Denisa Nešťáková | Comenius University (original) (raw)
Papers by Denisa Nešťáková
Central Europe, 2024
Fuelled by nationalism and Catholicism, the wartime Slovak state, a client state of Nazi Germany,... more Fuelled by nationalism and Catholicism, the wartime Slovak
state, a client state of Nazi Germany, aimed to promote population
growth by forcing the return of women from public to
private life and supporting Slovak Christian families, but also
by stigmatizing and restricting any sexuality that was not reproductive.
Under these circumstances, where women were
shamed for not having enough children, all previously permitted
methods of birth control were banned, and abortion
was criminalized. One of the few remaining options for controlling
one’s fertility was a clandestine abortion. By examining files
that document the criminal persecution of women who underwent
abortions, this work aims to track alternative family planning
practices, and thus the development of a loosely organized
clandestine abortion network. It then examines the possibility of
understanding abortion as a form of women’s opposition to
political and ideological aims to hinder their freedom of choice.
At the same time, the article suggests that women’s agency of
this kind challenged the patriotic imperative to become
a mother as well as the hegemonic narrative and idyllic picture
of Slovak motherhood.
Journal of Family History Volume 48, Issue 3: Special Issue: Birth Control as a National Challenge: Nationalizing Concepts of Families in Eastern Europe, 1914–1939, 2023
Even the seemingly liberal Czechoslovak political elites were anxious about the notion of depopul... more Even the seemingly liberal Czechoslovak political elites were anxious about the notion of depopulation, and feared the death of the nation, which led them to disregard the societal need for modernizing family planning. At the same time, Czechoslovak women experts were significantly involved in debates on conceptions of the family. They fueled debates on the sexual liberation of women in Czechoslovakia not as a matter of ideology or morality, but as a matter of public health, social justice, and reproductive rights. This paper aims to look at these women experts and their active role in academic debates on Czechoslovak policies on family and reproduction. Looking at the case of Czechoslovakia, as a non-Western country, this article then discusses the issues of the marginalization of women's activism and feminism in the East. The article suggests that, by applying a decolonial lens, a broader inclusion of the history of feminism of non-Western women can be achieved.
Through the Prism of Gender and Work. Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries, 2023
This chapter discusses the activism of women associated with the Communist Party in Czechoslovaki... more This chapter discusses the activism of women associated with the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia and the newspaper Proletárka (Proletarian Woman), which was published in Slovakian and addressed Slovak women. An analysis of Proletárka, one of the most important sources of information on the activism of communist women in the Slovak lands, sheds light on the journal’s program of social and gender justice, its criticism of women’s position on the labour market and women’s second shift, its pioneering approach to sexual liberalization, and its treatment of nationalism. The chapter investigates how communist women connected their demands for access to contraception and abortion to class struggle and working women’s double burden, focusing on the main arguments for understanding the sexual liberation of women as a working-class issue advanced on the pages of Proletárka. The chapter points out the difficulties faced by the communist women’s movement in Slovakia as its activism moved beyond mainstream party goals and exposed the tension between reproductive rights and class struggle.
22nd Workshop in Budapest: Practices of Memory and Knowledge Production
This book chapter provides an overview of women's lives in Britain during the Second World wa... more This book chapter provides an overview of women's lives in Britain during the Second World war, considering the ways in which women's new roles in the war challenged established gender identities, and the means by which this challenge was negated.
Studia Historica Nitriensia, 2019
The article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews in Sl... more The article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews in Slovakia between 1942 and 1944. Swedish officials and religious leaders used their diplomatic cor- respondence with the Slovak government to extract some Jewish individuals and later on the whole Jewish community of Slovakia from deportations by their government and eventually by German officials. Despite the efforts of Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava, the Swedish Archbishop Erling Eidem, and the Slovak Consul Bohumil Pissko in Stockholm, and despite the acts taken by some Slovak ministries, the Slovak officials including the President of Slovak republic Jozef Tiso revoked further negotiations in autumn 1944. However, the negotiations between Slovakia and Sweden created a scope of actions to protect some Jewish individuals which were doomed to failure due to the political situation. Nevertheless, this plan and the previous diplomatic interventions are significant to describe the almost unknown Swedish and Slovak efforts to save the Jews of Slovakia. Repeated Swedish offers to take in Jewish individuals and later the whole community would have likely prepared the way for larger rescues. These never occurred due to the Slovak interest in de- porting its own Jewish citizens and later due to the German occupation of Slovakia. (in Slovak)
Nordisk Judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 2016
This article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews of S... more This article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews of Slovakia between 1942 and 1944. Swedish officials and religious leaders used their diplomatic correspondence with the Slovak government to extract some Jewish individuals and later on the whole Jewish community of Slovakia from deportations by their government and eventually by German officials. Despite the efforts of the Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava, the Swedish archbishop, Erling Eidem, and the Slovak consul, Bohumil Pissko, in Stockholm, and despite the acts taken by some Slovak ministries, the Slovak officials, including the president of the Slovak Republic, Jozef Tiso, revoked further negotiations in the autumn of 1944. However, the negotiations between Slovakia and Sweden created a scope for actions to protect some Jewish individuals which were doomed to failure because of the political situation. Nevertheless, this plan and the previous diplomatic interventions are signi...
