Preexisting social ties among Auschwitz prisoners support Holocaust survival

0582610 - NHÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Bělín, M. - Jelínek, T. - Jurajda, Štěpán
Preexisting social ties among Auschwitz prisoners support Holocaust survival.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Roč. 120, č. 29 (2023), č. článku e2221654120. ISSN 0027-8424. E-ISSN 1091-6490
Institutional support: RVO:67985998
Keywords : social networks * Holocaust survival * Nazi concentration camp
OECD category: Applied Economics, Econometrics
Impact factor: 11.1, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2221654120

Survivor testimonies link survival in deadly POW camps, Gulags, and Nazi concentration camps to the formation of close friendships with other prisoners. To provide evidence free of survival bias on the importance of social ties for surviving the Holocaust, we study individual histories of 30 thousand Jewish prisoners who entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on transports from the Theresienstadt ghetto. We ask whether the availability of potential friends among fellow prisoners on a transport influenced the chances of surviving the Holocaust. Relying on multiple proxies of preexisting social networks and varying social-linkage composition of transports, we uncover a significant survival advantage to entering Auschwitz with a larger group of potential friends.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0350691