Ackerman Chronicle
October 21-22, 2019
Newsletter for the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at UT Dallas
Burton C. Einspruch Holocaust Lecture Series
Dr. Roseman discussed his latest book, "Lives Reclaimed: A Story of Rescue and Resistance in Nazi Germany."
“Flowers for the Heinemanns: The Hidden History of Helping Jews in Nazi Germany."
Dr. Roseman opened the series with “Flowers for the Heinemanns: The Hidden History of Helping Jews in Nazi Germany,” where he discussed how the roles of perpetrator, victim and bystander shape perspectives about Jewish responses to the Holocaust. Often, people perceive the rescuer as a single individual with a unique character rather than as a group effort. He asserted that this view is both misleading and that it excludes certain perspectives from historical narratives.
Dr. Roseman suggested that rather than zeroing in on the actions or intentions of a single individual, we should examine the range of actions that helped Jews in hiding and their various reasons. For example, large formal social networks had access to resources and capabilities needed to feed, clothe and house not only themselves but the Jews in hiding as well.
“Genocide in View: Holocaust Perpetrators in the Eyes of Others.”
Dr. Roseman’s second lecture, “Genocide in View: Holocaust Perpetrators in the Eyes of Others,” examined the role of the perpetrator as viewed through the eyes of German Jews. He stressed how multiple disciplines have attempted to define or explain the perpetrator. Experiences of German Jews during the 1930s occupied a position of reflection of outright violence and mass murder experienced in the East. German Jews experienced a highly regimented legal system of persecution that served to limit their social, cultural and professional lives prior to ghettoization and deportations that allowed them to witness and to understand the nature of the Nazi state.
In this case, the perpetrators’ power focused more on the loss of social status and cultural exclusions from participation in the community rather than violence. It is this social degradation, national exclusion, and public humiliation that characterizes the experiences of German Jews within this unique space that Dr. Roseman refers to. Meanings the victims placed on these disrupted social functions and the characteristics of the perpetrators are significant in how we view their role in the history of the Holocaust.