If This Is a Woman Studies on Women and Gender in the Holocaust, 2021
An analysis of the testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust as chil-dren allow us to step ... more An analysis of the testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust as chil-dren allow us to step further away from the male-dominated narrative of the Holocaust. Aside from obtaining wider knowledge about the realities of the Holocaust as seen by children, their testimonies also allow us to better understand the experiences of adults. Research on children’s testimonies sheds more light on one of the substantial differences defining gendered experiences—motherhood. In this article I analyze children’s recollections as recorded in postwar testimonies, focusing on their perception of the role of mothers in Sereď camp
Janine Fubel/Katja Grosse-Sommer/Borbála Klacsmann/Denisa Nešťáková/Mareike Otters/Christoph Goll... more Janine Fubel/Katja Grosse-Sommer/Borbála Klacsmann/Denisa Nešťáková/Mareike Otters/Christoph Gollasch (Eds.)
Practices of Memory and Knowledge Production. Papers from the 22nd Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites, Metropol Verlag, 2022. 7-14.
As a client state of Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic was granted a number of benefits. One such... more As a client state of Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic was granted a number of benefits. One such alleged benefit was the allowing of correspondence between the deported Slovak Jews and those who remained in Slovakia. This article investigates the highly censored letters sent by Slovak Jews shortly after their deportation, in which they manage to code essential information on the destruction of Slovak Jewry. By examining these letters, which supposedly present the ‘good life’ of the Slovak Jews in their ‘new home,’ this article explores which information was ‘officially’ provided to Jews in Slovakia under the dictates of wartime propaganda and through the control of the enforced local Jewish Council—the Jewish Center—and what knowledge was actually being gathered. Such analysis, which specifically concerns the letters sent from Auschwitz-Birkenau, reveals the knowledge of the remaining Slovak Jewish community following the deportations to camps and ghettos in occupied Poland in 1942...
Central Europe, 2024
Fuelled by nationalism and Catholicism, the wartime Slovak state, a client state of Nazi Germany,... more Fuelled by nationalism and Catholicism, the wartime Slovak
state, a client state of Nazi Germany, aimed to promote population
growth by forcing the return of women from public to
private life and supporting Slovak Christian families, but also
by stigmatizing and restricting any sexuality that was not reproductive.
Under these circumstances, where women were
shamed for not having enough children, all previously permitted
methods of birth control were banned, and abortion
was criminalized. One of the few remaining options for controlling
one’s fertility was a clandestine abortion. By examining files
that document the criminal persecution of women who underwent
abortions, this work aims to track alternative family planning
practices, and thus the development of a loosely organized
clandestine abortion network. It then examines the possibility of
understanding abortion as a form of women’s opposition to
political and ideological aims to hinder their freedom of choice.
At the same time, the article suggests that women’s agency of
this kind challenged the patriotic imperative to become
a mother as well as the hegemonic narrative and idyllic picture
of Slovak motherhood.
Journal of Family History Volume 48, Issue 3: Special Issue: Birth Control as a National Challenge: Nationalizing Concepts of Families in Eastern Europe, 1914–1939, 2023
Even the seemingly liberal Czechoslovak political elites were anxious about the notion of depopul... more Even the seemingly liberal Czechoslovak political elites were anxious about the notion of depopulation, and feared the death of the nation, which led them to disregard the societal need for modernizing family planning. At the same time, Czechoslovak women experts were significantly involved in debates on conceptions of the family. They fueled debates on the sexual liberation of women in Czechoslovakia not as a matter of ideology or morality, but as a matter of public health, social justice, and reproductive rights. This paper aims to look at these women experts and their active role in academic debates on Czechoslovak policies on family and reproduction. Looking at the case of Czechoslovakia, as a non-Western country, this article then discusses the issues of the marginalization of women's activism and feminism in the East. The article suggests that, by applying a decolonial lens, a broader inclusion of the history of feminism of non-Western women can be achieved.
