Beauty in the Face of Horror: Fashion, Femininity, and Identity during the Holocaust

Elizabeth A. Smith

doi:10.7273/000007471

This thesis examines the intersection of women in the Holocaust historiography, gender theory, and fashion studies to explore how women in Nazi concentration camps used fashion—clothing, adornment, and cosmetics—as a means of reclaiming their humanity and reconstructing their feminine identity. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Joan Scott and Judith Butler, this study situates gender as a performative act and as a social construct that persisted even in the extreme conditions of the camps. Simultaneously, the works of Valerie Steele, Anne Hollander, and Roland Barthes provide insight into fashion’s capacity to signify identity, resilience, and defiance. Utilizing survivor testimonies, memoirs, and material culture analysis, this research reveals how fashion functioned not merely as a vestige of the past but as an active means of psychological survival. This thesis also examines the broader implications of fashion’s role in Germany during the interwar years, particularly within department stores, ready-to-wear clothing, and fashion magazines, which challenged and shaped modernity. By bridging Holocaust Studies with fashion history, this work expands the discourse on agency, identity, and survival, offering a deeper understanding of how women navigated the oppressive nature of the camps and were able to survive through material means. I argue that fashion—both clothing and cosmetics—was an instrument for women in the Holocaust to outwardly express themselves within the camps, an environment designed to destroy every ounce of identity. Fashion was a means to retain a semblance of their identity prior to entering the camp, it allowed them to style or dress their bodies in a manner that helped them feel less dehumanized. Additionally, it was a way for them to assert their agency and individualism. Through the purposeful application of skills developed from their lives prior to the camps and communal activities with other women, like sewing, women were able to reclaim and nurture their gender identity and humanity within the Nazi concentration camps. Through memoirs, artwork, and photographs, I analyze how women adapted to and survived the brutality of the camps. Fashion has largely gone unnoticed in correlation with the Nazi concentration camps; this paper seeks to add an additional lens of analysis to the complex historiography of the Holocaust.

Beauty in the Face of Horror: Fashion, Femininity, and Identity during the Holocaust

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