Kolloquium

My PhD project revolves around the Polish women and girls who were forcibly or semi-forcibly employed in the German households during the Second World War. In the project, I analyse three perspectives of the “actors” who played key roles in the phenomenon of forced servitude during WWII, thus being the Hausgehilfinnen themselves, their German employers and the Nazi administrative and legal institutions.

To study the latter, I propose an analysis of a selection of case studies derived from various collections of Nazi institutions of law and order, functioning both in the “Altreich” (such as ex. Düsseldorf Gestapo) and in the occupied Polish territories (such as ex. Sondergericht in Poznań, Włocławek etc.).

I will present the possible fates that befell Polish girls upon their encounter with Nazi terror institutions, the frequency of their convictions, the specific offences they committed, and the corresponding penalties imposed upon them. Furthermore, I will examine how the maids and their employers interacted with one another, as can be observed from the depositions given. I will therefore examine the relational microcosm of the household they lived and worked in. Finally, police and judiciary documents will allow to uncover stories of sexual violence and consensual Polish-German relationships that are usually hidden in other types of historical sources.

Bio:

Marta Pawlińska, a PhD student of History at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Writes her dissertation on the experiences of Polish and Polish Jewish women employed in German households as domestic servants during the Second World War. She is also a researcher in the Holocaust Mass Graves Project (German Historical Institute, Warsaw). Her research interests revolve around the gender and social history of the Second World War.