Through the Prism of Gender and Work. Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries, 2023
This chapter discusses the activism of women associated with the Communist Party in Czechoslovaki... more This chapter discusses the activism of women associated with the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia and the newspaper Proletárka (Proletarian Woman), which was published in Slovakian and addressed Slovak women. An analysis of Proletárka, one of the most important sources of information on the activism of communist women in the Slovak lands, sheds light on the journal’s program of social and gender justice, its criticism of women’s position on the labour market and women’s second shift, its pioneering approach to sexual liberalization, and its treatment of nationalism. The chapter investigates how communist women connected their demands for access to contraception and abortion to class struggle and working women’s double burden, focusing on the main arguments for understanding the sexual liberation of women as a working-class issue advanced on the pages of Proletárka. The chapter points out the difficulties faced by the communist women’s movement in Slovakia as its activism moved beyond mainstream party goals and exposed the tension between reproductive rights and class struggle.
22nd Workshop in Budapest: Practices of Memory and Knowledge Production
This book chapter provides an overview of women's lives in Britain during the Second World wa... more This book chapter provides an overview of women's lives in Britain during the Second World war, considering the ways in which women's new roles in the war challenged established gender identities, and the means by which this challenge was negated.
Studia Historica Nitriensia, 2019
The article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews in Sl... more The article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews in Slovakia between 1942 and 1944. Swedish officials and religious leaders used their diplomatic cor- respondence with the Slovak government to extract some Jewish individuals and later on the whole Jewish community of Slovakia from deportations by their government and eventually by German officials. Despite the efforts of Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava, the Swedish Archbishop Erling Eidem, and the Slovak Consul Bohumil Pissko in Stockholm, and despite the acts taken by some Slovak ministries, the Slovak officials including the President of Slovak republic Jozef Tiso revoked further negotiations in autumn 1944. However, the negotiations between Slovakia and Sweden created a scope of actions to protect some Jewish individuals which were doomed to failure due to the political situation. Nevertheless, this plan and the previous diplomatic interventions are significant to describe the almost unknown Swedish and Slovak efforts to save the Jews of Slovakia. Repeated Swedish offers to take in Jewish individuals and later the whole community would have likely prepared the way for larger rescues. These never occurred due to the Slovak interest in de- porting its own Jewish citizens and later due to the German occupation of Slovakia. (in Slovak)
Nordisk Judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 2016
This article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews of S... more This article describes a largely unknown Swedish effort to intervene in deportations of Jews of Slovakia between 1942 and 1944. Swedish officials and religious leaders used their diplomatic correspondence with the Slovak government to extract some Jewish individuals and later on the whole Jewish community of Slovakia from deportations by their government and eventually by German officials. Despite the efforts of the Swedish Royal Consulate in Bratislava, the Swedish archbishop, Erling Eidem, and the Slovak consul, Bohumil Pissko, in Stockholm, and despite the acts taken by some Slovak ministries, the Slovak officials, including the president of the Slovak Republic, Jozef Tiso, revoked further negotiations in the autumn of 1944. However, the negotiations between Slovakia and Sweden created a scope for actions to protect some Jewish individuals which were doomed to failure because of the political situation. Nevertheless, this plan and the previous diplomatic interventions are signi...
If This Is a Woman Studies on Women and Gender in the Holocaust, 2021
An analysis of the testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust as chil-dren allow us to step ... more An analysis of the testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust as chil-dren allow us to step further away from the male-dominated narrative of the Holocaust. Aside from obtaining wider knowledge about the realities of the Holocaust as seen by children, their testimonies also allow us to better understand the experiences of adults. Research on children’s testimonies sheds more light on one of the substantial differences defining gendered experiences—motherhood. In this article I analyze children’s recollections as recorded in postwar testimonies, focusing on their perception of the role of mothers in Sereď camp
Janine Fubel/Katja Grosse-Sommer/Borbála Klacsmann/Denisa Nešťáková/Mareike Otters/Christoph Goll... more Janine Fubel/Katja Grosse-Sommer/Borbála Klacsmann/Denisa Nešťáková/Mareike Otters/Christoph Gollasch (Eds.)
