Kobi Kabalek | Pennsylvania State University (original) (raw)

Books by Kobi Kabalek

Wisconsin University Press, 2025

In Rescue and Remembrance, Kobi Kabalek examines how the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust has ... more In Rescue and Remembrance, Kobi Kabalek examines how the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust has been understood and represented in Germany from the Nazi period to the present in order to trace Germans’ notions of collective morality. In many countries outside Germany, people speak of a small number of known Holocaust rescuers to claim the pro-Jewish sentiment of broad segments of their country’s population during World War II, thereby projecting an image of national moral virtue. By contrast, current German scholarship and commemoration present rescuers as a small minority; their examples condemn the majority by showing what Germans could have done but did not do.

Kabalek argues that such simplistic depictions of the majority versus minority obscure the complex motivations and situations that led people in Nazi Germany to help persecuted Jews. He shows that portrayals and interpretations of helping Jews appeared in various media and social discourses in East, West, and unified Germany and were used to actively debate questions of collective morality. Rescue and Remembrance analyzes the varied and changing depictions of rescue in the distinct German polities from the Nazi period, examining how the very notions of “majority” and “collective” were articulated and reformulated.
https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/6297.htm

Edited Volumes by Kobi Kabalek

This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together t... more This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together two analytic concepts – memory and periphery. These concepts receive much attention in various scholarly discussions, yet they have done so rather independently from each other. The potential applications and utilities of combining memory and periphery and the epistemic insights they provide for various disciplins are presented in the different contributions to this issue.

Although events from the last months of WWII played a crucial part in the Holocaust and how it ha... more Although events from the last months of WWII played a crucial part in the Holocaust and how it has been remembered, only recently have scholars begun to give attention to this period. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, this special issue of Dapim presents a first collection of articles, based on current and up-to-date research projects, on different aspects of what can be termed the ‘final stage’ of the Holocaust. The main questions that this issue discusses are: Was the ‘final stage’ a distinct and identifiable period in the unfolding of Nazi policies against the Jews? What characterized the suffering of Jews and other victims of the Nazis in this period, and which parameters affected their fates? What were the continuities and transformations that featured in this ‘final stage’ regarding the Nazi (anti-)Jewish policy?

Papers by Kobi Kabalek

Journal of Holocaust Research 38: 1 (2024): 74-86

Kobi Kabalek interviews Henry (Hank) Greenspan about his sustained collaborations with Holocaust ... more Kobi Kabalek interviews Henry (Hank) Greenspan about his sustained collaborations with Holocaust survivors, his questioning of conventional concepts in the field such as ‘testimony’ and ‘trauma,’ his convictions and strategies as a teacher, and his drive to embody some of what he has learned in playwriting and dramatic performance. Among other provocative assertions, Greenspan suggests that all work in Holocaust Studies is inevitably some version of our own testimony, even though we were not there. That is why scholars must also listen more deeply to each other, interpret collaboratively, and learn together.

AJS Review, 2024

This article proposes that the marginality of World War II in the historiography of Zionism and I... more This article proposes that the marginality of World War II in the historiography of Zionism and Israel is based on a historical perspective that shaped contemporaries' evaluation of reality and framed postwar historiography. Through the wartime writings of Robert Weltsch, I argue that this historiographic absence draws on a dilemma: Should Britain's colonized populations continue their fight for independence from British rule during the war or support the empire in the world conflict against the Axis? The dilemma expressed a tension between the colonial aspects of the Yishuv and its reliance on the British Empire, on the one hand, and its anticolonial struggle for independence from the British, on the other. This article examines the Yishuv's wartime dilemma using the distinction Weltsch made between a narrow perspective, which he associated with World War I's legacy of self-determination, and a broad international view.

“Narrationen moralischer Grenzüberschreitung: Stehlen und Kannibalismus,” in Gerhard Botz, Regina Fritz, Alexander Prenninger, and Heinrich Berger, eds., Gefangen in Mauthausen: Europa in Mauthausen Vol. 3: Leben und Überleben im Konzentrationslagerkomplex Mauthausen (Vienna: Böhlau, 2023), 431-459.

Wir möchten mit unserer Untersuchung der Narrationen moralischer Grenzüberschreitungen einen bi... more Wir möchten mit unserer Untersuchung der Narrationen moralischer Grenzüberschreitungen einen bisher kaum untersuchten Aspekt des Lagerlebens thematisieren und damit zu einem größeren und umfassenden Verständnis von Lagererfahrungen in ihren unterschiedlichsten Facetten beitragen. Dabei konzentrieren wir uns auf zwei Verhaltensweisen, die im Lagerkomplex Mauthausen vorkamen und außerhalb des Lagers klar als moralische Grenzüberschreitungen definiert sind: Stehlen und Kannibalismus.

