How can we trace queer experiences during the Nazi genocide of European Jewry, 1933-1945, the Porajmos and the persecution of other minoritized subjects by the Nazis? In what form were persecuted subjects able to testify to their queer experiences, and how can we approach these sources? How can we account for the diversity of the way that queer experiences were expressed during and after the time of persecution, including the way that ethnicity, class, gender, religion and religiosity, nationality and language affected the recording of queer experiences? What silences have been produced by stigma, shame and homophobia, and how can we trace queer experiences despite these silences? What are the ethical implications of giving voice to silences in the historical record? What inclusive and non-hierarchical methods can scholars use to trace these experiences and to co-produce materials on queer experiences with wider communities outside academia, particularly queer communities and activist scholars? What might studies of queer experiences in the Holocaust reveal – about same-sex intimacy, queer desire, agency, experience, the intersections of queerness, gender, race, class, ethnicity, age, etc. - that can allow for a deeper understanding of the Holocaust to be realised?
This workshop seeks to explore the ways in which victims of Nazi persecution have testified to and have left traces of queer experience. This might include, but not be limited to:
- Queer experiences in video testimony
- Queer readings of Holocaust testimony, such as the interventions made by Amy Elman and Cheryl Hann about Anne Frank’s diary.
- Queer experiences in archival material
- Queer memoir and life writing
- Queer artworks
Recent years have seen a transnational growth of interest in researching queer experiences of the Holocaust. This includes the pioneering work of such scholars as Joanna Ostrowska, Joanna Talewicz-Kwiatkowska and Lutz van Kijk (Erinnern in Auschwitz auch an sexuelle Minderheiten, 2020), Anna Hájková (Menschen ohne Geschichte sind Staub, 2021), W. Jake Newsome (Pink Triangle Legacies. Coming Out in the Shadow of the Holocaust, 2022), Zavier Nunn (‘Against Anticipation, or, Camp Reading as Reparative to the Trans Feminine Past: A Microhistory in Nazi-Era Vienna.’ Gender and History (2023) 1-17), and Roseanna Ramsden (“‘Something Was Crawling All over Me’: Queer Fear in Women’s Holocaust Testimonies.” Holocaust studies 26.3 (2020): (401–415), and many others (see the online bibliography “Bibliography Sexuality and the Holocaust”, https://sexualityandholocaust.com/bibliography-sexuality/). As well as these volumes and essays, individual biographies of queer-identifying subjects who were persecuted in the Holocaust have also recently appeared, including Jonathan Ned Katz, The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams (2021), and Raimund Wolfert, Charlotte Charlaque. Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, “Königin der Broooklyn Heights Promenade (2021). Queer experience and persecution of queer activity during the Nazi period has also started to become reference and thematized by more mainstream media productions, including Transparent (Jill Soloway, 2014-2019), Nelly & Nadine (Magnus Gertten, 2022), Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (Benjamin Cantu, 2023).
Common to all of these more recent texts is an attentiveness to intersectional issues (Crenshaw) and to the lived complexities of queer experiences during the Holocaust. These new areas of research are indebted to the pioneering work of scholars who researched queer history from the 1970s to the 1990s, such as Richard Plant (The Pink Triangle. The Nazi War against Homosexuals, 1986) or Claudia Schoppmann (Days of Masquerade: Life Stories of Lesbians During the Third Reich, 1996). They develop this earlier scholarship by drawing on fresh research as well as methodological perspectives such as critical race theory and intersectional feminism. They also seek to draw links between the persecution of queers during the Nazi period and the broader context of global homophobic persecution (e.g. Alexander Zinn (ed), Homosexuelle in Deutschland 1933-1969, 2020).
Inspired by – and seeking to build upon – the recent turn towards queer historiography in Holocaust studies, this workshop will focus on queer experiences of the Holocaust. It is particularly concerned both with how survivors have testified to these queer experiences, and how scholars can uncover their traces despite the ways they have been silenced, obscured, hidden and flattened by traditional discourses, and despite the fact that many of these traces are held in the archives of the perpetrators. We are also painfully aware that the time for speaking directly to queer survivors of the Holocaust has nearly run out. In an effort to foster intellectual exchange and reflection, we aim to bring together scholars working in different disciplines, methodologies (especially queer methodologies), and theoretical perspectives, and who analyse different types of evidence. The workshop seeks to advance interdisciplinary inquiries into queer history and memory of the Holocaust and, importantly, to facilitate the exploration of new ways to approach survivors’ testimonies to reveal the traces of queer experience within them.
We especially encourage contributions from postgraduate students and early career researchers. A publication is envisaged as an outcome of the workshop.
Please submit a brief abstract (max. 200 words) and a short biography to Dr Rosie Ramsden (r.ramsden@leeds.ac.uk) or Professor Helen Finch (h.c.finch@leeds.ac.uk) by February 24th 2024. This workshop is supported by the University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies Conference Fund.