Nazi KZs as gendered Jewish spaces? German-Jewish masculinity and the negotiation of gender practices in prewar Nazi concentration camps.

Incorporating space methodology and combining it with gender studies, this article looks at how German-Jewish men, in a space-specific environment, prewar Nazi concentration camps, came to adjust their understandings and practices of masculinity. The paper argues that performing pre-learned forms of military masculinity inside the camps vis-à-vis Nazi personnel, while simultaneously maintaining conventional gender norms in their letter exchanges to their families and spouses in the outside world, were of fundamental importance. Jewish men's ability to adjust their practice of masculinity represented a defiant attempt of survival and control over their lives under an increasingly oppressive regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]