The Transformative Power of the Holocaust

Anne Knowles (University of Maine)

Iconic places anchor our conceptions and understanding of the Holocaust: Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Warsaw ghetto, the inside of a cattle car or gas chamber. These mute, horrifying places, seared into our consciousness by photographs, films, and museum displays, have come to symbolize the dreadful suffering inflicted on millions of innocent people by the Nazis. This lecture will suggest another way to view the Holocaust that may be closer to how it was experienced by many victims -- as a bewildering series of transformations that made ordinary places strange and treacherous. This lecture will explore the power of confinement, relocation, forced labor, and the constant threat of violence to change the everyday worlds of Jews throughout Eastern Europe. Knowles will draw on survivor testimony and her geographical research on concentration camps and ghettos.