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Historians have mainly seen the ghettos established by the Nazis in
German-occupied Eastern Europe as spaces marked by brutality,
tyranny, and the systematic murder of the Jewish population.
Drawing on examples from the Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna ghettos, Dance
on the Razor's Edge explores how, in fact, highly improvised legal
spheres emerged in these coerced and heterogeneous ghetto
communities. Looking at sources from multiple archives and
countries, Svenja Bethke investigates how the Jewish Councils, set
up on German orders and composed of ghetto inhabitants, formulated
new definitions of criminal offenses and established legal
institutions on their own initiative, as a desperate attempt to
ensure the survival of the ghetto communities. Bethke explores how
people under these circumstances tried to make sense of everyday
lives that had been turned upside down, bringing with them pre-war
notions of justice and morality, and she considers the extent to
which this rupture led to new judgments on human behaviour. In
doing so, Bethke aims to understand how people attempted to use
their very limited scope for action in order to survive. Set
against the background of a Holocaust historiography that often
still seeks for clear categories of "good" and "bad" behaviours,
Dance on the Razor's Edge calls for a new understanding of the
ghettos as complex communities in an unprecedented emergency
situation.
Historians have mainly seen the ghettos established by the Nazis in
German-occupied Eastern Europe as spaces marked by brutality,
tyranny, and the systematic murder of the Jewish population.
Drawing on examples from the Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna ghettos, Dance
on the Razor's Edge explores how, in fact, highly improvised legal
spheres emerged in these coerced and heterogeneous ghetto
communities. Looking at sources from multiple archives and
countries, Svenja Bethke investigates how the Jewish Councils, set
up on German orders and composed of ghetto inhabitants, formulated
new definitions of criminal offenses and established legal
institutions on their own initiative, as a desperate attempt to
ensure the survival of the ghetto communities. Bethke explores how
people under these circumstances tried to make sense of everyday
lives that had been turned upside down, bringing with them pre-war
notions of justice and morality, and she considers the extent to
which this rupture led to new judgments on human behaviour. In
doing so, Bethke aims to understand how people attempted to use
their very limited scope for action in order to survive. Set
against the background of a Holocaust historiography that often
still seeks for clear categories of "good" and "bad" behaviours,
Dance on the Razor's Edge calls for a new understanding of the
ghettos as complex communities in an unprecedented emergency
situation.
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