Universität Wien

240114 SE SE/PR (research-) project development (2023W)

(Non-)binarity in Binary Structures The Digital Communication of Identity and Diversity

10.00 ECTS (4.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: German

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Friday 06.10. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 13.10. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 20.10. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 27.10. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 03.11. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 10.11. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 17.11. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 24.11. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 01.12. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 15.12. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 12.01. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 19.01. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7
  • Friday 26.01. 09:45 - 13:00 Hörsaal 29 Hauptgebäude, 1.Stock, Stiege 7

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The Mauthausen concentration camp was founded only a few weeks after the "Anschluss" of Austrofascist Austria to the German Reich. In December 1939, the SS had a second concentration camp built in Gusen, only a few kilometres away from Mauthausen. From 1944 onwards, female prisoners were transferred to subcamps of the Mauthausen concentration camp system. Prisoner brothels, where female prisoners were sexually exploited as forced labourers, existed from 1942 onwards. In total, people from all over Europe were deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp from August 1938 until its liberation in May 1945. Of the total of about 190,000 prisoners in Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps, at least 90,000 had died in seven years.

Numerous male and female prisoners were affected by sexual violence and sexual exploitation in concentration camps, but they were also perpetrators themselves. Sexuality in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps has received little attention in research so far. Research started with homosexual male prisoners who had been sentenced and imprisoned according to Paragraph 175 and 175a. The individual memory of former concentration camp prisoners usually began late. Many were hiding their experiences and only dared to speak or write in oral history interviews at an advanced age. The sources are usually only made available by the archives in blacked-out form, and databases with the names of the prisoners are not accessible outside of research.

The state's process of rememberance has also been delayed. A plaque commemorating the homosexual victims of Nazi persecution was placed at the Mauthausen memorial in 1984. It was not until 2005 that homosexuals were recognised as victims of National Socialism in Austria. The prisoners' brothels in Mauthausen and Gusen are still closed to visitors today. A special exhibition on forced sex labour in Mauthausen was shown in 2005. Since then, research has become increasingly interested in the topic. This is also demonstrated by this year's "Dialogforum" at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial (September 2023).
The seminar thus builds on the most current research results presented there.

Methods:
In the seminar, methods of qualitative and quantitative research will be practised and applied on the basis of sources. We will question quantitative sources and discuss the difficulties, advantages and disadvantages of statistical analysis according to prisoner categories.
In the second part, we will devote ourselves to different sources for biographical research. We will discuss the "room of names" and the concept of commemoration through names as well as the difficulties that arise in practice for approaching queer biographies. Problems, e.g. how a biography can be traced and reconstructed despite the fragmentary transmission of life-historical documents, will be critically questioned on the basis of individual biographies.

We will also examine memorial plaques and thus the public commemoration of marginalised groups. Students will critically engage with issues of visibility and memory. Finally, students will be asked to work in groups with the sources and pursue their own questions.

Assessment and permitted materials

In the first part, an introduction to the Mauthausen concentration camp system and the persecution of sexual minorities/non-heteronormative persons and women/FLINTA persons in National Socialism is given. The basic literature will be discussed in the group and important questions will be elaborated. Methodologically, an introduction is given to central concepts of gender history research with a focus on theoretical-methodological approaches to biographical research and micro-history of contemporary history. Analytical skills are taught.

In the second part, students learn to locate persons within the concentration camp system using concrete case studies. They will work directly on the original sources in the archive of the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial in Vienna. The topics of the seminar papers will be chosen and concrete research will be carried out on the topic. Students will have the opportunity to work directly with archive sources and databases and to carry out evaluations.

A visit to the concentration camp memorial in Mauthausen is also planned. In a guided tour of the site, we will discuss the topics we have worked on directly at the site of the crimes.

A longer workshop unit will be used to develop posters for the seminar work and to discuss the sources in depth as well as to discuss central theses of the seminar work.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Active participation: 2 out of 10 points
Presentation, poster presentation: 2 out of 10 points
Data collection and instrument: 2 out of 10 points
Research report: 4 out of 10 points

Examination topics

active participation, presentation, short exposé/handout, data collection and instrument, research report.

Reading list

Amesberger, Helga / Auer, Katrin / Halbmayr, Brigitte: Sexualisierte Gewalt. Weibliche Erfahrungen in NS-Konzentrationslagern, Wien 2004.

Die Aussteller (Hg.): Sex-Zwangsarbeit in NS-Konzentrationslagern. Katalog zur Ausstellung, Wien 2005.

