Writing Resistance and the Question of Gender : Charlotte Delbo, Noor Inayat Khan, and Germaine Tillion

This book presents the first comparative study of the works of Charlotte Delbo, Noor Inayat Khan, and Germaine Tillion in relation to their vigorous struggles against Nazi aggression during World War II and the Holocaust. It illuminates ways in which their early lives conditioned both their political engagements during wartime and their extraordinary literary creations empowered by what Lara R. Curtis refers to as modes of 'writing resistance.' With skillful recourse to a remarkable variety of genres, they offer compelling autobiographical reflections, vivid chronicles of wartime atrocities, eyewitness accounts of victims, and acute perspectives on the political implications of major events. Their sensitive reflections of gendered subjectivity authenticate the myriad voices and visions they capture. In sum, this book highlights the lives and works of three courageous women who were ceaselessly committed to a noble cause during the Holocaust and World War II. -- Provided by publisher Acknowledgements 6 Contents 10 List of Figures 12 1 Introduction: Writing Resistance and the Question of Gender—Charlotte Delbo, Noor Inayat Khan, and Germaine Tillion 13 References 31 2 Charlotte Delbo: Writing the Afterlife 35 Writings Informed by Past Experience 35 Inscribing the Afterlife 43 Configurations of Death, Feminine Links 45 Maternal Figures, Transforming Women 48 A Spectral Presence and Afterlives of the Deceased 52 Idealizing the Post-internment Future 55 Effigies of Men in Literature 57 Echoes of Fears and Anxieties 59 Encountering Death in Spectres, mes compagnons 64 Conclusion 66 References 67 3 Noor Inayat Khan: Conceptualizing Resistance During World War II 70 A Literary Figure Emerges from the Prewar and Wartime Years 70 Creating Images of Resistance in Literature 74 Adapting and Blending Traditions of Sufism During Wartime Europe 76 Decoding Jātaka Tales in the Context of the Resistance 78 New Resistance Narratives, Legends of War and Renewal 81 Nostalgia and Gendered Performativity 83 Princesses of the East: Empowerment, Exile, and Isolation 87 Powerful Feminine Voices and the End of an Era 90 The Sound of Sufism: Aède of the Ocean and Land: A Play in Seven Acts 92 Personal Accounts: Letters from Noor to Azeem 97 Conclusion 102 References 103 4 Germaine Tillion: Observations of Algeria and Ravensbrück 106 Rising to Prominence in the Twenty-First Century 106 Representations of Algeria and Ravensbrück 108 Creative Adaptation of Ethnological Methodologies 112 A Little Night Music: The Ethnographer as Impresario 114 A Tripartite Dynamic of Decline 116 Verfügbaren Are Born at Ravensbrück 123 Uses of Humor at Ravensbrück 128 Hierarchical Structures and a “New Zoological Species” 134 Death at Ravensbrück and in Algeria 135 A Post-internment Publication and Revisiting Algeria 137 Conclusion 139 References 140 5 Conclusion: Women’s Reflections on Wartime Experiences 143 Three Factors That Made a Field Late in Flourishing 146 Seminal Scholarship 150 Prospects for the Future 154 Charlotte, Noor, and Germaine: Three Women of Engagement 156 References 161 Index 163 Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Writing Resistance and the Question of Gender—Charlotte Delbo, Noor Inayat Khan, and Germaine Tillion (Lara R. Curtis)....Pages 1-22 Charlotte Delbo: Writing the Afterlife (Lara R. Curtis)....Pages 23-57 Noor Inayat Khan: Conceptualizing Resistance During World War II (Lara R. Curtis)....Pages 59-94 Germaine Tillion: Observations of Algeria and Ravensbrück (Lara R. Curtis)....Pages 95-131 Conclusion: Women’s Reflections on Wartime Experiences (Lara R. Curtis)....Pages 133-152 Back Matter ....Pages 153-159