In and Out of View. Locating “Mixed Couples” in Histories of War and Genocide With Doris Bergen

Regimes based on exclusion draw brutal lines through nations, communities, families and individual bodies. These lines of violence converge – and sometimes waver – around “mixed couples,” spouses and lovers that embody conflicting “sides.” In this regard, the Nazi Holocaust was no exception. Doris Bergen’s lecture situates the Holocaust amid various categories of “mixing” that existed in real time – based on religion, “race”, class, disability, political affiliation, and nationality – and across time and space, considering, among others, the Armenian genocide, genocide of Indigenous people in Canada, and genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. What can looking comparatively help us understand about the destruction of Jews in the Holocaust? 

Lecture by Doris Bergen (University of Toronto, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor Emerita of Holocaust Studies). Moderation: Isabel Heinemann (Institut für Zeitgeschichte).