Forgotten Female Researchers
A glance at the majority of publications on the Holocaust gives one the impression that mainly men documented and researched the subject. Additionally, the existing structures and networks are also linked to the names of male founding members: The Wiener Library in London, the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, named after Emanuel Ringelblum and the Wiesenthal-Institute for Holocaust Studies.
However, there were female researchers in all of the commissions and institutions that gathered documents, recorded survivors’ reports, and published their findings. These female researchers were driven by the same motivations and beliefs as their male co-workers, and they worked side by side. Many of their works were published in Yiddish or Polish, which for a long time contributed to a lack of reception in the West. Even in Communist Eastern Europe, a place of professed nominal equality between men and women, female workers seldomly reached leadership positions. Thus, public perception to this day focuses on male directors and leaders.
This exhibit, too, is a reflection of this. It is due in large part to the historical transmission: there is a greater amount of biographical material and publications by and photographs of men in central positions. This, however, does not mean that women contributed any less to the judicial work and to the commemoration and research of the Holocaust. Even numerically, these female pioneers were on equal footing. It is their contribution that built the foundation of Holocaust research today.
Ada Eber (dates unknown) received her doctorate degree in History from the University of Lwów. She survived the war in hiding. She later joined the Jewish Historical Commission in Poland, offering valuable contributions as one of the few professional historians. Eber met her husband Philip Friedman at the Commission. Together, they emigrated to the US. She contributed to her husband’s scientific research; her work was indispensable for the extensive list of publications that appeared under his name. Despite this, Eber was not considered as an independent researcher in her own right.
Nella Rost (1902–?) worked as a journalist. During the war, she survived forced labour, the Krakow Ghetto, the nearby concentration camp Plaszow, and a prison sentence in the notorious Krakow prison Montelupich. She was head of the Krakow branch of the Central Jewish Historical Commission of Poland before migrating to Sweden in 1946. While in exile, Rost led another historical commission for the World Jewish Congress. In 1951, Rost emigrated to Uruguay.
Genia Silkes (1914–1984) worked as a teacher in Warsaw before the outbreak of the war. She founded various underground schools in the Warsaw Ghetto, and participated in the group of Oyneg Shabes. She was able to flee during the Ghetto Uprising. After the war, Silkes worked for the Jewish Historical Commission. She was also actively engaged in the rebuilding of schools in Poland. Beginning in 1949, she worked as a researcher for the Jewish Scientific Institute, first in Paris and, after 1956, in the US.
Extract from the online event for the special exhibition "Crimes Uncovered. The First Generation of Holocaust Researchers"