Creating a Lasting Legacy

A memorial can be achieved in many different ways. I would define a memorial as something, in my case a poem, that allows people to be informed or reminded of an important event. By doing so, this will help keep the reminiscence alive. I chose to learn about the topic of Sexual Barter in the Holocaust for many reasons. I felt as though the topic was looked down upon and not many people are aware of the extent to which people went through to try and save their loved ones. 

To me, many Holocaust memorials are impersonal. It is hard for people to relate to the 6 million number - it is too large. The benefit of a poem written in first person is that I am allowing the reader to imagine themselves actually living that moment in time. It is a much smaller, more personal scale, that seems almost relatable. We never find out the name of the woman in my poem because in the Holocaust she was not referred to with a name, but instead, an object, a thing that the officer can use and abuse whenever he wanted. I chose to express the victim’s point of view when writing this poem rather than a third person narrative to best help the reader focus and visualize themselves in her situation. I chose a rhyming scheme because I had envisioned the woman thinking of different rhymes as a way to remove herself from the reality of her situation; her brain working overtime trying to think of different rhymes. Personally, I believe it is more interesting to read a poem that rhymes and has a specific rhythm, causing it to be more dramatic and therefore capturing a sense of just how raw and horrifying this was for her. I wanted the reader to be able to make the decision on their own whether or not they thought she was successful in removing herself from her situation. I mentioned her children to bring attention to the fact that even in times of such horror and despair, a mother is still a mother. She continuously and in the end sacrificed her life for her children's sake. By offering herself to the officer, she makes an actual “choice” to put herself in such a hopeless situation, so her kids could potentially one day live when all of this would end. 

To support the story told in my poem I researched the concept of sexual barter in the times of the Holocaust, and came across the book, “Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto.” This story focuses on Otto Bernstein, a former Berliner, who had a goal of telling the story of his experiences in the Theresienstadt Ghetto. At one point in his story, Bernstein talked about the sexual and romantic life in the Ghetto, “Many a passionate love began with a double portion of potatoes.” Sexual barter in the ghetto ranged widely and differed greatly. An example of sexual barter was one engaging in sexual relationships with or being an official's partner, for safety from different kinds of harm: deportation, transports, or even for an extra portion of food for them or their loved ones. It was said that in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, there was a network of women who purposely engaged in sexual activity and social favors, for food or protection, which is exactly what the woman in the poem is doing. She’s aware of how dangerous what she is doing is, but she’s doing it for her kids. If anyone was going to make it out of the camps alive, it should be her kids. There was never a doubt in her mind that she was doing the wrong thing. 

During my research I came across an article about Franci Rabinek Epstein's manuscript. She wrote a sexually explicit memoir that no one was interested in publishing. Epstein wrote about how she observed women participating in sexual barter to help themselves or their family survive. She mentioned about how it became clear to her that being pretty was not a promise so if women were to use their beauty, they would have to think it through and be clever about it or else they would end up injured, raped, or dead. No one wanted to give Franci’s memoir attention, readers didn't want to hear about their kind of evidence or or couldn't understand the extent of what really happened. Deeply upset about her memoir not being published, Franci set it to the side and returned her focus to her work, a salon on the Upper West Side. Forty- Five years later, thanks to Franci’s children, her memoir finally got to see the light.  

To further educate myself on this topic I found a video called “Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide Reflections on Sexual Violence, Agency, and Sex Work with Anna Hajkova. Hajkova went into depth of different examples of campers who sold sexual activities to help them survive. She talked about the concept of prostitution and traced it back to before the war. Hajkova said while the more research she did and the further she found herself in this topic, the more she understood that almost, if not all relationships during the Holocaust, with a hierarchy, were violent. She would differentiate rape and sexual barter, with barter there is the moment of choice, but with rape, there is no choice. During her workshop, Anna Hajkova brought to my attention and educated me on many personal, heartbreaking stories of victims of rape and sexual barter in the camps and ghettos. Each individually unique but related and tied together through each one’s suffering. Each person mentioned in Hajkova’s workshop had their own story and reasons as to why they did what they did, most were to save themselves or their relatives. It was interesting to note that there weren’t just straight sexual bartering or relationships, but homosexual ones as well. She mentioned someone who would barter in order to help save people. This workshop was a beautiful and meaningful tribute to the victims of sexual barter and rape during the times of the Holocaust. Anna Hajkova went into depth with each personal story and educated me on a topic I will never forget. 

While I say that the narrator of my poem was making a choice to engage in sexual bartering in order to save her children, I don’t believe she should look at her story like that. Just like it was not her choice to be in the camp, she had no control whether she was there or not, she also had no “choice” in her decision making at the time. Survival instincts, maternal instincts, and the Nazis, made that choice for her. I think it is so important to learn about and remember the women, men, and even kids who had to go to extreme lengths and measures to, if not save themselves, to then save their loved ones.  My hope is that this poem will help people understand, on even a small level, one aspect of what the victims of the Holocaust endured in the camps. 

Bibliography: 

“Library Digital Collections: UC San Diego Library.” Library Digital Collections | UC San Diego Library. Accessed March 27, 2023. library.ucsd.edu/dc/embed/bb6970026g/0. 

“Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of ...” Accessed March 27, 2023. journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/668607. 

Ghert-Zand, Renee, Michael Bachner and ToI Staff, Jeremy Sharon and ToI Staff Carrie Keller-Lynn, Emanuel Fabian, ToI Staff, Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff, Amy Spiro, et al. “Sexually Explicit Memoir of Women's Abuse in Nazi Camps Finally Sees Light.” The Times of Israel, October 10, 2020. timesofisrael.com/sexually-explicit-memoir-of-womens-abuse-in-nazi-camps-finally-sees-light/. 

Hájková, Anna. “Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto: Winner of the 2013 Catharine Stimpson Prize for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship.” Signs 38, no. 3 (2013): 503–33. doi.org/10.1086/668607.