“Die Bedeutung von Arbeit in Interviews mit ehemaligen KZ-Häftlingen,” in Gerhard Botz, Regina Fritz, Alexander Prenninger, and Heinrich Berger, eds., Gefangen in Mauthausen: Europa in Mauthausen Vol. 3: Leben und Überleben im Konzentrationslagerkomplex Mauthausen (Vienna: Böhlau), 177-204., 2023

Arbeit spielt im menschlichen Leben eine essenzielle Rolle.1 Sie stiftet Selbstbilder, sichert fi... more Arbeit spielt im menschlichen Leben eine essenzielle Rolle.1 Sie stiftet Selbstbilder, sichert finanziell ab und ermöglicht im besten Fall auch Selbstverwirklichung. Diese Bedeutung der Arbeit wurde vor allem anhand der Lebensgeschichten von Erwerbstätigen schon in den frühen Oral-History-Forschungen ausführlich dargestellt.2 Diese Forschungen haben gezeigt, wie oft Menschen ihr soziales Leben in Abhängigkeit von ihren jeweiligen Arbeitsbedingungen und Arbeitsinhalten konstruieren und bewerten. Auch das Leben von KZ-Häftlingen war maßgeblich von den spezifischen Formen und Bedingungen ihrer Arbeit inner-und außerhalb des Lagers abhängig. Im folgenden Beitrag untersuche ich Bedeutung und Funktion der Arbeit, so wie sie in den Erzählungen im Rahmen lebensgeschichtlicher Interviews mit ehemaligen Häftlingen des KZ Mauthausen geschildert wurden. Die Interviewten waren aus unterschiedlichen Gründen und zu verschiedenen Zeiten vom Herrschaftsapparat des NS-Systems verhaftet worden und mussten an verschiedenen Orten und zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten unter verschiedenen Bedingungen arbeiten. Wie wird die Rolle der Arbeit im KZ-Alltag in den Erzählungen der Überlebenden von Mauthausen beschrieben ? Wird Arbeit im KZ ähnlich wie die Arbeit vor oder nach der Haftzeit charakterisiert, oder wird sie als eine ganz andere Tätigkeit dargestellt und bewertet ? Was wird über sie erzählt und erinnert und was nicht ? «Der Tag im KL wurde von der Zwangsarbeit bestimmt. Sie drückte dem Lagerleben ihren Stempel auf.»3 Mit diesen Worten stellte der Soziologe und Buchenwald-Überlebende Eugen Kogon die Bedeutung der Arbeit für das Leben der Häftlinge im Lager dar. In seiner Formulierung benutzte Kogon die übliche Bezeichnung der Arbeit im KZ als Zwangsarbeit, eine Wortwahl, die «Zwangsarbeit» von «normaler» Arbeit abgrenzt. Diese kategorische Unterscheidung benennt explizit die Machtverhältnisse in den Lagern, in denen die «Arbeitnehmer» Häftlinge waren und Arbeit als wichtiges Mittel des Zwangs und des Terrors diente. Doch die Untersuchung von Arbeit im KZ als ein inhärent anderes Phänomen beschränkt die wissenschaftlichen Interpretationsmöglichkeiten und die Bedeutung, die man mit Blick auf diese Arbeit in Interviews mit

Dubnow Institute Yearbook xix (2020/2021): 33-53

Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal, 2023

What do Holocaust survivors do when they refer to cannibalism in their testimonies? This piece ar... more What do Holocaust survivors do when they refer to cannibalism in their testimonies? This piece argues that they do not merely describe what they have witnessed or heard of, but also ponder the boundaries of humanity. For centuries, Europeans have made references to cannibalism in various depictions for drawing the line between “civilized” and “uncivilized.” In accordance with studies that examine cannibalism in other historical contexts, I argue that in attempting to express a sense of the radical dehumanization in the Nazi camps and convey its horror, some survivors’ accounts reconstruct the appalling reality of the camps as parallels to familiar, older stories of cannibalism that take place in remote, brutal places deprived of civilization.

Central European History 55: 3 (2022): 390-409.

The rising German interest in rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust has been accompanied by an em... more The rising German interest in rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust has been accompanied by an emphasis on their exceptionality among the wartime German population. Seen as aberrations, rescuers are used to present a simplified generalization of the German majority’s wartime conduct by defining what it was not. This article argues that this view, as well as the common claim that rescue and rescuers of Jews were “forgotten” in the postwar Germanys, are based on a certain interpretative model concerning the relationship between exception and rule. I trace the different uses of this model and show that from 1945 to the present, many Jewish and non-Jewish Germans employed variously defined exceptions to trace and determine one's preferred image of the majority—as an object of desire or critique. The article presents the different conceptualizations and idealizations of rescue and their functions in imagining a collective self in commemorative and historiographical portrayals of past and current German societies.

