Indicting Auschwitz? The Paradox of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial

During the late 1950s, the German authorities in the publicprosecutor's office of the state of Hesse in Frankfurt beganto organize what would become the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial1963–5 of twenty people alleged to have been responsiblefor some of the worst crimes at the Auschwitz concentrationcamp. The trial opened with a seven-hundred-page indictment,an extraordinary document that included the testimony of twohundred and fifty-two witnesses (both survivors and former SSofficers) and a two-hundred-page history of the camp writtenby experts. In the mind of its principal organizer, the trialwas to put the entire ‘Auschwitz Complex’ beforethe court. This concept, ‘Auschwitz on trial’, isat the core of German public confrontation with the Nazi pastin the 1960s. But legal constraints, I argue, created the paradoxical situationin which the prosecution initially attempted to put Auschwitzon trial, but instead had to use some of the conventions ofthe Nazi regime in order to show the personal initiative ofthe defendants and convict them of perpetrating murder. By elucidatingthe origins and exigencies of the West German penal code, andby examining both the historical background section and thecharges against the suspects in the 1963 indictment, I showthat the decision to use the German penal code for prosecutingNazi crimes created a paradoxical situation for the state attorney'soffice in Frankfurt: they had to use Nazi orders and regulationsto show that the defendants had acted above and beyond the ordersof the SS in Berlin.     

“I am ripe for man”: Gendered Time in Thomas Heywood’s An Emblematicall Dialogue (1637)

In Thomas Heywood’s Emblematicall Dialogue (1637), “Two modest Virgins, of unequall time” discuss love and marriage, focusing on the crucial moment when the maid makes her transition from maid to wife. As the meaning of each naked emblem and of the dialogue form as a whole is revealed through the passing moments of the argument so is the meaning of this moment in time which the maid faces. Cultural and biological imperatives construct time for the maid and become the ground of the debate and of her choices at this pivotal moment which will determine her success or failure as a woman in seventeenth-century England.     

What is this bird? The quest to identify parrot remains from the Heyward-Washington House,Charleston, South Carolina

ABSTRACT

Excavations in the 1970s at the ca. 1772 Heyward-Washington House in Charleston, South Carolina, produced a rich and diverse archaeological assemblage spanning the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among the vertebrate remains are four bones from a large member of the parrot family. We now believe the bird was a blue-fronted or turquoise-fronted amazon parrot (Psittacidae: Amazona aestiva), an animal originating in South America. Over the decades, we have studied the zooarchaeological signature of social identity in Charleston, the evolving urban environment, and the vast trade networks of the colonial port city, all of which are embodied in the remains of this single bird. The parrot leads to a discussion of social roles of captive birds in early Charleston, the eclectic interests of city residents, and the city’s global trade networks.     

Studying Isma‘ili Texts in Eleventh-Century Shiraz: al-Mu'ayyad and the “Conversion” of the Buyid Amir Abu Kalijar

As a key primary source for the history of the eleventh-century Isma‘ili majlis, the Fatimid chief missionary al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi's autobiographical Sira offers a prime opportunity to consider the application of centralizing features of the Fatimid state in eleventh-century Buyid Shiraz. Previous studies on the Fatimid majlis have raised questions about an Isma‘ili core curriculum as well as the intended audience/s of Fatimid da‘wa teachings. This article situates al-Mu'ayyad's memoir in the broader context of the Persian and Arabic historiographical traditions in order to provide new insights into the transmission of Isma‘ili doctrines in different social settings outside of Fatimid Cairo. It concludes that Abu Kalijar's study sessions with al-Mu'ayyad suggest that Qadi al-Nu‘man's Kitab Da‘a'im al-Islam was used as a core text for introducing some of the main principles of Fatimid religio-political rule in addition to Isma‘ili doctrines to non-Isma‘ili audiences.