The House Of Dolls (Comyns)
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''House of Dolls'' is a 1953
novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
by
Ka-tzetnik 135633 Yehiel De-Nur (; ''De-Nur'' means 'of the fire' in Aramaic; also Romanized ''Dinoor, Di-Nur''), also known by his pen name Ka-Tsetnik 135633, born Yehiel Feiner (16 May 1909 – 17 July 2001), was a Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor, whose boo ...
. The novella describes "Joy Divisions", which were groups of Jewish women in the concentration camps during World War II who were kept for the sexual pleasure of Nazi soldiers.


Origins

Between 1942 and 1945,
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
and nine other Nazi concentration camps contained camp brothels (''Freudenabteilungen'' "Joy Divisions"), mainly used to reward cooperative non-Jewish inmates. In the documentary film ''Memory of the Camps'', a project supervised by the
British Ministry of Information The Ministry of Information (MOI), headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of the First World War and again during the Second World War. Located in Senate House at the Univer ...
and the American Office of War Information during the summer of 1945, camera crews filmed women who had been forced into sexual slavery for the use of guards and favoured prisoners. The film-makers stated that as the women died they were replaced by women from the concentration camp Ravensbrück.


Literature and scholarly references

In his essay "Narrative Perspectives on Holocaust Literature",
Leon Yudkin Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
uses ''House of Dolls'' as one of his key examples of the ways in which authors have approached the Holocaust, using the work as an example of "diaries (testimonies) that look like novels" due to its reliance on its author's own experiences.
Ronit Lentin Ronit Lentin ( he, רונית לנטין; born 25 October 1944) is an Israeli/Irish political sociologist and a writer of fiction and non-fiction books. Life Lentin was born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, in 1944: she has lived in Ireland since ...
discusses ''House of Dolls'' in her work ''Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah''. In her book Lentin interviews a child of Holocaust survivors, who recalls ''House of Dolls'' as one of her first exposures to the Holocaust. Lentin notes that the "explicit, painful" story made a huge impact when published and states that "many children of holocaust survivors who write would agree . . . that ''House of Dolls'' represents violence and sexuality in a manner which borders on the pornographic".
Na'ama Shik Na'omi ( he, נָעֳמִי) is an Israeli settlement organized as a moshav shitufi in the West Bank.Na'omi
Bik'at HaYa ...
, researching at Yad Vashem, the principal Jewish organization for the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust, considers the book as fiction.
Israel’s Unexpected Spinoff From a Holocaust Trial
',
Isabel Kershner Isabel Kershner is a British-born Israeli journalist and author, who began reporting from Jerusalem for ''The New York Times'' in 2007. Kershner had previously worked as senior Middle East editor for ''The Jerusalem Report'' magazine. She has al ...
, New York Times, September 6, 2007 Nonetheless it is part of the Israeli high school curriculum. The success of the book showed there was a market for Nazi exploitation popular literature, known in Israel as Stalags. However
Yechiel Szeintuch Yechiel ( he, יְחִיאֵל) is a Hebrew masculine given name meaning "May God live" or "God shall live". Several people in the Bible have this name. See Jehiel (biblical figure). Alternative spellings of Yechiel include Jehiel, Yehiel, Yec ...
from the Hebrew University rejects links between the smutty Stalags on the one hand, and Ka-Tzetnik's works, which he insists were based on reality, on the other.


In popular culture

Joy Division was a British post-punk band from 1976 to 1980, who took their name from the reference in this book. One of their early songs, "No Love Lost", contains a short excerpt from the novella. '' Love Camp 7'' (1968), considered to be the first Nazi exploitation film, is set in a concentration camp "Joy Division".


See also

*
Comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...
*
German camp brothels in World War II In World War II, Nazi Germany established brothels in the concentration camps (''Lagerbordell'') to create an incentive for prisoners to collaborate, although these institutions were used mostly by Kapos, "prisoner functionaries" and the criminal ...
*
German military brothels in World War II Military brothels (german: Militärbordelle) were set up by Nazi Germany during World War II throughout much of occupied Europe for the use of Wehrmacht and SS soldiers. These brothels were generally new creations, but in the west, they were some ...
* German war crimes *
Japanese war crimes The Empire of Japan committed war crimes in many Asian-Pacific countries during the period of Japanese militarism, Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Second Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars. These incidents have b ...
*
Rape during the occupation of Germany As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany. Scholars agree that the ...
*
Recreation and Amusement Association The or RAA, was the largest of the organizations established by Japanese authorities to provide organized prostitution to prevent rapes and sexual violence by Allied occupation troops on the general population,Schrijvers, Peter (2002). The GI W ...
*
Sexual slavery Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This include ...


References


Further reading

*
Ka-tzetnik 135633 Yehiel De-Nur (; ''De-Nur'' means 'of the fire' in Aramaic; also Romanized ''Dinoor, Di-Nur''), also known by his pen name Ka-Tsetnik 135633, born Yehiel Feiner (16 May 1909 – 17 July 2001), was a Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor, whose boo ...
. ''The House of Dolls''. . * Wyden, Peter. ''Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler's Germany''. .


External links


Full text in English at Archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:House of Dolls 1953 novels 20th-century Israeli novels Holocaust literature Wartime sexual violence in World War II Novels about prostitution Works about prostitution in Germany