Handbuch Sozialwissenschaftliche Gedächtnisforschung, 2022

This text examines the uses, symbolic meanings, and social roles of ghosts, vampires, and zombies... more This text examines the uses, symbolic meanings, and social roles of ghosts, vampires, and zombies in literature, film, and other forms of public representation. Special attention is given to the manifold ways in which the past is commemorated differently in different places and situations. The first part of the text examines various approaches to undead monsters as part of people’s concerns with a past that seems to “haunt” the present. The second part looks at the distinct features of these monsters’ imagined bodies, with particular attention to vampires and zombies, and considers their value as frameworks for the study of individual and social remembering.

Moving from place to place and between camps was an experience shared by many who were subjected ... more Moving from place to place and between camps was an experience shared by many who were subjected to Nazi persecution during WWII. This article aims to give a sense of this experience of movement by tracing the different routes that led Jews from all over occupied Europe to (and from) the concentration camp Mauthausen and its satellite camps.

This is an English version of: Kobi Kabalek, “Die Wege von Juden nach Mauthausen: Eine integrative Geschichte,” in Alexander Prenninger, Regina Fritz, Gerhard Botz, and Melanie Dejnega, eds., Deportiert nach Mauthausen (Vienna: Böhlau, 2021), 491-507.

German History, 2020

Scholars have so far interpreted postwar depictions of Germans saving Jews from Nazi persecution ... more Scholars have so far interpreted postwar depictions of Germans saving Jews from Nazi persecution mainly as apologetic references that allowed Germans to avoid addressing problematic aspects of their history. Yet although such portrayals appear in many postwar German accounts, depictions of successful rescues of Jews are relatively rare in literary and filmic works produced between 1945 and the early 1960s. This article argues that in presenting failed rescue of Jews, several German authors aimed to contribute to the re-education and moral transformation of the German population. The article’s first part shows that narratives of failed rescue were considered particularly useful for arousing Germans’ empathy with the Nazis’ Jewish victims. The article’s second part examines those works that went further and tailored stories of unsuccessful rescue to criticize Germans for not doing more to resist the regime. Although these works presented Germans as victims, as was common in many contemporaneous depictions, it would be misleading to view them merely as apologetic accounts. Rather, the widespread reluctance to commemorate the persecution of Jews urged several authors to retain the common image of Germans as victims in order to avoid alienating their audience. At the same time, using narratives of failed rescue, these writers and filmmakers explored new ways to allow Germans to speak about the Holocaust and reflect on their conduct. Attempts to both arouse a moral debate and avoid directly speaking about Germans’ collective responsibility might seem irreconcilable from today’s perspective, but not for Germans of the 1940s and 1950s.

Published in Iris Idelson-Shein and Christian Wiese, eds., Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History: From the Middle Ages to Modernity (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 134-153., 2019

The piece analyzes written, oral, and visual testimonies (drawings, book illustrations, etc.), re... more The piece analyzes written, oral, and visual testimonies (drawings, book illustrations, etc.), revealing monsters’ different meanings and functions for the survivors during and after the Holocaust, thereby challenging the tendency to disregard references to monsters in survivors’ accounts. The first section examines survivors’ depictions of monsters as a way of pointing to the true nature of the Nazi regime. The second examines the use of monsters as a means for expressing the incredible features of survivors’ Holocaust experiences and communicating their disbelief to audiences. The third section discusses testimonies that depict the journeys to the death camps as travels to an alien reality, in which the deportees encountered monstrous figures and feared that they, too, might become like them.

Accessing Campscapes, 2018

When Holocaust survivors refer to cannibalism in their testimonies, they do not merely describe w... more When Holocaust survivors refer to cannibalism in their testimonies, they do not merely describe what they have witnessed or heard of, but also ponder the boundaries of civilization and humanity. Such reflection is not restricted to the Holocaust. For centuries, Europeans have made references to cannibalism as narrative instruments for drawing the line between “civilized” and “uncivilized,” and demonizing the Other. In so doing, they also produced an aesthetic of horror. The very mentioning of cannibalism awakens images and tales that arouse both disgust and fear – two elements that define what we call horror. I therefore argue that in attempting to express a sense of the radical dehumanization in the Nazi camps and convey its horror to their audience, some survivors’ testimonies reconstruct the appalling reality of the camps as parallels to familiar stories set in remote, barbaric places fraught with atrocity and devoid of civilization.

