-wing adversaries, without recognising the underlying implications of using the image. According to party rhetoric, Jews had to remain beyond reproach. In reality, the SPD didn't hesitate to use anti-Semitic images.

Chris Gastmans, Maria Berghs & Bernadette Dierckx de Casterlé: Verantwoordelijkheidspraktijken en verpleegkundigen gedurende de euthanasieprogramma’s van Nazi-Duitsland (1939-1945)

Hélène Piralian: En quoi le génocide met-il à l'épreuve les fondements mêmes de la psychanalyse ?  Les sites rwandais

• Prev
• Next