Description and silence: sexual abuse in early and later testimonies of survivors and the emergence of the Israeli narrative

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the development of the Israeli narrative of sexual violence during the Holocaust and seeks to account for the period of silence on this issue from the 1960s to the late 1980s. In contrast to testimonies recorded in the immediate postwar period and after the 1980s, testimonies given during this time were affected by misconceptions about sexual violence during the Holocaust, resulting in decades of suppression for Holocaust survivors who had experienced sexual violence. Their silence was amplified by the anxiety of those who were witnesses to their survival and their testimony.