Sexual Violence in the Context of the Holocaust, Genocide and War

On October 15, 2018, seven Canadian and international scholars gathered in Montreal for a conference called Sexual Violence in the Context of the Holocaust, Genocide and War. The conference was inspired by our publication of several memoirs detailing experiences of sexual abuse and violence and other sexual encounters during the Holocaust, including Buried Words: The Diary of Molly Applebaum. The conference was presented by the Azrieli Foundation, in partnership with the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.

Agenda

1:30 PM
Opening remarks

1:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Session 1: Sexual Violence in War and Genocide

Moderator: René Provost (Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University)

Discussants:

Tommy Curry (Philosophy and Racial Theory, Texas A&M University): From Gendercide to Phallicism: A Theory of Racialization, Otherness, and Male Rape in Genocides, War, and Racially Repressive Regimes

Na’ama Shik (History, Yad Vashem): Women’s Testimonies about Sexual Violence in Auschwitz-Birkenau

Myriam Denov (Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University): “I Asked Myself if I Would Ever Love My Baby”: Mothering Children Born of Genocidal Rape in Northern Uganda

René Provost (Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University): Sexual Violence as Genocide in International Criminal Law

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Session 2: Sexual Violence and Holocaust Testimony. A Case Study of Buried Words: The Diary of Molly Applebaum

Moderator: Jody Spiegel (Azrieli Foundation's Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program)

Discussants:

Jan Grabowski (University of Ottawa): Historical background of Molly Applebaum’s Diary: The Jews of Dabrowa Tarnowska Under the German Occupation

Ariela Freedman (Liberal Arts, Concordia University): The Black Kaleidoscope: Reading Diary and Memoir in Buried Words

Deborah Barton (Université de Montréal): A Buried History? Sexual Exploitation & Memory in the Testimony of Molly Applebaum