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To cope with difficult stress isn’t always easy and a lot of studies have been made to gain more information about how individuals develop their coping strategies under extreme stress. During the Holocaust, Jewish people found themselves in a number of different situations: extermination camps, labor and concentration camps, physical hiding in the sewers or forests. The aim of this paper is to examine the experiences and coping strategies of two Holocaust survivors. Through their biographies they have shared their experiences during the concentration camps. The research questions in this study are: How do the two individuals develop their coping during their stay in a concentration camp and to what extent can religion be included in the coping process? Three underlying questions are: What was significant for them during their experiences? What can be seen as theirs stressors? and What kind of coping strategies are used? To answer these questions a qualitative research method called template analysis style has been used. The main theory is Pargament’s (1997) coping theory. The conclusion of my study was that both individuals are trying to normalize life in the concentration camps with the help of daily routines because they felt that surviving in concentration camp is a matter of adaptation. Individuals had both mental and physical stressors. The use of daily routines and boundary setting served as coping strategies for both individuals. A strategy that both of the individuals used was to think about the future and prepare for the life after the concentration camp. The results showed that religion wasn’t a part of the coping process for these two individuals and that several different coping strategies were used.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Johannesburg 1982 / No contemporary Jewish theology can be meaningful i f i t ignores the two d e c isiv e w atershed events fo r tw entieth century Ju d a ier, namely, the H olocaust and the re-estab lish m en t o f the S ta te of I s r a e l. Richard L. R ubeustein'a theology is rooted in th ese two k a iro i. In addition to th is , h is theology is highly su b jectiv e and the o rig in s of traumas in h is own l i f e are seen to be re fle c te d in those of the l i f e o f h is people For th is reason, d e ta ils of h is l i f e and work are presented in the in tro d u c tio n to t h is th e s is . With th e Holocaust as h is focus and point of d ep artu re, Rubenstein has declared the death o f the God-who—a c ts -in -h is to ry . He was unable to rec o n cile the Nazi attem pt a t Judenvevnichtung with the existence of the tr a d itio n a l God of theism who chose I s r a e l and who a cts purposefully in h is to ry . His m ajor statem ent of the nineteen s ix tie s was se t out in A fte r A ueohvits. D espite the death of the tra d itio n a l God of theism,*he in s is te d on observance of tra d itio n a l Jewish r i t u a l , p a rtic u la rly p r ie s tly r i t u a l , fo r the attainm ent of au th en tic Jewish selfhood. Two c e n tra l m otivations fo r both the re je c tio n of the tra d itio n a l God of theism and fo r the re te n tio n of r i t u a l , were h is in siste n c e on the capacity of the ir r a tio n a l to move men, and the b e lie f in the c e n tra lity of g u i lt fe e lin g s in men. L ife was seen as bracketed between two o b liv io n s. His theology was devoid o f e sch ato lo g ical hope. A God-concept remained in th e form of Holy Nothingness o r the cannibal Earth Mother. Je was deeply influenced by Freud and the E x is te n t ia li s ts . Great s tr e s s was placed on the ir r a tio n a l aspect of the Holocaust, and C h ris tia n ity ’ s mythic stru c tu re which designated the Jew as d e ic id e , was seen as one of the potent causative fa c to rs fo r anti-Sem itism . R ubenstein's c u rre n t thought has moved beyond the confines of the Jewish im plications of the Holocaust to probe i t s wider im plicstiona for the world. He now views the Holocaust in terms of 'c a lc u la tin g r a tio n a lity ' as the culm ination of a ra d ic a l se c u la ris a tio n of consciousness which he secs as having o rig in a te * in the B ible. His concern is w ith a fu n c tio n a lly 'godless* world in which a Holocaust could take p lac e. The Holocaust and other la rg e -sc a le massacres are perceived in terms of b u re a u c ra tic a lly organised population riddance in the face of th e in tra c ta b le problem of global population redundancy. The aim of th is th e s is i s to examin e and r e f le c t the progression of Rubenetein* s thought from the nineteen s ix tie s to the present and to evaluate h is theology as a v iab le way of l i f e fo r modern se c u la risin g Jews. Section One c o n s titu te s an attem pt to present Rubenetein's th eo lo g ical and i n te lle c tu a l development. Chapters I I , IV, V and VI deal with various asp ects o f h is thought such as h is views on s e c u la ris a tio n , on man and r e lig io n , on God, eechatology and h is to ry , and on power. Chapter I deals w ith the ro o ts o f s e c u la ris a tio n and the a th e is tic tren d in modern th e o lo g ic a l thinking as a backdrop to R ubenstain's theology. An excursus in to the psychoanalytic th eo ries of Freud was undertaken in Chapter I I I because of the immense influence of Freud on Rubenetein's e arly thought. Section Two c o n s titu te s a c ritiq u e of R ubenetein's views in re la tio n to o th er th e o lo g ic a l responses to the H olocaust. I t also examines the v ia b ility of h is th e o lo g ica l proposals for a meaningful Jewish lif e a fte r the H olocaust. The conclusion of th is th e s is is th a t although the normative Jewish theology of h is to ry shows the most au th en tic path fo r Jews to follow , R ubenstein's views of the nineteen s ix tie s c o n s titu te a meaningful option fo r Jews who, a f t e r the Holocaust, are unable to re ta in b e lie f in the th e i s t ic God of h is to ry . This was made p o ssib le by R ubenstein's emphasis on the need fo r ongoing Jewish p ra c tic e . His cu rren t theology is too p e ssim istic to o ffe r any r e a l is ti c options fo r continuing Jewish l i f e . I t s main c o n trib u tio n is th a t i t gives us in sig h t in to the possible causes of our w o rld 's m alaise in an attem pt to contain man's d e stru ctiv e n ess.

