We have been interested in the figure of the Muselmann for a long time. While ubiquitous in survivor testimonies, these concentration camp prisoners – routinely described as being between life and death – have largely remained absent from historical research on National Socialism and the Holocaust. There are some notable exceptions: Giorgio Agamben’s famous study of testimony – drawing heavily on Primo Levi’s reflections – still looms large.Footnote1 While Agamben’s work is widely known, the (earlier) seminal study by Auschwitz survivors Zdzisław Ryn and Stanisław KłodzińskiFootnote2 is still largely obscure, even in the field of Holocaust studies.
In recent years, however, there has been a notable increase of interest in the topic,Footnote3 mainly in cultural and literary studies. Many contributions are limited to a German-speaking audience. The idea for this special issue goes back to two panels we (together with Imke Hansen) organized at the Fifth Global Conference on Genocide of The International Network of Genocide Scholars in Jerusalem and the Lessons and Legacies XIV in Claremont, both in 2016. Motivated by the increased interest and many thought-provoking discussions during both conferences, we felt it was the right time to bring together interested scholars and encourage more research. The challenge was bigger than we anticipated. Many scholars we contacted were interested in the topic but viewed it as too specific. Several others had to withdraw their papers when we asked them to reconsider traditional assumptions about the Muselmann.
We hope that this issue proves that research on the Muselmann is by no means only a specific sideshow, but on the contrary, yields unexplored perspectives for Holocaust studies and studies on Nazi concentration camps. The articles presented in this issue challenge the hegemonic image and narrative of the Muselmann as a mute, passive, dehumanized prisoner fated to die and unable to testify. They deconstruct this image by critically reflecting on its unquestioned elements: for example, gender (the Muselmann as a male prisoner), the Muselmann allegedly being a genuine phenomenon of concentration camps while – paradoxically – simultaneously being located outside the structures and processes of prisoner societies. At the same time, this issue renders visible the many desiderata regarding the Muselmann: the discourse has been heavily reliant on a few iconic testimonies, most importantly that of Primo Levi and generalized from them about the phenomenon as a whole. More research that uses a variety of sources (e.g. Polish or Yiddish testimonies) will underscore the importance of testimony not only about Muselmänner, but from their perspective as well. We hope that this issue will prompt more scholars to study the Muselmann from sociological, sociohistorical, and psychological perspectives. Comparative analyses could also research the Muselmann as a part of the ‘century of camps,’ for example, comparing him to the Gulag figure Dokhodiaga.Footnote4
Michael Becker and Dennis Bock deconstruct the dominant narrative of the Muselmann as a mute, passive prisoner fated to die. They identify a counter narrative fueled by a variety of sources. These sources show that Muselmänner were a constitutive part of the social structure of prisoner societies. Muselmänner must be understood as a relational rather than an essentialist anthropological category. Taking up a term from camp language, the authors analyze the process of Muselmanization. They thereby argue that the figure of the Muselmann symbolizes how death and dying became defining factors of the social order of Nazi concentration camps.
Imke Hansen locates the Muselmann in the domain of morality within concentration camp prisoner societies. She analyzes testimonies from Auschwitz-Birkenau and Mauthausen. Her research draws on Moral Foundations Theory, a concept from moral psychology. She challenges previous reflections on the topic that postulate a ‘golden rule’ that allegedly determined morality in Nazi concentration camps but fail to address the diversity of prisoner societies. First, she examines the development of a concentration camp morality, and shows how norms and virtues adapted to the extreme situation of the camp. She thus contributes to the field of Moral History. Second, adding this moral dimension sharpens our perception of the social stratification of prisoner societies. It helps explain mechanisms of social exclusion and othering, as discussed by Becker/Bock.
Drawing on theories from the social sciences and humanities will expand a discourse that has mostly leaned on approaches from cultural studies. Such insights can contribute to ‘historically conscious’Footnote5 social sciences that finally engage with National Socialism and the Holocaust and sharpen our understanding of prisoner societies. To critically assess the theses of Becker/Bock and Hansen, more microlevel studies are needed. A spatiotemporal approach brings into focus specific camps and ghettos and their development as part of the Nazi concentration camp and ghetto system.
