After They Left: Looted Jewish Apartments and the Private Perception of the Holocaust. (4th December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dorothée Lange, Carolin
• Is Part Of: Holocaust and genocide studies. Volume 34:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 431
• Page End: 449
• Publication Date: 2020-12-04
• Subjects: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Periodicals; Genocide -- Periodicals; 940.5318
• DOI: 10.1093/hgs/dcaa042
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 8756-6583

Abstract

Abstract: This study of the afterlife of "abandoned" Jewish property in National Socialist Germany analyzes the emotional impact on Jewish families of the loss of personal belongings, and those belongings' emotional impact on the Gentile families that acquired them. This property could be movable and intimate: jewelry, furniture, porcelain, and the like; as well as immovable: apartments and houses illegitimately wrested from their residents or owners. The author asks how Gentiles' behavior changed in relation to the escalating Holocaust of the Jews. She argues that the reactions of both ordinary Germans and government authorities changed when the mass deportations started, indicating that non-Jewish Germans were very much aware of the experience of their Jewish neighbors.