Practices of Memory and Knowledge Production. Papers from the 22nd Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites, Metropol Verlag, 2022. 7-14.
As a client state of Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic was granted a number of benefits. One such... more As a client state of Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic was granted a number of benefits. One such alleged benefit was the allowing of correspondence between the deported Slovak Jews and those who remained in Slovakia. This article investigates the highly censored letters sent by Slovak Jews shortly after their deportation, in which they manage to code essential information on the destruction of Slovak Jewry. By examining these letters, which supposedly present the ‘good life’ of the Slovak Jews in their ‘new home,’ this article explores which information was ‘officially’ provided to Jews in Slovakia under the dictates of wartime propaganda and through the control of the enforced local Jewish Council—the Jewish Center—and what knowledge was actually being gathered. Such analysis, which specifically concerns the letters sent from Auschwitz-Birkenau, reveals the knowledge of the remaining Slovak Jewish community following the deportations to camps and ghettos in occupied Poland in 1942...
Call for Papers Far-right Women. Past and Present This two-days conference looks into the active ... more Call for Papers
Far-right Women. Past and Present
This two-days conference looks into the active participation of women in the Far-right movements and politics in 20th and 21st century Europe, with a focus on East Central, Northeastern and Southeastern Europe (and beyond).
The Herder Institute Summer Academy invites Early Career Researchers, including Advanced Master S... more The Herder Institute Summer Academy invites Early Career Researchers, including Advanced Master Students, Ph.D. Students, and Early Postdocs, to participate in a workshop dealing with the East and Central European diaspora’s experiences of collecting, archiving, and publishing in exile.
On 12 July, we are going to have an online workshop via zoom that brings together specialists fro... more On 12 July, we are going to have an online workshop via zoom that brings together specialists from different countries and research fields (Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania...).
Talk for a Workshop: Incorporating Sexual Violence into Czech WWII history and Its Aftermath A Wo... more Talk for a Workshop: Incorporating Sexual Violence into Czech WWII history and Its Aftermath A Workshop
Conference talk at the Conference and Workshop: The Future of Holocaust Testimonies V, Western Ga... more Conference talk at the Conference and Workshop: The Future of Holocaust Testimonies V, Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel, March 11-13, 2019
The aim of the paper is to discuss adaptations of narratives of the Holocaust survivors by institutions such as museums, and memorials for various purposes. By doing so I will focus on the example of the former “Labour Camp for Jews in Sereď”. While re-think and analysis and usage of different tools of examining testimonies of the Holocaust survivors have helped to develop research not only in Holocaust studies, over-interpreting, adjusting, or adapting the same testimonies even for a “good cause” could harm not only the scholarship, damage public opinion, but also could serve as a very fertile soil for right wing extremist, anti-Semites, racists, Holocaust deniers, and all modern believers in “fake news”.
Lessons and Legacies XV, Washington University in St. Louis, November 1 – 4, 2018.
Women and Men in the Labor Camp Sereď, Slovakia (1941 - 1944) presented on the Fourth Internation... more Women and Men in the Labor Camp Sereď, Slovakia (1941 - 1944) presented on the Fourth International Graduate Student Conference.
While women and men lived together and experiencing similar life, they perceived many shared events and conditions differently. This gender related experience can be searched in various official documents of Jewish Center (Ústredňa Židov), Camp-guards, post-war justice court, but mostly in the testimonies collected in several archives in Slovakia and abroad. Most of the testimonies were conducted as part of the oral history projects in 1990s, survivors able to give their testimonies were in their childhood, teenage or early twenties in Sereď Camp. The project analyses different approaches and attitudes of women and men toward different aspects of daily life and events within the camp and their impact on their survival.
My conclusions present something specific about the responses of certain groups of male and female Jews during the Holocaust. While some scholars suggest that during the Holocaust a complete collapse in their gender identities happened, I argue through my findings that in many cases the gender identities were preserved, even strengthen among the young adults in Sereď. Even though it was not a place where the inmates shaped the camp according to their plans, for some young Jewish men within the youth Zionist movement, the enterprise of Sereď entailed innovative possibilities. While women were part of every aspect of the Camp-life as well as a work production, Sereď was a men’s world. The women of Sereď possessed the same role as in pre-war time-daughters, sisters, girlfriends, wives.
