Between Persecution and Complicity

The particular treatment of persons of ‘mixed’ Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry during the Holocaust remains an under-explored topic in scholarly research on the Holocaust. Drawing on the relatively new field of biography studies in Germany, this essay looks at the life history of a former ‘Jewish Mischling’ in Germany to exemplify the ways in which circumstances such as age, gender and religious affiliation affected the diverse treatment of individuals belonging to this persecuted group. Ralf G’s personal narrative is contextualised within the Nazi debate on the definition and treatment of ‘mixed-race Jews’ to show how these discourses and political practices impacted on the individual self-construction of persons from intermarried backgrounds at the time of persecution and into the post-war period

Art · Biography · Complicity · Judaism · Literature · Narrative · Nazi Germany · Nazism · Persecution · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The Holocaust · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies