'City Girls': Gender Dynamics among Polish Women and Polish-Passing Jewish Women in German Factories, 1942-1943

• In Event: Gendered Experiences of Forced Labor during World War II: Polish and Polish-Passing Laborers in the German Reich

Abstract

This paper analyzes the case of thirteen Jewish women who attempted to survive the Second World War by ‘passing’ as Polish-Christian forced laborers 1942. They lived and worked under assumed identities in the heart of enemy territory, amid an environment hostile to Poles and genocidal to Jews, until denunciation by a Polish or Ukrainian laborer resulted in the arrest of all thirteen women. This paper delves into passing during the Holocaust, highlighting it as a performance of identity involving actors, supporting roles, and an audience, shaped by circumstances, stakes, and setting. Foregrounding a gender analysis, it examines how both Jewish and non-Jewish supporting actors contributed to jeopardizing such performances.

Author

• Lauren Fedewa, U of Toronto (Canada)