Fabricating fantasies: women’s diaries from a forced labor camp
Abstract
In the forced labor camp of Sömmerda, a group of Hungarian Jewish women formed a diary-writing community whose writing offers a unique perspective on the Holocaust. Escaping the monotony of their day-to-day existence, the women constructed a world of fantasy centered on their lost loved ones. In the Sömmerda diaries, pre-camp life appears as a world without Nazis, where the families that had been separated by the time of writing were still together. However, in the diaries’ post-war narratives, the women positioned their persecution as Auschwitz survivors rather than forced laborers or diarists.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies
Memory
Trauma
and Testimony
and Commemoration
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Holocaust Studies
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 601–623
- Publication date
- 13 February 2026
- Language
- EN