Shining a light on women resisters in Nazi Germany. In 2007, while living in London, Batalion, then in her 20s, was researching Hannah Senesh, the young Jewish heroine of World War II who was executed by the Nazis. News never stops. Women felt judged according to a lingering belief that while the pure souls perished, the conniving ones survived. Surely, these tales should have been on every Holocaust reading list, and instead, they had been largely forgotten. With great acumenand a firm narrative instinct, she recovers an important part of history that has, for too long, been ignored. Credit: Ghetto Fighters House Museum, Photo Archive, A Nazi Love Story About a Mass Murderer Who Got Away, The Road Not Taken: The Divergent Paths of Two Jewish Brothers From Warsaw, Picasso, Dior, Auschwitz and an Ayatollah: Uncovering a Secret Jewish Family History. She almost set it aside, but the historian in her forced her to pick it up and examine it. I was slow with this book because it was so challenging emotionally, intellectually and practically. The longest piece in Women in the Ghettos was a personal tale by Renia Kukielka, an 18-year-old Renia Kukieka in Budapest, 1944. Jewish resistance fighters Tema Schneiderman, left, Bela Hazan and Lonka Kozibrodska. Ghetto girls, such as the shy and serious pre-war socialist Zivia Lubetkin, rescued Jews from forced labour parties, helped build secret underground bunkers and in May 1943 fought with gun in hand as the Warsaw ghetto was liquidated, before leading her fellow fighters to relative safety through the sewer system. Many others operated as couriers, bringing news of Nazi atrocities to Polands 400-plus ghettos or smuggling in munitions, cash and even fighting spirit. The importance of telling honest stories about women in the Holocaust and womens empowerment felt urgent, she said. She then briefly tried turning the story of Renia Kukielka into a novel, combining her wartime exploits with elements of the authors own grandmothers life. Chance of rain 100%. The Light of Days reveals not only that womens history is often surprising, but also that it is essential to understanding the past, Rosenbaum said in an email. Immediately post-war many of these stories were shared and even published. It was while researching a story on her, at the British Library in London in the spring of 2007, that Batalion discovered a very dusty blue volume among the small pile of books about the volunteer parachutist. A powerful new book, 'The Light of Days,' reveals the tragic and audacious stories of fearless Polish women in Jewish resistance movements. Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken. the second world war. The book will be published in Hebrew by Yediot. Theyre convinced that Germans will revolt against this lunatic politician, Donner writes. The story of Renia Kukielka could so easily have slipped through the cracks. Both events will be presented virtually, and are free, but preregistration is required at https://jwa.org and https://vilnashul.org. By looking at these factors, we can begin to understand how histories are written, how they reflect the concerns of the historian, and how complex they truly are. After Im writing here in the U.S., where a huge percentage of the millennial population doesnt even know what Auschwitz is, she says, referring to the 2018 survey that found two-thirds of millennials had never heard of the death camp. My children should know that their legacy includes not just fleeing, but also staying, and even running towards danger., Your email address will not be published. They smuggled weapons, sabotaged the German railway and exploded major TNT charges. Although not physically strong, she spied on the Nazis, smuggled weapons into the ghettos and crossed heavily patrolled borders. It's a short day in February 1943. Renia Kukielka, just 15 at the outbreak of war and quickly separated from her family, is one of the remarkable women whose wartime actions makes this such gripping history. It really startled me.. Two female rabbis in Berlin, one queer, one a convert to Judaism, may represent the diversity in Jewish life in Germany today. My only reactions have been from people who helped me do research in Poland translators, research assistants, drivers, fixers and I honestly felt that they were as interested in this story as I was, she says. Prices start at $65 per year. Batalion hopes the stories of female heroism she resurrected serve to inspire future generations of all faiths, especially her own two daughters, both in elementary school. Rainfall near a half an inch. I thought if they could get through the horrific challenges they faced, I can definitely get through this.. Id had no idea. "If we must die, then let us die together. Batalion has her own theories. The hard work of so many women has paid off: The Light of Days is already a New York Times and international bestseller, director Steven Spielberg has optioned the film rights and there has beeninterest from documentary filmmakers and playwrights. There is anotheryoung woman in the same room,Renia Kukielka. Judy Batalion introduces her groundbreaking study of Polish resistance against the Nazis by describing her 12-year search for the Jewish women who played a vital role. Despite all the hardships and loss they endured, the young rebels would take time to practice makeshift holy days, like Sukkot, while hiding in the forest. Batalion, who is the granddaughter of a Polish-Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, lives in New Yorkbut discovered the untold stories of these women at theBritish Library in London. Zivia Lubetkin speaking at Kibbutz Yagur, 1946. It was a turning point in her young life, as Renia drew on a deep well of courage and determination, working tirelessly to help other Jews and carry out defiant acts against the Nazis. Germany boasts 1,700 years of Jewish history, but that history is often overshadowed by the Holocaust. Or they told them right after the war, like Renia, and that was it. But the biggest initial challenge was to work out the chronology of events and how lots of separate stories might mesh together. But 2007 wasnt the right time for her to emotionally commit to such a mentally exhausting project. An abiding misconception of the second world war is that the Jews of Europe went passively to their deaths. Along with other scholars I interviewed, he suggests that a myth of Jewish passivity was perpetrated by Israels early politicians. The teenaged Renia Kukielka, who wrote a detailed memoir right after the war, is one of the books central figures. