- Summary
- This study examines the experiences of the 1,700 Jews (known as U-Boote) who survived the Holocaust by hiding in and around Berlin between 1941 and 1945. Life in hiding in Berlin bears few similarities to established narratives of hiding as a solitary, immobile, and unvarying act, and this study counters assumptions that Jews hid in a uniform manner throughout Europe. Experiences of hiding in the capital of Nazi Germany were shaped by a confluence of cultural, social, and political factors specific to Berlin. This study relies on a biographical sample of approximately two-thirds of Berlin's hidden Jews and over four hundred postwar oral and written testimonies to support its conclusions about the nature of daily life in hiding. It discusses the factors that influenced decisions to hide, the processes whereby Jews learned to secure adequate food and shelter while avoiding the dangers of denunciation and arrest, the opportunities for social interaction afforded the hidden by employment and leisure, and the final months of the war, when the social networks created by the hidden began to crumble.This study's argument is two-fold. First, hiding was a dynamic act, and the U-Boote rarely hid in the physical sense of the word. They moved around with considerable frequency. In doing so, the U-Boote developed strategies to aid them in their efforts to survive. Second, life in hiding was an individual and individualistic act. The exigencies of hiding often forced the hidden to act alone when determining the best course of action. In this sense, hiding was individual. However, the individuality of the act, coupled with the mobility of hiding and Berlin Jews' knowledge of their city, also allowed them to act in ways that reinforced their own individuality. Acts of resistance, employment opportunities, and the desire to find some small degree of respite from the difficulties of hiding prompted Jews to search out avenues of self affirmation and self-expression. In this sense, hiding was also individualistic.
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Lutjens, Richard Newton, Jr.
- Published
- [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 2012
- Notes
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Dissertations and Theses
