Forced labour for the Third Reich

• Published in: Historia antropología y fuentes orales 2007-01 (37), p.33-42
• Main Author: Thonfeld, Christoph
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Subjects: Coping; Germany; Gypsies; Jews; Memory; Nazism; Slavery
• ISSN: 1136-1700

The paper explores how former forced labourers for Nazi Germany have tried to come to terms with their experiences personally & as part of their social surroundings. The term "forced labourer" in itself has been a bone of contention for victims associations as well as researchers what did not make the task any easier for those affected. Discrimination or neglect generally assigned them a peripheral position in national cultures of commemoration which made them invent a lot of strategies to conceal their past. Silence & shame are common elements of their narration. However, there also a number of respondents who contrast their experience positively with the fate of soldiers, ghetto & camp inmates. But, for the majority, the courses of their lives were shaped by sanctions & surveillance, leading to fear, mistrust & reclusiveness on their behalf. Those who were racially persecuted put their wartime experience into the perspective of their whole life before & after. While Roma have often found consolation in their communities, Jews rather emphasized their new beginning in Israel or one of the other major destinations for emigration. Roma mostly describe forced labor as just another hardship, by Jews it is first & foremost remembered as a means to survive. While forced labourers often had to struggle with the rejection of their society of origin, they were mostly expected to leave their past behind when they entered a new country, what the majority of them readily did. Adapted from the source document.