Beyond Camps and Forced Labour
Panel: Gender, motherhood and family Chair: Dalia Ofer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel W... more Panel: Gender, motherhood and family
Chair: Dalia Ofer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
While women and men lived together and experiencing similar life, they perceived many shared events and conditions differently - this gender
related experience can be searched in the testimonies collected in several archives. Most of the testimonies were conducted as part of the oral history projects in 1990s, survivors able to give their testimonies were in their childhood, teenage or early twenties in Sereď. The project analyses different approaches and attitudes of women and men towards particular events and their impact on their survival. My conclusions present something specific about the responses of certain groups of
male and female Jews during the Holocaust. While scholars suggest that during the Holocaust a complete collapse in their gender identities happened, I argue through my findings that in many cases the gender identities were preserved, even strengthen among the young adults in Sereď. Even though it was not a place where the inmates shaped the camp according to their plans, for some young Jewish men included in the youth Zionist movement, the enterprise of Sereď entailed innovative
possibilities. While women were part of work production, Sereď was a men’s world, the women possessed the same role as in pre-war time-daughters, sisters, girlfriends, wives.
Körper und Lager – eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung der Verflechtungen von Herrschaft, Leben un... more Körper und Lager – eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung der Verflechtungen von Herrschaft, Leben und Sterben in nationalsozialistischen Lagern
Cycles of Commemoration. Forced Labor in Europe during World War II. International Forum Th... more Cycles of Commemoration. Forced Labor in Europe during World War II.
International Forum
The attempt to create a national Holocaust memorial in Slovakia has been beset by a variety of challenges. The shifts in public perception of the Holocaust, and the problems related to historical memory of WWII and the Holocaust within Slovak academia and public, were among these challenges. Eventually, on January 26, 2016 the Museum of Holocaust in Sereď was opened. The Museum was opened in the buildings of a former “Labor camp for Jews” in Sereď. The discussion of differences in commemoration of the forced labor in East and West needsfurther questions, opinions, and approaches. Yet, it also partially neglects the memory and memorization of the forced labor by the victims - inmates of the labor camps or other institutions which exploited those human beings. Regarding the limited access to the archives in the former “East block”, the historians of the Holocaust have chosen to focus on rather material research of the “Labor camp for Jews” in Sereď, Slovakia. To date the research has not been focused on the perception of the forced labor by the inmates of the Camp. The paper intends to introduce an element of forced labor as memorized by the Zionist youth based on an example of the Labor camp Sereď. Based on testimonies in various forms, the case-study helps to fully understand the dimension of forced labor during the Holocaust. The research also showed a need for a gender-based focus to portrait the differences in perception of forced labor by members of the two Zionist movements (HaShomer HaTzair and Maccabi HaTzair) - young girls and boys. While scholars suggest that during the Holocaust a complete collapse in their gender identities happened, according to my finding related to the memorization of forced labor in survivors´ testimonies I argue that in many cases the gender identities were preserved, even strengthen among the young adults in Sereď. Even though in both cases – female and male – having a work in the Camp meant temporal protection from further deportation, men and women remembered the labor differently. While women barely talk about work in their testimonies, for boys and men, work became a tool of self realization and an instrument of finding a place in the stratified camp society. And even though women were part of work production, their work was considered marginal by them and by the male part of the camp. As the memory of the forced labor suggest, the Camp Sereď was a men’s world, the women possessed the same role as in pre-war time-daughters, sisters, girlfriends, wives.
