Suzanne Vromen
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195181289
- eISBN:
- 9780199870752
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181289.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter draws on interviews with surviving nuns to show that mothers superior were responsible for accepting children in the convents and that they did so while maintaining all possible secrecy ...
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This chapter draws on interviews with surviving nuns to show that mothers superior were responsible for accepting children in the convents and that they did so while maintaining all possible secrecy about their actions. Not only children were hidden in convents, sometimes right under the noses of the occupiers, but also entire families as well as young people who avoided labor conscription. Jewish children were expected to go to mass and were treated like all the other boarders, a strategy that, from the point of view of nuns, served to conceal them. In the contemporary interviews nuns argue that at the time hidden Jewish children were not coerced into baptism and communion; they depict rescue in a humanitarian light. In running the convents in wartime, German nuns facilitated relationships with the German occupiers. Assuring a sufficient food supply demanded great skill and the occasional recourse to collective resources from other orders. In the nuns' recollections the fear of bombardments is the most vivid one. The chapter affirms the nuns' general active stance and highlights many facets of the entrepreneurial and affective authority of mothers superior. In conclusion the contributions of these mothers superior to the Resistance and to rescue have been taken for granted and not accorded the recognition that they deserve.Less
This chapter draws on interviews with surviving nuns to show that mothers superior were responsible for accepting children in the convents and that they did so while maintaining all possible secrecy about their actions. Not only children were hidden in convents, sometimes right under the noses of the occupiers, but also entire families as well as young people who avoided labor conscription. Jewish children were expected to go to mass and were treated like all the other boarders, a strategy that, from the point of view of nuns, served to conceal them. In the contemporary interviews nuns argue that at the time hidden Jewish children were not coerced into baptism and communion; they depict rescue in a humanitarian light. In running the convents in wartime, German nuns facilitated relationships with the German occupiers. Assuring a sufficient food supply demanded great skill and the occasional recourse to collective resources from other orders. In the nuns' recollections the fear of bombardments is the most vivid one. The chapter affirms the nuns' general active stance and highlights many facets of the entrepreneurial and affective authority of mothers superior. In conclusion the contributions of these mothers superior to the Resistance and to rescue have been taken for granted and not accorded the recognition that they deserve.
Tom Baker and Jonathan Simon (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226035185
- eISBN:
- 9780226035178
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226035178.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Company and Commercial Law
For much of the twentieth century, industrialized nations addressed social problems, such as workers' compensation benefits and social welfare programs, in terms of spreading risk. But in recent ...
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For much of the twentieth century, industrialized nations addressed social problems, such as workers' compensation benefits and social welfare programs, in terms of spreading risk. But in recent years a new approach has emerged: using risk both as a way to conceive of and address social problems and as an incentive to reduce individual claims on collective resources. This book explores this new approach from a variety of perspectives. The first part of the book focuses on the interplay between risk and insurance in various historical and social contexts. The second part examines how risk is used to govern fields outside the realm of insurance, from extreme sports to policing, mental health institutions, and international law. Offering an original approach to risk, insurance, and responsibility, this book demonstrates that risk has moved well beyond its origins in the insurance trade to become a central organizing principle of social and cultural life.Less
For much of the twentieth century, industrialized nations addressed social problems, such as workers' compensation benefits and social welfare programs, in terms of spreading risk. But in recent years a new approach has emerged: using risk both as a way to conceive of and address social problems and as an incentive to reduce individual claims on collective resources. This book explores this new approach from a variety of perspectives. The first part of the book focuses on the interplay between risk and insurance in various historical and social contexts. The second part examines how risk is used to govern fields outside the realm of insurance, from extreme sports to policing, mental health institutions, and international law. Offering an original approach to risk, insurance, and responsibility, this book demonstrates that risk has moved well beyond its origins in the insurance trade to become a central organizing principle of social and cultural life.