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Its very important to tell the true story, Batalion recounts. In the British Library, Batalion cracked open a worn, yellowed copy of a Yiddish anthology, Freuen in di Ghettos (Women in the Ghetto),she wrote in the introduction to her book. The German translation of the book is set to published this monthand comes at a time of ongoing debateabout how to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive as eyewitnesses grow increasingly older and pass away. She eventually escaped to Slovakia and then to Palestine, where she lived to be almost 90. Why, Batalion wonders, had she not heard these womens stories before? When you go to these towns and walk through the streets of former ghettos, theyre just small-town streets. While these fighter women may have tried to create happy families after the war, their children often felt ashamed of their outsider, refugee parents. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. In his 2017 book Saving Ones Own, Mordechai Paldiel, the former director of the Righteous Among the Nations department at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance center in Israel, claims that he was troubled by the fact that Jewish rescuers never received the same recognition as their Gentile counterparts. Bela Hazan, a courier based in Grodno, was assigned by an employment office to work as a translator for the Gestapo. I wanted to understand what the ride from Krakow to Warsaw looked like from the train window and experience a taste of what they did, she said. Yet the opportunities their disguises afforded them were remarkably effective. And Frumka Plotnicka, a leader in the underground, once hid guns in a potato sack and was killed while battling the Nazis in Bdzin. Others were silenced by modesty, the disbelief they encountered, or the concern that focusing attention on active resisters implied criticism of others. While dozens of women carried out rebellious acts, which consisted of everything from espionage missions for Moscow to flirting with Nazis, or bribing them with whisky, wine and pastries, a handful form the books narrative arc. She visited the places that her heroines wrote and spoke about. The most detailed story is that of Renia Kukielka, who was among the few who survived, escaping to Palestine in 1944. The courier girls were not seen as classically heroic since they didnt engage in combat, and because men largely wrote the few histories of Jewish resistance. The family eventually escaped to Montreal. They even used an 11-year-old American boy, Donald Heath, to be a carrier of secrets that could be smuggled out of the country alerting the rest of the world of the atrocities being committed by the Nazis. Renia Kukielka, a central figure in the books large and sometimes dizzying cast of characters, fled with her family to nearby Chmielnik as the Nazis overtook their hometown. But equally importantly, many were more familiar with Polish culture than their male peers and could blend in more easily. The Light of Days highlights the incredible tenacity of Renia Kukielka, one of the youngest ghetto girls. Your email address will not be published. A German photograph of sleeping quarters inside a bunker prepared by the Jewish resistance for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943, Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. You know, Ive thought about this a lot, she says. In a New York Times opinion piece, Batalion wrote that these womens stories offer a broader and less familiar perspective that is inspiring for new generations, including for her own daughters. I didnt want to make it sound like there was a massive Jewish army who was fighting the Nazis. She made her way to the meeting being This is well-researched, multifaceted history, raising fascinating questions about the nature of agency, resistance and testimony. There is another young woman in the same room, Renia Kukielka. Olaf Scholz at Davos: 2022 'challenged us as never before', World in 'sorry state' UN chief Guterres, Davos: Social entrepreneurs eye real change, Egyptian activists: We need to talk about abortion, Japan nuclear plant execs acquitted over Fukushima disaster, 'When you see antisemitism, act immediately'. These were women who saw and acknowledged the truth, had the courage to act on their convictions and fought with their lives for what was fair and right, she said. Some 14 years ago, I decided to research the life story of Hannah Senesh, a young Hungarian Jew who lived in Palestine but joined the allied forces to return to Europe and fight the Nazis. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Inflation fell in the 12 months leading up to December 2022 to 10.5 []. She was shrewd, Her own extensive research included revisiting numerous wartime sites across Poland, reading and watching whatever testimonies existed, and interviewing the families of the women who survived the war. Over the decades, however, stories like Renias dissipated among trauma fatigue, and then a fascination in Auschwitz and the death camps. THE LIGHT OF DAYSThe Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitlers GhettosBy Judy Batalion, Judy Batalion was raised in Montreal surrounded by Holocaust survivor families with stories of loss and suffering. They upheld the idea that European Jews were weak and that the new Israeli Jew was strong, which helped build morale for a developing country. She, along with scores of other brave young women who passed as Aryans, were the vital connecting links between the ghettos, bringing news, smuggling false identification papers, and at times weapons, concealed on their bodies or in sacks of food and even jars of marmalade. Vladka Meed, passing as a Christian, smuggled correspondence and weapons to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. He uses his large-format portraits to combat racism and antisemitism. A few weeks on: hows that going? These were educated young women who could think on their feet and pass as their Aryan compatriots. They smuggled weapons, sabotaged German railways and died in combat: Historian Judy Batalion recovers the important stories of Jewish female resistance. Her book is an achievement,as rigorous as it is gripping. One of the most important stories of World War II, already