Dissertation Elisabeth Pönisch

Working title: The Excluded in the 'Jews' Houses'. On the Sociology of the Forced Community

This doctoral thesis is an interdisciplinary study of the specific everyday life of the Jewish population in the "Jews' Houses" between 1939 and 1945, combining organisational and cultural sociological questions. On the one hand, based on the analysis of official documents, the bureaucratic administrative structures of National Socialist actors and governance structures of the "Wohnraumarisierung" from 1939 onwards will be reconstructed. On the other hand, the living conditions in these houses will be analysed on the basis of contemporary witness documents such as diaries, correspondence and accounts of experiences. The central questions here are how the forcibly resettled residents of the "Jewish houses" tried to cope with their everyday lives, how communal behaviour changed and which social practices emerged under the conditions of extreme exclusion and persecution. The main focus of interest is on subjective experiences, perceptions and social interactions and relationships in the "Jewish Houses" themselves and in dialogue with the social environment.