Damairus Law

2/8/15
Mrs. Werz-Orbaugh
Inquiry Proposal

I am doing my Inquiry project on prostitution in the Holocaust. This is a

topic that I did not think of as being possible during the Holocaust and I
frowned a little at seeing this as a potential choice to choose from thinking it
was some kind of joke. It caught my attention because I had never heard of
such a socially taboo thing being a part of the Holocaust and I would like to
know why we know so little about it.
I am going into the idea of this topic blind since I did not know anything
about this even happening. I later found out that the prostitution took place
in the camps also. I believe that that will make the writing more fun for me
since I will have a chance to learn a lot of knew information about something
so interesting and risky that people generally dont talk about in or out of the
Holocaust.
I had several questions as soon as I saw this as a potential choice. I
could not help but think how they could possibly even have prostitution in
the actual camps. Who were the clients that they had serviced while in the
camps? Did the guards take part in their services or even allow them to

service? Did they use actual currency or did they trade sex for material
objects and food? I have a hard time believing that they could find use out of
the money since they were in the camps during a bad economy and I would
people in the campus actually give up food for sex while they are starving?
I would like to know more about the system of prostitution that they
had under the camps. One thing that I have learned from history classes and
life in general is that when you have a group of people they have the
tendency to create some form of order. Did they have specific times and
places where they would have sex? Did they have any form of small business
and advertising? Even if it was by word of mouth.
While in class I came across an article that gave me an idea for a
potiential angle of my writing. One of the articles had focused on how women
did not get that much attention in the Holocaust and their stories were often
untold. This got me thinking that instead of just thinking about the
circumstances of the women, I should get an idea of their perspective of
what it was like to practically be forced into prostitution. I also wanted to look
more into the societal pressures that could cause the women to resort to
prostitution. The women who became prostitutes were not all just
promiscuous women who would not take second thought to having sex with
a stranger, the women were mothers and sisters of people who were trying
to provide for their families, it would be no different than a middle class
American family having to do the same in order to keep their family from
dying.

Overall I think that this assignment will be fun to do. I do think I will
have a harder time finding work about the topic because there is not much
information about the topic that has been documented.
Inquiry Question: What societal pressures can lead everyday average
women into prostitution?