Even now, it appears that the issue of the enemy is a serious social problem. Of course, this que... more Even now, it appears that the issue of the enemy is a serious social problem. Of course, this question is extremely radicalized during war times. We think that the problem of finding one's own identity, whether at its national, confessional, social and possibly at other levels, can be seen as quite a legitimate process. However, it is questionable, at which point the process is gradually transformed into the classic scheme of "us-them". Own identity defined by statehood, ethnicity or religious beliefs, may gradually gain another dimension when "they" become enemies-real or fictitious-or even the kind of enemy, which must be eliminated at all costs. We can of course encounter such processes in dictatorships, but also in democracies. After all, the image of the enemy had its form in ancient history as well as in medieval history. For the upcoming conference we are concerned with displaying the image of enemy in the narrative and visualizations especially in Europe at the time of World War II. Aggression of Nazi Germany and its allies created the basic scheme of "us-them", as no "Tertium non datur" could be enforced. State propaganda in different countries-both allies of Nazi Germany, and their opponents led by the US-GB and the USSR – was also based on this scheme. Despite the fact that this process was initially implemented only at the level of words and their visualization (e.g. posters, caricatures), the existing stereotypes about "the others" aimed at their gradual dehumanization. Such understanding of internal as well as foreign political enemy could thus be portrayed by the propaganda as an all-mighty opponent. An image of the Jew was thus propagandistically formed, where the Jew was seen as the creator and manipulator of the anti-Hitler coalition and/or the activities of each of its members the US, GB and the USSR. On the other hand, it also embodied "someone" worthless (dehumanized) who needed to be divested of. Again, we may talk about Jews, Communists, or Anglo-American plutocrats. Such approach could lead to military involvement in the elimination of the enemy, which resulted in a participation in the war against Poland and the Soviet Union. This approach also led to contemporary genocide – better known as the Holocaust. The war further strengthened the image of the national and state enemy. Fear of "the other", formed by propaganda, should have gradually become public, i.e. general. On the other hand, the contemporary propaganda also helped to form a "positive" side. The image of a "friend" was constantly formed this way. Individual presentations at the conference shall reflect national particularities of the dichotomy ("friend-enemy") formed this way. We invite historians and scholars of related disciplines to apply by submitting a proposal for papers (up to 1500 characters) with an accompanying brief biographical note to michala.loncikova@gmail.com by April 15, 2017. Submissions from Ph.D. students are also welcome. The papers should be approximately 15 minutes in length. The working language of the conference is English. We are looking forward to your proposal and your participation at the conference.
Workshop: Public Authorities and National Socialist Exclusion Camps 3.February 2017, Berlin, Germ... more Workshop: Public Authorities and National Socialist Exclusion Camps
3.February 2017, Berlin, Germany
Gender related experiences of Women and Men in the Labor Camp Sereď, Slovakia in 1941-1944
21st Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites: Betw... more 21st Workshop on the History and Memory of National
Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites: Between Collaboration and Resistance.
24-30.05.2016, Aix-en-Provence, France
The presentation discussed the role of Gisi Fleischmann, a prominent member of the Jewish community in Slovakia and one of the few women who took up a leadership role. Fleischmann was involved in the promotion of Jewish labor camps, believing to protect the Jewish population in doing so. In that context Nešťáková referred to the concept of “choiceless choices” and talked about how Fleischmann is commemorated today. The following discussion showed the difficulties of analyzing the “collaboration” between Jewish communities and the German authorities, thus problematizing the use of the term.
Medzinárodná vedecká konferencia pri príležitosti 70. výročia ukončenia 2. svetovej vojny (Intern... more Medzinárodná vedecká konferencia pri príležitosti 70. výročia ukončenia 2. svetovej vojny (International academic conference on the occasion of the 70 th anniversary of the end of World War II)
29 -30. September 2015; Piešťany, Slovakia
Introduction to the topic of sexual and sexualized violence of Jewish women during WWII and the Holocaust.
Doktorandenworkshop der Deutsch-Tschechischen und Deutsch Slowakischen Historikerkommission 13 - ... more Doktorandenworkshop der Deutsch-Tschechischen und Deutsch Slowakischen Historikerkommission
13 - 16. October 2016, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Presentation of early stage of research of PHD thesis of Arab-Jewish Relations through the Experience of the German Settlers during the British Mandate for Palestine. The aim was to demonstrate the attitude of the Temple Society to local Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine in 1930s
Jewish elites and community leaders during the Second World War; 27-29. October, 2015; Cracow, Po... more Jewish elites and community leaders during the Second World War; 27-29. October, 2015; Cracow, Poland
Presentation deals with the functioning of Jewish elite gathered in Jewish Center in Slovakia (Ústredňa Židov) and their relations with Jewish and local Nazi and Slovak officials during World War II through the life of Gisi Fleischmann - the only woman in a leading position of Jewish Centers in Europe.
