Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
8th BAKEA - International Western Cultural and Literary Studies Symposium, İstanbul, Türkiye, 01 Kasım 2023, ss.1
Esther Bejarano (15.12.1924 – 07.07.2021) was a German-Jewish Shoah witness who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and mass extermination camp. In the minds of the National Socialists, she was not a full Jew because her grandmother was German. She was consequently sent to the women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück. In addition, according to Nazi regulations, it was prohibited for people with (partly) “Aryan blood” to wind up in a concentration camp. In the Auschwitz concentration camp, Esther Bejarano, who played the accordion in the girls’ orchestra, had the opportunity, among other things, to live a “less” barbaric, forced existence in comparison to the other Jewish prisoners and camp workers. After her liberation, she emigrated to the United States and then to the newly established nation of Israel, where she met her husband. Since, according to her own statement, she did not support the Zionist-tinged Israeli policy, a large number of Palestinians were killed in the conflict, and her husband was also a pacifist, the family decided to return to Germany.
This article focuses primarily on exposing the National Socialist mechanisms and thus outlining the Nazis’ pronounced resentment towards Jews, the life of a young girl in the girls’ orchestra of the Auschwitz death camp, the presentation of Esther Bejarano’s own contribution to the collective and cultural memory, and secondarily on comparing Nazi patterns of behaviour with Israel's Zionist policies toward Palestinian people and the refugee policy of the West, especially Germany. This secondary approach is intended to be illustrated with the Shoah witness, because in her final interview shortly before her death, she takes a more targeted approach to that political philosophy and warns against - primarily right-wing - radical ideologies that are becoming more pervasive each passing day.
Key words: Esther Bejarano, National Socialism, Memory Culture, Assmann, Holocaust, Shoah