Sharon Oster challenges the iconic image of the Muselmann as a male prisoner. She decenters a dominant narrative about the Holocaust that, despite feminist interventions, still largely draws on male experiences. She focuses on the so-called Goldstücke and Schmuckstücke, female figures similar to the Muselmann. Highlighting their agency, she also challenges the image of a mute, passive prisoner fated to die. In turn, this perspective enables us to focus on female concentration camp experiences and gender-specific violence, made invisible within the traditional Muselmann discourse. The aspect of gender needs further investigation. Muselmann, as Oster shows, is a gendered experience. Reading testimonies by and about former Muselmänner or Schmuckstücke with this in mind will also enable a more specific understanding of ‘homosocial settings under extreme conditions.’Footnote6
Bożena Shallcross bridges the divide between research on concentration camps and ghettos by looking for analogies of the concentration camp Muselmann’s experience in the ghettos. Both the Muselmann and the dying ghetto inhabitant, she argues, are connected by their similar experience of starvation and a death in solitude. With an analysis of photographs from the Warsaw ghetto, she connects these realities by introducing a new term to Holocaust studies: necrotopography, designating the transformation of a former public space into a terrain marked by dead bodies.
Markus Streb and Ole Frahm explore hitherto unexplored territory by searching for depictions of the Muselmann in comic book pages. Drawing on their profound knowledge of comics on the Holocaust, they identify the rare instances of drawn Muselmänner. They argue that genre conventions are the main reason for this absence of a central figure of the Holocaust discourse. Art Spiegelman’s MAUS, they claim, represents a turning point toward a more nuanced depiction of prisoner societies in general and Muselmänner in particular. Moreover, they find a reflection of the Muselmann experience in other comic figures, especially ghostly or golem-like characters. The insights presented by Shallcross and Streb/Frahm point to the need for further studies on visual representation of the Muselmann for example in prisoners’ drawings.
We would like to thank Kobi Kabalek, former editor of The Journal of Holocaust Research, for inviting us to edit this special issue, Stefan Ihrig for taking over the unfinished product and bringing it to a favorable conclusion, and Anat Weiner for her support and coordination. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful opinions. Most of all we would like to thank our contributors for their patience and dedication throughout this project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).
2 Zdzisław Ryn and Stanisław Kłodziński, “An der Grenze zwischen Leben und Tod: Eine Studie über die Erscheinung des ‘Muselmanns’ im Konzentrationslager,” in Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, (ed.), Die Auschwitz-Hefte: Texte der polnischen Zeitschrift “Pzregląd Lekarski” über historische, psychische und medizinische Aspekte des Lebens und Sterbens in Auschwitz, Band 1 (Hamburg: Rogner und Bernhard, 1994), pp. 89–154.
3 Michael Becker and Dennis Bock, “‘Muselmänner’ und Häftlingsgesellschaften: Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, vol. 55 (2015): pp. 133–175; Manuela Consonni, “Primo Levi, Robert Antelme, and the Body of the Muselmann,” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 2009): pp. 243–259; Mona Körte, “Stummer Zeuge: Der ‘Muselmann’ in Erinnerung und Erzählung,” in Silke Segler-Messner, Monika Neuhofer, and Peter Kuon, (eds.), Vom Zeugnis zur Fiktion. Repräsentation von Lagerwirklichkeit und Shoah in der französischen Literatur nach 1945 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 97–110; Sharon B. Oster, “Impossible Holocaust Metaphors: The Muselmann,” Prooftexts, vol. 34, no. 3 (Fall 2014): pp. 302–348; Lissa Skitolsky, “Tracing Theory on the Body of the ‘Walking Dead’: Der Muselmann and the Course of Holocaust Studies,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 30, no. 2 (2012): pp. 74–90; Glenn Sujo, “Muselmann: A Distilled Image of the Lager?,” in Griselda Pollock and Max Silverman, (eds.), Concentrationary Memories: Tracing Totalitarian Violence in Popular Culture (London: I. B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 133–157; Kathrin Wittler, “‘Muselmann’: Anmerkungen zur Geschichte einer Bezeichnung,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 61, no. 12 (2012): pp. 1045–1056.
4 See for example Leona Toker, “The Muselmann and the Dokhodiaga,” in Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontexual Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019).
5 Maja Suderland and Michaela Christ, “National Socialism as a Research Topic in German-Language Sociology: Thoughts on a Hesitant Development,” The Journal of Holocaust Research, vol. 33, no. 3 (2019): pp. 191–211, here p. 211.
6 Michael Becker and Dennis Bock, “Muselmänner in Nazi Concentration Camps: Thinking Masculinity at the Extremes,” in Björn Krondorfer and Ovidiu Creanga, (eds.), The Holocaust and Masculinities: Critical Inquiries into the Presence and Absence of Men (New York: SUNY Press, 2020), pp. 129–146, here p. 143.