What is it about?

The article analyses the documented memories on 'Radio Majdanek' that women prisoners performed with their voice at Majdanek concentration and extermination camp in 1943. The analysed memories point towards the prisoners’ efforts to break their exclusion by decisively continuing their belonging to the public world through their own performance.

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Why is it important?

The article asks what the public realm means to human existence and subjectivity in conditions of extreme exclusion and humiliation: the totalitarian extermination. The question raised is an underestimated topic within the public sphere scholarship and may be relevant to studies discussing political and social exclusion, isolation and loneliness.

Perspectives

Writing this article was to write about exceptional strength and insightfulness amid the devastation of a Second World War death camp. At Europe's dark hour, the women prisoners' 'radio' reveals the most deeply human meanings of the public realm. Hannah Arendt's fearless thought supported me throughout the analysis. Arendt's thinking contributed significantly also to my own life.

Dr Leena Ripatti-Torniainen
Helsingin Yliopisto

From the very first time I heard about Radio Majdanek, I was deeply moved by the story. I found more information about it in the book (1997) “Anteny nad Bystrzycą” [Antennas by the Bystrzyca River] written by the journalist of Polish Radio, Stanislaw Fornal. After the II World War, he arranged the meetings with the former presenters of Radio Majdanek. Now, many years after their deaths they deserve our memory and admiration. The paper is our humble attempt to give them both.

Professor Grażyna Stachyra

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: The human core of the public realm: women prisoners’ performed ‘radio’ at the Majdanek concentration camp, Media Culture & Society, May 2019, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0163443719848584.
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