Jewish Cemeteries as a Space of Survival

• In Event: Jewish Strategies for Survival during the Holocaust

Abstract

This paper examines the use of the Jewish cemetery in occupied Poland as a space of survival during the Holocaust. Through and within the Jewish cemetery, Jews across occupied Poland utilized their cemeteries to smuggle and grow food, hide from deportations, and escape ghettos. By examining memoirs, testimonies, oral histories, and yizkor books, this paper argues that during the Holocaust, the traditional space of the Jewish dead also became a site of survival.

Author

• Alison Curry, UNC at Chapel Hill