Wisconsin University Press, 2025

Journal of Holocaust Research 38: 1 (2024): 74-86

AJS Review, 2024

Dubnow Institute Yearbook xix (2020/2021): 33-53

Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal, 2023

Central European History 55: 3 (2022): 390-409.

Handbuch Sozialwissenschaftliche Gedächtnisforschung, 2022

German History, 2020

Published in Iris Idelson-Shein and Christian Wiese, eds., Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History: From the Middle Ages to Modernity (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 134-153., 2019

Accessing Campscapes, 2018

Kobi Kabalek, “Sexy Zombies? On the Improbable Possibility of Loving the Undead,” in Aylin Basaran, Julia B. Köhne, Klaudija Sabo, and Christina Wieder, eds., Sexualität und Widerstand: Internationale Filmkulturen und Literaturen (Vienna: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2018), 322-333.

This essay begins by observing that while images and texts that emanated from the 'final stage' o... more This essay begins by observing that while images and texts that emanated from the 'final stage' of the Holocaust seem to be a privileged source in depictions of the Holocaust, the specific features of this stage itself often remain unclear. What was the ‘final stage’ of the Holocaust? Did it have any clear and definite contours? How is it conceived in relation to other, earlier stages of the Holocaust? And are there any particular meanings that people associate with this stage? The first part of this essay explores these questions by examining the tensions between the presence and absence of the ‘final stage’ in Holocaust fiction and historical studies. I propose to approach this stage as constituting an edge to the common ‘main story’ of the Holocaust. In the essay’s second part, I apply this conceptualization in tracing 2 different ways in which survivors’ testimonies define the ‘final stage’ in terms of experience, memory and narrative, while asking which novel periodizations of the Holocaust survivors’ perspectives could introduce.

מה היה "השלב הסופי" של השואה? האם היו לו קווי מתאר ברורים ומוגדרים? איך הוא נתפס בהשוואה לשלבים א... more מה היה "השלב הסופי" של השואה? האם היו לו קווי מתאר ברורים ומוגדרים? איך הוא נתפס בהשוואה לשלבים אחרים, מוקדמים יותר, של השואה? האם אנשים נוטים לייחס לשלב זה משמעות ייחודית כלשהי? חלקו הראשון של המאמר מנסה לענות על שאלות אלו על–ידי בחינת המתחים שבין נוכחותו של שלב זה בספרות הבדיונית על השואה ובמחקרים ההיסטוריים עליה ובין היעדרו מהם. אני מציע לראות בשלב הסופי את ה"שוליים" של "הסיפור העיקרי" המקובל של השואה. בחלקו השני של המאמר אני מיישם המשגה זו ומזהה שתי דרכים שונות שבהן עדויות של ניצולים מגדירות את "השלב הסופי" במונחים של חוויה, זיכרון ונרטיב, ושואל איזה תיקוף
חדש של השואה אפשר להפיק מנקודות המבט של הניצולים.

“To put something in context” is a common sentiment in everyday speech and scholarly analysis ali... more “To put something in context” is a common sentiment in everyday speech and scholarly analysis alike. Yet despite widespread familiarity, such expressions bear commonly overlooked and sometimes contradictory meanings based upon distinct, case-specific assumptions. The article makes explicit the assumptions and consequences of “putting memory in context.” It proceeds under four headings. The first (“Context”) surveys the multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to context in the study of memory; the second (“Container”) and third (“Identity”) elucidate the consequences of some of the principal contexts in use, and the conceptual problems arising from them; and the final section explores possible alternatives.

Journal of Perpetrator Research, 2019

Where does a picture, a visual depiction of an act of violence, locate us, the observers? Whose p... more Where does a picture, a visual depiction of an act of violence, locate us, the observers? Whose perspective do we adopt, and/or perform, when we are confronted with an image of the tormented body, the object of pain and suffering, of a vulnerable victim, with or without the presence of the perpetrators? In what follows, we start with discussing the propensity to adopt certain positionalities in facing these questions, and their analytic and ethical implications. The text then draws on Derrida's notion of the frame (parergon) in analyzing Jojakim Cortis’ and Adrian Sonderegger’s Double Take poster, showing a diorama of the Abu Ghraib torture photographs, and suggest a reading that could unsettle the familiar repertoire of treating/conflating victims' and perpetrators' perspectives – a double “double take.”

The Journal of Holocaust Research, 2019

https://haifaholocauststudies.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/who-cares-about-nazi-zombies/