The Shawl

1
The Shawl

• By Cynthia Ozick

2
Women in the Holocaust

• Women tended to be sent in greater proportion to
  the gas chambers for extermination.
• The perception was that they could not work as
  well.
• Women with small children were targeted for
  extermination right away.
• This caused heart breaking conflict because the
  maternal instinct was at odds with the will to
  survive.

3
Women in the Holocaust

• The greatest crime was to have a child while in
  camp.
• Mother and child were usually condemned to die.
• Only when the infant died was the mother spared.
• This made mothers murderers of their own
  children.
• It also encouraged other women to help by
  killing the babies of women who gave birth.

4
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (1998)

• The following narrative is by a survivor who
  narrates what happened to her
• The worstyou know, the worst part of my being
  in concentration camp, my nine months pregnancy.
  I was pregnant when I came to camp. In the
  beginning I didnt know that Im pregnant, nobody
  knew. But when I found out . . . Its hard to
  understand what I went through.

5
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• Especially the last days, when the child was
  pushing to go out, and I was afraid Im gonna
  make on theyou know how we call the beds, you
  know the bunk beds, and theyre gonna beat me up.
  And I was so afraid because I got twenty-one
  lashes in Majdanek, And all the time my body
  was, you know, blue, my whole body was blue.

6
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• I was afraid of beating because I didnt want to
  be crippled. I said to myself, if somethinglet
  them shoot me, you know, to finish my life,
  because it was very hard to live, very hard.
  Many times I was thinking to go on the wire, you
  touch it and just finish, but in the back of my
  head was Who gonna tell the world what happen?
  Always the same thing. . . .

7
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• And when I came back one time from the outside,
  I got terrible pains, and we had midwife in the
  barracks, and she heard the way, you know, and
  she said to me, come out on the oven. You know,
  in the barrack was a great oven going through. I
  went out to the oven, and the baby was born. And
  she said, You have a boy.

8
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• And she took away the boy, and till today I
  dont know where is the boy. I beg her, I hear
  crying, and I beg her to give me the baby. Im
  very, I said, I dont want to live, I want to
  die with my baby, give me my baby. I dont have
  any, you know, I said I lost my, you know,
  strength and everything, I cant fight any more,
  I want to die.

9
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• And she look at me, and she sit down, and she
  beg me to quiet up, and she said Youre so
  beautiful. Youre gonna find your husband.
  Youre gonna have children, still children. I
  still remember the words what she told me. I
  said, I cant live any more. I want to die.
  And till now I dont know wheres my baby.

10
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• The survivors narrative also explains how she
  felt later in life when she had children.
• I was lucky. I find my husband after the war.
  I didnt know for three months if hes alive, but
  I count on two peoplemy sister and my husband.
  And theyre alive . . . I find my husband. And
  finally we made home in Marburg an der Lahn in
  Germany. And I was so afraid to have a child he
  wants family. And I said For what? Again gonna
  happen, again gonna kill our children? I was so
  afraid always.

11
Excerpt from Women in the Holocaust (Continued)

• And I got my son. I was pregnant with second
  child and I didnt want it. I was afraid again.
  And I said to my husband, I dont want to have a
  child any more. I hate to be in Germany I hate
  all the Germans. I cant stand these stones,
  covered with blood, everything is in blood. And
  I was so . . . If he was thinking to have a baby,
  I was angry with him. And I said, Fine, Im
  going to look how to get rid of it, the baby.
  And I went, I got rid.

12
Excerpt Discussion

• The birth moment is the death moment.
• Because of her experience in the camp, she can
  not bring herself to bring her third child into
  the world.
• The death of the camp continues to pursue her.
• She says of herself Im like stone.

13
Women in the Resistance

• As we have seen in the Maus books and in our
  discussion of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, women
  were often a part of the resistance movements.
• They were well often suspected of illegal
  activities than men.
• They were less easily detected.

14
Experiences of Women in the Holocaust

• There was a difference in the experience of women
  because women can tolerate hunger longer and
  endure starvation for longer periods than men.
• The womens barracks were often less typhus
  infested, because they worked to clean them.

15
Experiences of Women in the Holocaust

• Although women were more likely to be
  exterminated upon arrival, once they made it into
  the camp, they tended to avoid selections better
  than the men.
• They paid more attention to appearance by
  pinching their cheeks and putting blood on them
  at the time of selections.

16
Experiences of Women in the Holocaust

• Women had problems due to monthly cycles.
  Inadequate supplies for sanitation. They were
  also often beaten for their cycles.
• Women found more supportive bonds than their male
  counterparts.
• Maternity and childbirth figure most prominently
  in Holocaust literature by women.

17
Cynthia Ozicks The Shawl

• Short story appeared in 1980.
• The author is an observant Jew and Zionist.
• She was born in 1928 in NY city, the daughter of
  a pharmacist.
• This story was published together with a novella
  called Rosa.

18
The Shawl

• The novella Rosa reveals a few things about the
  characters in The Shawl which are not revealed
  in the short story.
• Rosa is identified as a survivor.
• It shows her story after the Holocaust.
• The story shows how she is dead while alive and
  living in Miami, adrift in Americas Jewish
  retirement community.

19
The Shawl

• Also revealed is that Stella is her niece.
• She also survives.
• The story in the novella Rosa explores haw
  eccentric Rosa is, how we cannot really ever
  understand her.

20
The Shawl

• Why do I chose this work to read in this course?
• To present a womans voice
• To explore the experience of women in the
  Holocaust.

21
Discussion questions

• What is associated with the shawl in the story?
  What do you associate with a shawl?
• This is a completely fictive account, what are
  its strengths?
• The author never uses the words Jew, Nazi, or
  concentration. Why do you think she does not?
• The short story presents a tiny eye in the storm
  of history. It shows the victims pain at the
  moment of crisis. How does the short story genre
  contribute to its impact.

22
Discussion questions

• Rosa fears that someone will eat Magda. Do you
  think this is a real fear? Why does she have an
  obsession with cannibalism? What does it
  represent?
• Stella accuses Magda of looking Aryan. Why do
  you think this is mentioned?
• What do the voices in the electrically charged
  fence represent?

23
Discussion questions

• How do we see the guard? How does his image
  contrast with Magdas?
• Magda is described as a butterfly touching a
  sliver vine. What doe we associate with
  butterflies? How else is she described?
• What does Rosa do with the shawl once Magda dies?
  What does this image mean?
• The shawl can also be a play on the Hebrew term
  Shoah which literally means desolation.
• The term Shoah is often used instead of Holocaust.

24
Discussion Questions

• Animal images are often used to describe humans.
  Why?
• What did the story make you feel? Did its length
  make you feel claustrophobic?