The Chameleon of Trawniki: Jack Reimer, Soviet Volksdeutsche, and the Holocaust

The crimes and transformations of Jack Reimer, a heavily-implicated ethnic German Holocaust perpetrator, are examined in the following article. Within little more than a generation, Reimer refashioned himself from repressed farmer to Red Army lieutenant; from Soviet POW in German captivity to senior...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Holocaust and genocide studies 2009, Vol.23 (2), p.239-262
Main Author: Steinhart, Eric C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The crimes and transformations of Jack Reimer, a heavily-implicated ethnic German Holocaust perpetrator, are examined in the following article. Within little more than a generation, Reimer refashioned himself from repressed farmer to Red Army lieutenant; from Soviet POW in German captivity to senior non-commissioned officer at the SS Training Camp in Trawniki, Poland; and finally from wanted war criminal to upstanding American citizen. This article argues that for one ethnic German perpetrator, participation in the Holocaust served as a vehicle for negotiating Eastern Europe's dangerous wartime multiethnic milieu.
ISSN:8756-6583
1476-7937
DOI:10.1093/hgs/dcp032