Violence, Discipline and Leisure

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Violence, Discipline and Leisure

Veranstalter
Cologne Center for Central and Eastern Europe (CCCEE); Abt. Osteuropäische Geschichte, Uni Bonn
Veranstaltungsort
Universität Bonn, IGW, Konviktstr. 11, 53113 Bonn
Ort
Bonn
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
23.09.2015 -
Website
http://www.osteuropa.uni-bonn.de
Von
Anke Hilbrenner, Abteilung für Osteuropäische Geschichte, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften, Universität Bonn

”When the camp commander detected any violation of camp discipline, he would torture us with senseless and malicious punishments which he called 'sport.' For up to an hour we were forced to run around the camp, sometimes crawling, sometimes huddled together, while Germans, wearing bright green and red, randomly beat us with canes.”
In these words an unknown former camp inmate described the brutality of sport in Nazi concentration camps. Sport under the specific circumstances of repression, hunger, violence, and killing unsettles most observers. It goes without saying, that sport in such or other penal and internment camps as something coercive that must constitute a part of the repressive system.
However, sport in camps was not always forced upon prisoners but often exercise and play were taken up by the prisoners voluntarily. Under these circumstances sport enabled camp inmates to ensure their survival, organise themselves and to some degree express their identity. Although sport added to malnutrition, forced labour, and torture thus meaning further exhaustion it became an object of self-dependence and self-reliance.
This makes sport in camps a twofold phenomenon. On the one hand exercise was a method of violence and a way for guards to torture prisoners. It also served as entertainment for camp officials. On the other side prisoners participated in such sporting activities on their own initiative. Camp inmates took up sport or watched others competing simply because they wanted to and in some cases were able to do so.
The fact that people participated in sport under such murderous and brutal circumstances in penal and internment camps often provoked and provokes disbelieve and repulsion. Apparently, the tension between life and death is especially shocking when it comes to sport. Therefore, sport is often used as a metaphor for the incapability to describe Auschwitz. Tadeusz Borowski for instance made use of this image in his book “This way for the gas, ladies and gentleman” when a football goalkeeper commented: “Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death.” Still Primo Levi understood football matches as a metaphor of collaboration and guilt, generally being connected with survivors of concentration camps.
With our conference we approach the historic reality of sport in camps beyond alienation and metaphors. We will thus scrutinise sport as both a tool of repression and strategy of survival in a broad and comparative perspective. In order to tackle the dynamic of sport in penal and internement camps we will take into account different camp systems, periods of time and geographical regions. We welcome contributions for example on Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet GULag, but also on PoW-Camps during the World Wars, DP-Camps after 1945, and refugee camps throughout the 20th century.

Programm

23 September 2015
venue: Universitätshauptgebäude, Schloss, Hörsaal V

18:00 Dittmar Dahlmann (Bonn)/Anke Hilbrenner (Bonn/Bremen)/Gregor Feindt (Mainz): Welcome and introductory remarks

18:15–19:45 Alan Kramer (Dublin): The World of Camps. A Protean Institution in War and Peace

24 September 2015

venue: Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft, Konviktstraße 11, Großer Übungsraum

9:00–11:00 Panel I: Leisure and Discipline –Prisoners of War Camps I
- Floris van der Merwe (Stellenbosch, South Africa): Sport in Concentration and Prisoner-of-war camps during the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902)
- Panikos Panayi (Leicester, UK): Sport, Leisure and Work in Military and Civilian Internment Camps in Britain, 1914–1919
- Christoph Jahr (Berlin): Sport in Internment and Prisoner of War Camps in Germany during World War I

Coffee break

11:30–13:30 Panel I: Leisure and Discipline ––Prisoners of War Camps II
- Dittmar Dahlmann (Bonn): Sport in British Prisoner of War Camps during and after World War II
- Doriane Gomet (Rennes, France): To control the bodies or to divert themselves? Physical practices of French POWs (officers, soldiers) during World War II
- Discussant: Gerhard Hirschfeld (Stuttgart)

Lunch break

15:00–16:15 Panel II: Condensed violence – Nazi Concentrations camps and GULag
- Felicitas Fischer von Weikersthal (Heidelberg): Fizkul’tura and Re-education in Soviet Labor Camps
- Kim Wünschmann (Brighton, UK): “Judenexerzieren”: The Role of ‘Sport’ for Constructions of Race, Body and Gender in the Early Concentration Camps 1933–34

Short Coffee break

16:30-17:30 Panel II: Condensed violence – Nazi Concentration camps and GULag (continued)
- Veronika Springmann (Oldenburg): “He liked us, because we were good athletes, good workers” – Productive Bodies in Nazi Concentration Camps
- Discussant: Anke Hilbrenner (Bonn/Bremen)

Venue: Universitätshauptgebäude, Schloss, Hörsaal II

18:00–19:30 Contemporary witnesses share their memories of sport in the GULag with Meinhard Stark (Bonn/Berlin) (to be held in German)

25 September 2015

10:00–12:00 Panel III: Performing identity: Camps for (forced) migrants
- Mathias Beer (Tübingen): Sport as an Agency of Integration. Expellees Camps in Germany after World War II
- Marcus Velke (Bonn/Marburg): Sports in DP Camps: Recreation, Nationalization, and Integration
- Discussant: Richard Mills (Norwich, UK)

Light lunch

12:30–14:30 Panel IV: Self organization: Internment of political prisoners
- Hendrik Snyders (Stellenbosch, South Africa): “Court Yard Players”: The Robben Island Rugby Board 1961–1990
- Dieter Reinisch (Florence, Italy): Memories of Sport in Northern Irish Internment Camps
- Discussant: Gregor Feindt (Mainz)
Coffee break

15:00–16:30 Round Table: Perspectives of Sports in the “Age of Extremes”
Manfred Zeller (Bremen), Gerhard Hirschfeld (Stuttgart), Alan Kramer (Dublin), Richard Mills (Norwich), Anke Hilbrenner (Bremen/Bonn), and Gregor Feindt (Mainz)

We would like to thank the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung for the financial support of our conference.

Kontakt

Anke Hilbrenner

Abt. Osteuropäische Geschichte, Lennéstr. 1
53113 Bonn

a.hilbrenner@uni-bonn.de

http://www.osteuropa.uni-bonn.de
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