THE JEWS OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE SHADOW OF THE HOLOCAUST A p r i l 5 , 2 0 1 6 ; Ya d I z h ... more THE JEWS OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE SHADOW OF THE HOLOCAUST
A p r i l 5 , 2 0 1 6 ; Ya d I z h a k B e n-Z v i, J e r u s a l e m
Perception of Jews and Judaism among the German Temple Society during 1930s with focus on antisemitism
EHRI-Seminar Budapest Researching and Remembering the Holocaust in Central Europe – new sources, ... more EHRI-Seminar Budapest Researching and Remembering the Holocaust in Central Europe – new sources, methods and approaches
FORSCHUNGSKOLLOQUIUM: NEUERE FORSCHUNGEN ZUR GESCHICHTE UND WIRKUNG DES HOLOCAUST (Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main), 2018
Presentation of my dissertation at the FORSCHUNGSKOLLOQUIUM: NEUERE FORSCHUNGEN ZUR GESCHICHTE UN... more Presentation of my dissertation at the FORSCHUNGSKOLLOQUIUM: NEUERE FORSCHUNGEN ZUR GESCHICHTE UND WIRKUNG DES HOLOCAUST (Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main)
My dissertation focuses on Arab-Jewish relations from 1921 until 1939 in the British Mandate for Palestine. The presented study analyses these relations from the perception of the German Christian Temple Society (Tempelgesellschaft), specifically the perspectives of their newspaper Die Warte des Tempels and other relevant documents of German provenance. A qualitative analysis of newspaper texts not only shows examples of the development of relations between local Arabs and Jews, but it also documents influences which formed opinions and attitudes of the Temple Society towards inhabitants of mandatory Palestine. The dissertation examines the religious beliefs of the members of the Temple Society, their expressions of racism in colonial space of mandatory Palestine, their antisemitic attitudes and their acceptance of National Socialist ideology. Analysing these aspects, which formed the views of the German Templers, illustrates their impact and the methods of representation of Arab-Jewish relations in the British Mandate for Palestine.
Vybrať najlepšie či najzaujímavejšie filmy venované téme holokaustu nie je jednoduché. Táto neslá... more Vybrať najlepšie či najzaujímavejšie filmy venované téme holokaustu nie je jednoduché. Táto neslávna časť európskych dejín pútala i púta pozornosť filmových tvorcov prakticky neustále. HistoryWeb.sk sa preto opýtal popredných slovenských a svetových odborníkov, ktorí sa problematike holokaustu venujú. Tu je ich výber...
lovenský štát si zakladal na „tradičných“ kresťanských hodnotách. Deti a mládež sa považovali za ... more lovenský štát si zakladal na „tradičných“ kresťanských hodnotách. Deti a mládež sa považovali za budúcnosť národa. Mali byť vedení k striedmosti a mravnej disciplíne. Aj s týmto cieľom bola vytvorená organizácia Hlinkova mládež. Maloletí chlapci organizovaní v Hlinkovej mládeži sa však stali predmetom sexuálneho zneužívania zo strany jej veliteľov. Dobové súdne spory hovoria o sexuálnych násilnostiach na maloletých zverencoch celkom jasne.
With a focus on reproductive policies in 20th-century Slovakia, which aimed at regulating the rep... more With a focus on reproductive policies in 20th-century Slovakia, which aimed at regulating the reproductive behavior of its citizens, this book sheds light on the long history of policing women's bodies as an intrinsic means of controlling their lives. The history of family planning in 20th-century Slovakia offers a glimpse into past developments relating to abortion, birth control, sexuality and reproductive rights in East Central Europe, as well as the rest of Europe. Thus, it allows a broader understanding of the similarities and differences between the East and the West. By examining the tendencies toward more liberal and progressive reproductive policies in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938/9), then the shift to a conservative view of the family and women during the wartime Slovak state (1939-1945) and the "sexual liberation" of the 1950s and early 1960s in socialist Czechoslovakia, this volume examines the impact of political and social changes on family planning in modern Slovak history. This work shows that irrespective of which regime ruled over men and women in Slovakia, they all endorsed reproductive growth, and an increase in the birth rate was supported, desired, required and sometimes enforced. The private decision-making of individuals in family planning thus became a matter of public interest, in which populism, traditionalism, conservatism, pronatalism and religion combined or clashed with eugenics and racism, as well as with science, public health and feminism. Sometimes these aspects of family planning operated in parallel and created stories of backlash, resistance and ruptures. In the midst of all this was the female body, which was obliged to serve accordingly.
