Their heroes were tortured and sexually abused by prisoners of German camps, who in the end turned into executioners themselves. This mixture of tabloid eroticism and brutal revenge against the Nazis turned out to be a bestseller. "Pogrom" porn was spreading like hot cakes!
Stalags, or cheap pornographic novels set in the realities of the Third Reich, appeared at Israeli railway stations and kiosks in the early 1960s. They were promoted as ... authentic memories of former Anglo-Saxon prisoners of POW camps.
They all had a similar storyline. The inmate caught the eye of the guardian or guardian and fell victim to perverse, sadomasochistic practices, which he described in minute detail . As reported by the journalist and columnist Piotr Zychowicz in the book "Żydzi 2. Opowieści politically incorrect" :
The authors of this "literature" were imaginative and imaginative. In addition to the classic whipping, squeezing genitals, crawling on the floor and chewing German Shepherds, in "Stalags" you could find descriptions of sophisticated torture. One of the SS women smeared her victim's testicles with honey and then released a swarm of enraged wasps on him.
Numerous fetishes stimulated the reader's imagination:swastikas, SS runes, high-heeled shoes, whips and leather belts, submachine guns and barbed wire .
The covers of "Stalags" left no doubt as to the content of the books.
The end of the novel was always the same. There was brutal revenge, and the hitherto executioners were humiliated, raped and killed.
Nice payroll work
The information about the truthfulness of the stories described in Stalags was of course only a cheap marketing gimmick. “In fact, the books were mass-produced locally in Israel. Jewish writers wrote them under pseudonyms, ”explains Zychowicz. And he adds that "producing" this type of literature was quite commonly regarded as "well-paid donation".
Interestingly, the precursor of the genre was a Polish Jew from Sosnowiec, Jechiel De-Nur. He also presented the stories about his fictional siblings as 100% authentic. And the story of his nonexistent sister who ended up in a brothel in Auschwitz as a prostitute , it even found its way (after censoring, of course) into the school reading canon!
Imaginary memories of false prisoners of war gained enormous popularity in Israel. The most widely read book in the series has sold 25,000 copies. "Considering that Israel was home to only 2 million people at that time, it was a staggering success," comments Zychowicz.
How to explain this phenomenon? The "Stalags" appeared at a time when the Holocaust in Israel became famous again, thanks to the trial of Adolf Eichmann, which began in April 1961. The Nazi officer himself became the hero of one of the pornographic novels.
The text is based on the book by Piotr Zychowicz "Żydzi 2. Politically incorrect stories" (Rebis 2018).
A cure for shame and frustration?
Especially young men, often sons of survivors of the pogrom, used the books. As one of them explains in an interview with Zychowicz, the reason was simple. It was… the only pornography available in the Jewish state . “They served us for a very mundane thing. For what? For arousal while masturbating, "he admits.
For some researchers, however, there was something more to this unusual interest in tabloid literature. In Israel at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, the stereotype that Jews who managed to survive the extermination had to "have something on their conscience" still persisted. In the book "Jews 2. Politically Incorrect Stories" Piotr Zychowicz reports:
These opinions reached (...) children of Holocaust survivors and caused them shame and frustration. Shame for parents who did not fight the Nazis, so they were passive cowards. Frustration that the torturers of their relatives were not punished for their monstrous deeds (...). Young readers of the books identified with the tormented and raped prisoners - and at the end they could get a sweet taste of revenge.
The appearance of the "Stalags" coincided with the trial of Adolf Eichmann. It was then that the topic of the Holocaust returned to public discussion in Israel. Photo from 1964.
Researchers even speculate that these books, despite being camouflaged by American or British narrators, are actually about the Holocaust. They argue that their heroes were to be Jews themselves, victims of the pogrom. However, there was a fear of opposition from the public and the rulers.
And indeed - "Stalags", even in "polite" form, caused protests. And when in 1963 a Jewish woman, a concentration camp prisoner, was made the heroine of the book "I Was Colonel Schultz's Private Bitch", the authorities entered the action.
Selling and distributing the novel has been strictly prohibited. Existing copies were confiscated during police raids that took place in many cities. Today, the controversial books can only be seen in the National Library in Jerusalem - as long as you have the appropriate permission.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- Piotr Zychowicz, Jews 2. Politically incorrect stories , Rebis 2018.