Suffering of Women in the Holocaust - Essay Example

But women were more at the stake of brutality. Jewish women had to suffer from brutal torture for being female. They were kept naked and beaten. Their heads were shaven off. Pregnant women and those who had little children were not selected to work and were left to die. The Nazis conducted medical experiments on them forcefully. They were given involuntary sterilizations and forced abortions. “At least 40,000 people were forcefully sterilized, with 5,500 women dying after being sterilized,” states Avraham (2014, par. 2). Although Nazis had passed legislation against any sort of sexual relations with Jewish women, they would rape them on regular basis after abducting them from streets. They were subjected to forced labor and sexual abuse. Some of them were also sent to Nazi brothels forcefully where they were subjected to rape and sexual assault.

Men and women were forced into Philippine concentration camps during the Philippine-American war in the early 1900s. They were promised that they would be provided food and security, but they suffered from the worst genocide and torture. Women suffered from starvation and disease. “By the end of the war, it was reported that 27,927 Boers (of whom 26,251 were women and children, of which 22,074 were children under 16) had died of starvation, disease and exposure” (AngloBoerWar.com, 2014, par. 4). Malaria, cholera, and dysentery were the main killers. Where males were buried alive and suffocated to death using water cure torture, women were left to die of disease and malnutrition.

The Cuban Holocaust saw genocide in Cuban concentration camps in 1896-97 during the Spanish-American war. “The concentration camps contained more women, children, and the aged…they also died of malnutrition and disease”, states Perez (2006, p.197). Women sent the male members of their families to the war willingly despite knowing that they would be left without protection. The Spanish had claimed that they would look after them in the re-concentration camps, but history saw sick and dead women and children thrown in heaps on the ground. There was an accumulation of dead and alive female bodies, clinging to their little children’s dead bodies. The death rate for women in the Cuban concentration camps was very high. Women were also made victims of sexual assault. Famine and disease prevailed, killing thousands of women and children throughout the Cuban camps.

Putting it all together, it has been seen in history that women have been subjected to great brutality in the Nazi, Philippines, and Cuban concentration camps. They were subjected to sexual assault, rape, murder, famine, and disease. Read More