O TOM sa nehovorí, TO sa má robiť!“ – prezrádza jedna z rád starých mám a otcov. Tobôž by sa o TO... more O TOM sa nehovorí, TO sa má robiť!“ – prezrádza jedna z rád starých mám a otcov. Tobôž by sa o TOM – teda o sexe a sexualite – nemalo písať. Autorský kolektív knihy Moc sexu sa však rozhodol pomyselne „prekročiť rubikon“ a otvoriť témy, pri vyslovení ktorých by sa naši predkovia, ale aj mnohí súčasníci iba hanblivo červenali. Odborníčky a odborníci z oblasti histórie, etnológie, sociológie, politológie a psychológie na jednom mieste ponúkajú príbehy zo sveta dejín sexuálnej každodennosti, erotickej literatúry, podôb sexuálnej výchovy, prostitúcie, „mravne skazenej“ mládeže či aktivizmu sexuálnych menšín v modernej ére Slovenska. Sex a sexualita sú totiž jedny z najprirodzenejších súčastí ľudského bytia, hoci sa často stávajú objektom nálepkovania, predsudkov a politizovania, ktoré zatieňuje iné, reálne problémy spoločnosti.
The present volume contains thirteen articles based on work presented at the “XX. Century Confere... more The present volume contains thirteen articles based on work presented at the “XX. Century Conference: If This Is A Woman” at Comenius University Bratislava in January 2019. The conference was organized against anti-gender narratives and related attacks on academic freedom and women’s rights currently all too prevalent in East-Central Europe. The papers presented at the conference and in this volume focus, to a significant extent, on this region. They touch upon numerous points concerning gendered experiences of World War II and the Holocaust. By purposely emphasizing the female experience in the title, we encourage to fill the lacunae that still, four decades after the enrichment of Holocaust studies with a gendered lens, exist when it comes to female experiences.
Janine Fubel/Katja Grosse-Sommer/Borbála Klacsmann/Denisa Nešťáková/Mareike Otters/Christoph Gollasch (Eds.), Practices of Memory and Knowledge Production. Papers from the 22nd Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites, Metropol Verlag Berlin, 2022
This collective volume is a compilation of papers given at the 22nd Workshop on the History and M... more This collective volume is a compilation of papers given at the 22nd Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites, which took place in Budapest in October 2017. It brings together research papers of nine emerging scholars from different European countries, combining perspectives on remembrance of crimes committed during World War II by National Socialists and their collaborators. Touching upon aspects of memory practices and knowledge production, the contributions focus on memorialisation at former camp sites, continuities of stigmatisation, and the importance of testimonies.
ACTA HISTORICA POSONIENSIA XXXI. JUDAICA ET HOLOCAUSTICA VII. Women and World War II The seventh... more ACTA HISTORICA POSONIENSIA XXXI. JUDAICA ET HOLOCAUSTICA VII. Women and World War II
The seventh volume of the anthology, represents a collection of studies of already established historians, but also the innovative
young generation on the topic of Women and WWII.
Historický časopis, 2017
NEŠTÁKOVÁ, Denisa. Stone, Dan. Concentration camps. A short history. Historický časopis, 65, 3, 2... more NEŠTÁKOVÁ, Denisa. Stone, Dan. Concentration camps. A short history. Historický časopis, 65, 3, 2017, pp. 543-548
Gender analysis applied to the field of War Studies and Holocaust Studies has led to important di... more Gender analysis applied to the field of War Studies and Holocaust Studies has led to important discoveries, opened up new areas of research and raised critical questions about established narratives. Thanks to gender analysis, research has started focusing on different topics; in particular the female experience during the Holocaust and World War II, and has also brought up the latest findings on family and survival strategies, children´s experience, or investigation on life of homosexuals under the rule of NS Germany and their allies. Despite the development of Women's and Gender Studies in the last decades, the importance of women in history has remained—until recently— a " problematic " subject, and more importantly an under-researched topic. While most war memories belong to men, women´s experiences have played just a trivial role. Moreover, all generalizations and gender-neutral statements about experiences during the Holocaust have neglected a personalized and gender-oriented approach to Holocaust Studies. This conference attempts to pay particular attention to the specific features of women's experience in WWII and the Holocaust. Thanks to the growing academic interest in the history of gender, WWII and the Holocaust, the question of Jewish masculinity during the Holocaust could be analysed in the similar depth.
![Research paper thumbnail of NIŽŇANSKÝ, E duard – NEŠŤÁKOVÁ, Denisa (eds.). WOMEN AND WORLD WAR II. [ Judaica et Holocaustica, 7]. review by Ivan Kamenec](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/59140400/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Historický časopis (Journal of History), 4, 2017
(in Slovak) Review on a Journal "Judaica et Holocaustica, 7. Women and World War II" by Ivan Kam... more (in Slovak)
Review on a Journal "Judaica et Holocaustica, 7. Women and World War II" by Ivan Kamenec
