The Historicity of Denial: Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the War of Annihilation, 1941–1945

This chapter explores the different forms of sexual violence against Jewish women by the German Wehrmacht and SS during the Second Word War, in particular the Nazi war of annihilation against Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It first defines the term of sexual violence broadly, including disrobement, sexual humiliation, sexual torture, rape in different forms, sexual enslavement, forced pregnancy, and genital mutilation and then asks which specific forms of sexual violence German men practiced against Jewish women in the context of the war. In a second step it explores in which spacial and situational contexts these men practiced sexual violence. And lastly is studies the questions of persecution by the German Wehrmacht of soldiers and officers who acted like this.