The thinking that resulted in this thesis has its roots in the first televised images that marked my childhood. The destruction of Beirut under the Israeli fire was the news item during my first school holidays. I was seven years old and I remember seeing Menachem Begin's impassionate speeches, thinking that they made sense. Knowing that Hitler was the ultimate evil, and hearing that Arafat was like Hitler, how could it be wrong to destroy him? But when I looked among the images of people in Beirut to find the Nazis, all I could see were people who looked poor, quiet or scared. Nothing like the tall and erect Nazis, shouting out orders in their uniforms and shiny boots. I was confused. And this confusion bred a lifelong interest in what was really going on in Israel. How could a people that had suffered so much cause so much suffering? Why were they telling the world that they were fighting the Nazis? And why did the world believe them?

Sara Tuvel Bernstein’s The Seamstress and Rena Kornreich Gelissen’s Rena’s Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz, both Holocaust memoirs, offer insight into the rise of violent anti-Semitism prior to World War II and the authors’ experiences in concentration camps. The purpose of this project is to better understand the unique trauma women experienced during the Holocaust and the impact of that trauma on their literary responses.

Baron's work has not been extensively studied nor is it known in full. Critical writings and scholarly attention have focused on the work as representative of Holocaust suffering. This thesis intervenes in that assumption by arguing that it is possible to understand Baron's processes of making collage as a significant case study in the problematic of signification and a complex of differences none of which are reducible to or deducible from each other. Drawing together a range of biographical information, primary source material and close readings of many of Baron's collages (including two hitherto unseen series) traces are revealed of both a maker, an artistic subject finding itself in its own practice, and a making, in the sense of a process that cannot be bound into the singularity of the subject who made it. A framework is established using psychoanalytic theory and second generation Holocaust theory that allows for the possibility of reading into Baron's life story both the symptoms of unresolved conflicts and a particular set of strategies that enabled her to sustain a creative subjectivity. Kristeva's formulation of art as an imaginaire du pardon permits a reading, however tentative, of Baron's art in terms of a poetics of imaginary restoration and reparation in which archaic and traumatic-affects are given the structure of symbolic representation. This is especially pertinent to Baron's fourteen year experience of cancer. Finally, a consideration of Baron's collage making as a process of inscription that is in relation to the body as a coalition of history, memory, corporeality and the psyche is not only significant to contemporary understandings of identity and subjectivity, but also makes it possible to propose an ethical dimension concerned with a feminine understanding of difference.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. )

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies, University of Sydney, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 398-427).