Dobosiewicz, Stanislaw: Vernichtungslager Gusen (Mauthausen-Studien 5), Wien 2007.

Eschebach, Insa / Mühlhäuser, Regina (Hg.): Krieg und Geschlecht. Sexuelle Gewalt im Krieg und Sex- Zwangsarbeit in NS-Konzentrationslagern, Berlin 2008.

Grzesiuk, Stanislaw: Fünf Jahre KZ (Mauthausen-Erinnerungen 4), Wien / Hamburg 2020.

Gräser, Marcus / Rupnow, Dirk (Hg.): Österreichische Zeitgeschichte – Zeitgeschichte in Österreich. Eine Standortbestimmung in Zeiten des Umbruchs (Böhlaus Zeitgeschichtliche Bibliothek 41), Wien 2021.

Heger, Heinz: Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel. Der Bericht eines Homosexuellen über seine KZ-Haft 1939-1945, Hamburg 1993.

Hájková, Anna: Den Holocaust queer erzählen, in: Janin Aven/Jan Feddersen/Benno Gammerl/ Rainer Nicolaysen/Benedikt Wolf (Hg.): Jahrbuch Sexualitäten 2018. Göwngen 2018, 86–110.

Jensen, Erik Norman: The Pink Triangle and Political Consciousness: Gays, Lesbians, and the Memory of Nazi Persecution, in: Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, Nr. 1/2 (2002), 319–49.

Marsalek, Hans: Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen. Dokumentation, Wien 2016, 4. Nachdruck.

Ostrowska, Joanna / Talewicz-Kwiatkowska, Joanna / Dijk, Lutz van (Hg.): Erinnern in Auschwitz auch an sexuelle Minderheiten, Berlin 2020.

Ostrowska, Joanna: Häftlinge nach Paragraph 175a im Lagerkomplex Mauthausen-Gusen. Verschwiegene Biografien von Polen aus dem “Reichsgau Wartheland”, coMMents 1 (2002).

Paul, Christa / Sommer, Robert: SS-Bordelle und Oral History. Problematische Quellen und die Existenz von Bordellen für die SS in Konzentrationslagern, BIOS 19/1 (2006), 124-142.

Perz, Bertrand: Die KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart, Innsbruck / Wien 2006.

Prenninger, Alexander / Berger, Heinrich / Lechner, Ralf / Kranebitter, Andreas / Fritz, Regina / Amesberger, Helga / Botz, Gerhard (Hg.): Mauthausen und die nationalsozialistische Expansions- und Verfolgungspolitik, Bd. 1, Wien 2021.

Prenninger, Alexander / Fritz, Regina / Botz, Gerhard / Dejnaga, Melanie (Hrsg.): Deportiert nach Mauthausen, Bd. 2, Wien 2021.

Schwarz, Michael (Hg.): Homosexuelle im Nationalsozialismus. Neue Forschungsperspektiven zu Lebenssituationen von lesbischen, schwulen, bi-, trans- und intersexuellen Menschen 1933 bis 1945, München 2014.

Schwarzwurzeln Kollektiv (Hg.): Ermordet, Befreit, Verschwiegen. AnarchistInnen, Zwangsprostituierte, sexuell missbrauchte Jugendliche, Homosexuelle im KZ Mauthausen (Anarchismus - Anarchie Texte 38), Mauthausen 2005, 2. Auflage.

Sommer, Robert: Das KZ Bordell. Sexuelle Zwangsarbeit in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern, Paderborn 2009.

Sommer, Robert: Maskulinität und sexuelle Ausbeutung: Bordellgänger in Konzentrationslager, in: Elke Frietsch / Christina Herkommer: Nationalsozialismus und Geschlecht: Zur Politisierung und Ästhetisierung von Körper, »Rasse« und Sexualität im »Dritten Reich« und nach 1945, Bd. 6, Bielefeld 2015, 156-179.

Verein für Gedenken und Geschichtsforschung in Österreichischen KZ-Gedenkstätten (Hg.): Das Konzentrationslager Mauthausen 1938 – 1945. Katalog zur Ausstellung in der KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen, Wien 2013.

Wickert, Christl: Tabu Lagerbordell. Vom Umgang mit der Zwangsprostitution nach 1945, in: Insa Eschenbach / Sigrid Jacobeit / Silke Wenk (Hg.): Geschlecht und Gedächtnis. Deutungsmuster in Darstellungen des nationalsozialistischen Genozids, Frankfurt am Main/ New York, 41-58.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Th 24.08.2023 12:07