Double Visions: Queer Femininity and Holocaust Film from Ostatni Etap to Aimée & Jaguar

This article argues for a complex consideration of queer iconographies across Holocaust perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and resisters. Looking at the construction of same-sex sexual conduct in Holocaust memoirs, I propose sexual manifestations as an important issue in power relations between women during the Holocaust. From there, I chart the shifting construction of queer femininity and its role in Holocaust representation from early socialist cinema to contemporary film. I show how queer femininity initially assisted in drawing attention to the extreme perversity of Nazism, and how post-1980s lesbian-feminist films draw on the lesbian to rewrite women into victims and resisters. (CG)