Feminine memory: the social reintegration of female survivors

To survivors, the social reintegration and recovery of normality after the trauma of the Holocaust was their victory over death and the defeat of absolute evil. After being released from the camps, the survivors made efforts to re-establish themselves in society and to once again find their purpose in life.

The memory of the female Holocaust survivors in Northern Transylvania emphasises a series of essential moments of social reintegration and re-entry into the normality of everyday life, which can metaphorically overlap with just as many stages of regaining life and defeating death.

• The recovery of the home and meeting basic needs (food, clothing, hygiene)

  “I did not need a luxurious home... I thought a bathroom where I could put a sofa would suffice and that would be it. A change of clothes, potatoes I could cook in different ways, a mug of hot cocoa with some cake, that was my dream the entire time I spent in the camp.” Eva Pamfil (survivor)

• Reintegration in school and at work

  After returning from the camp, Eva Pamfil joined the Academy of Arts in Cluj. She soon discontinued her studies, believing the communist regime would expel her because of her record.

• Starting a family

  • Engagement

    A few months after her return from the camp, Eva Maiorovici married a fellow Holocaust survivor, Harry, at the shelter where some of the survivors lived. They were the first couple to become engaged in the post-Holocaust Jewish community.

  • Marriage

    After returning from the camp, Marta Gyemant married a fellow Holocaust survivor, the trauma shared by both spouses contributing to the creation of a special attachment between them. An interhuman, family bond was thus established and then further consolidated through the shared stories of traumatic experiences:

    “My husband suffered the same fate as me. ... And his was terrible because he had a young wife and a three-year-old child whom they killed. ... I also had a fiancé who perished. ... Suffering the same fate brought us significantly closer together, I think.” Marta Gyemant (survivor)

  • Birth

    The moment that most powerfully shows the defeat of death is that of childbirth, a projection in the feminine memory of the survivors’ desire to once and for all overcome their traumatic past.

    “I have always wanted children – I never thought I would not have them. And after I got married, I did everything I could to have children.” Eva Pamfil (survivor)

• The lack of resentment and the recovery of inner balance

  The moment of supreme sublimation of past suffering was when the female survivors had no more resentment and vindictive feelings toward their torturers. The experience of complete suffering, beyond words, was thus converted into a superior, ethical plan, through the female survivors’ ability to turn their feelings of frustration and helplessness into inner peace and serenity.

  “I had a German colleague and she was the first person to tell me that she was ashamed of being German. I had no feelings of resentment or need to say that I hated the Germans or the Hungarians. It is first and foremost about people, and only afterwards about governments and laws. Because most people, albeit not all of them, are capable of much evil if they are encouraged to act in that way, and if they are not brought up with the consciousness of individual reason.” Eva Pamfil (survivor)