Mohamed Elzarka

POL3062: Beyond Belief

Prof. Jenkins
September 21, 2014
Response Paper to Skirball Museum Website, Blee, and Joshi
This weeks readings dealt with memories and what history remembers and hides from
our understanding looking backwards. All the pieces presented interesting perspectives on the
role of hidden groups in society, and how sociologists and political scientists can go about
understanding more about these groups. However, it was Dr. Blees piece on Access and
Methods in Research on Hidden Communities that presented the framework by which the other
literature could be understood. Dr. Blee presents the groundwork for how researchers can and do
go about learning more about hidden communities. She highlights the idea that these hidden
groups are often hidden for different reasons. For example, the female members of the 1920s Ku
Klux Klan hide themselves and their past involvement from even their friends and family from
fear of backlash for participating in an organization so negatively characterized today. This
happens even though the same women support the organization into the modern day. Thus, they
arent hiding because they are ashamed of their participation, but rather because they fear the
societal consequences of announcing their membership. At the same time, when a revitalized
KKK grew in strictly male membership later on in the decade, past female involvement was
eliminated from the history books to produce the fraternal, white-male image that the Klan
sought to present to possible new recruits. Even researchers removed Klanswomen from the
equation by not devoting attention to their role in Klan activity, and thus slowly allowing this
entire facet of one of the largest organized racist groups in existence to go unnoticed.

I found that this multiple perspective aspect of hidden groups was very eye opening. With
this new understanding, I came to understand the great level of difficulty that researchers have in
trying to uncover hidden groups. Because so many factors play a part in shaping why groups are
hidden, it is often extremely difficult to understand the motivations behind the concealment. This
is not aided by the fact that these groups can often present biased depictions of their own history
or experience. For example, for the women of Nazi Germany studied by Joshi, the reality of their
situations may have often been different than that which they presented to the Nazi government.
Seeing the ability to denounce their husbands, relatives-in-law, or neighbors who they did not
like as an opportunity to gain more power, several women took advantage of this facet of a cruel
Nazi dictatorship. Thus, their accounts of the actions of others were biased by their ulterior
motives. Even Joshis focus on the women of Nazi Germany can be seen as a contributing factor
as to what remains hidden. While she focuses on the hidden group of German women who used
denouncement as a new form of power, she doesnt examine how similar male groups may have
used it in the same way. For example, other underprivileged groups in the society like Jews,
gypsies, or foreign nationals may have used denouncement as a means to enhance their own
power at the expense of others like them in an effort to align with the demands of, and stay
protected from, the Nazi state. By not examining the issue of denouncement as one rooted in a
struggle for power and instead addressing the issue as one focused on gender differences, Joshi
inherently chooses what remains hidden from historys eyes.
I also learned that in an effort to truly uncover what is hidden, researchers have to invest
themselves into organizations with whom they may hold opposite viewpoints and sometimes
have to place themselves in very dangerous situations to do so. With this in mind, I dont think
that it is of paramount importance to uncover information about these groups. In my own

personal opinion, I dont think any part of history can truly be removed from the problem of
hidden viewpoints and groups. No matter how hard a researcher tries, unless they comprise part
of a hidden group from its inception and fully adhere and accept all of its principles, it is
impossible to get into the mind of a member of a hidden group or to truly uncover all aspects of a
certain time, place, or facet of history. On the Skirball Museum website, there is a synopsis of an
exhibit on Jewish Life in Germany today. This exhibit addresses the idea of Jews living in
Germany, but no matter how extensive, it cant capture completely the mindsets with which these
Jews live in Germany, nor the mindsets of other German citizens and their perspectives on the
Holocaust and modern Jewish life in Germany. Similarly, the exhibit focuses on how Jews are
currently shaping German life, but leaves hidden how German life has shaped the Jewish
population, potentially because the museum is judeo-centric and wants to focus on the
influencing actions of Jews rather than the ways in which they are influenced. In this way, certain
aspects of history and political science remain hidden. Even without this epistemological
difference, Blee highlights the idea that such research may not even be necessary if it is not
serving a higher purpose. While it is great to learn more about all types and groups of people, if
doing so puts researchers in harms way and places them in morally conflicting situations, then
we should reevaluate whether research into hidden groups that want to remain hidden is really
worth it.