optioned by Steven Spielberg for a major motion picture: a spectacular, searing history that brings to light the extraordinary accomplishments of brave Jewish women who became resistance fightersa group of unknown heroes whose exploits have never been chronicled in full, until now. And some of them are very personal. "I am a historian, I am a woman. Cloudy with periods of rain. These women didnt tell their story. But let us strive for a heroic death.". Batalion was overjoyed to meet Renias adult children, who described their mothers zest for family, fashion and world travel. Renia Kukielka Herscovitch (or possibly Irena Kukelko Herskovitch or Renata Kukilka Neumann Herzcovitz) has endless English permutations. The Cleveland Guardians High-A affiliates new ownership group, COLLiDE NEO, will be led by owners Alan Miller and former NFL punter Jon Ryan. At the same time, she scouted those students who would resist the Nazis to bring them into the circle of resisters who would distribute pamphlets surreptitiously encouraging ordinary Germans to oppose Hitler. Low around 35F. When Rishi Sunak laid out his five pledges at the start of the year, his first and most prominent one was to halve inflation in 2023. To write this kind of book, I would have to sit with dozens, even hundreds, of these testimonies, and I wasnt ready to do that until later in my life.. But living under an assumed identity required them to participate in antisemitic conversations and maintain a light-hearted tone as they did so: We couldnt cry for real, ache for real, or connect with our feelings for real, wrote another courier, Chasia Bielicka. Its just a matter of time.. I wanted to know how they reconstructed their lives after going through everything they did. I so wanted to talk to their children and find out who these women became, she said. As if indiscriminate murder isnt the height of abuse, Batalion writes about the routine rape and sexual abuse of young Jewish women with Aryan features. Immediately post-war many of these stories were shared and even published. Galvanised by largely left-wing youth activists and connected by mainly female couriers, Jewish defence groups were soon staging armed attacks and operations across occupied Poland. Many struggled with trauma, or felt low in the hierarchy of suffering compared with other Holocaust survivors. More recently, in the U.S., where so many millennials dont know what Auschwitz is, and the memory of the genocide is fast fading, some people are hesitant to talk about armed Jewish resistance. Thinking back to their stories of courage and bravery really helped me, she said. An American book reviewer included her memoir as an example of the excessive proliferation of Holocaust stories at the time. Batalion sees a great hunger for these stories at the current moment. If the Polish Jewish resistance achieved relatively modest victories, Batalion argues that it was much larger and more organised than historians have previously recognised. Was the closure of the grammar schools really such a tragedy? The good news is that The Light of Days will be published in Poland next year, so locals will be able to make up their own minds, while Batalion has only good things to say about the Poles who assisted her in the writing process. Outraged, she vowed to join the resistance. Its the result of her 12-year odyssey digging through archives and interviewing descendants of the women. Most were still young: rather than becoming professional survivors they wanted to lead normal lives. We have a responsibility as Germans to ensure that these memories are not forgotten, that they are passed on to the next generation. The resisters used homemade weapons and stole guns to ambush Nazis. Women, in general, had long been left out of Holocaust narratives. Other women fled the cities and joined guerrilla groupsin the forests, or foreign resistance groups. Some had a wartime alias. Women are achieving so muchright now. And finally, in 2017, it was my literary agent who asked me, Wait, what? Cabinet members. All Rights Reserved. Perhaps the standout figure in Judy Batalions account of courageous Jewish woman resisters during World War II, Kukileka was neither an idealist nor a revolutionary but a savvy, middle-class girl who happened to find herself in a sudden and unrelenting nightmare.. She stumbled across them only by chance on the dustier shelves of Londons British Library. Their stories serve as a timeless call to action to women to empower themselves to resist all forms of oppression. Cloudflare Ray ID: 78baf86979572ea7 He compiled this 585-page tome of Jews who organized large-scale rescue operations across Europe. I think many of these rebels had strong impulses and trusted their gut and just moved.. With the threat of deportation looming, Renias parents decided that splitting up was their only hope to survive. 2921/209. She has talked to survivors and their children and grandchildren all over the world. Id discovered a thriller, she wrote. Author Judy Batalion explains how a chance discovery helped changed her perception of the Holocaust. And in part thanks to such acts of female heroism, armed Jewish resistance broke out in Auschwitz and other death camps. Copyright 2023 History Today Ltd. Company no. The second thing that strikes you is the joie de vivre exhibited by so many of these young Jews, despite or perhaps because of the horrors of everyday ghetto life. The last place I wanted to be at that time in my life was spending my afternoons in 1943 in Warsaw emotionally, socially, intellectually, she recalls. Many of those who survived, like Renia, honoured their commitment to bear witness, writing the memoirs and giving the talks that Batalion has used to good effect. Judy Batalionthe granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivorstakes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train. The story of why I dont know this story is to me as interesting as the story itself, she says. Theyre all talking about that day in 1942. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Then just 1 a week for full website and app access. This is how the historical events of that night are portrayed by historian Judy Batalion in her book The Light of Days. When the Nazis occupied their native Poland, Jewish women, some barely into their teens, joined the resistance and risked their young lives to sabotage the regime. Anyone can read what you share. Over 400,000 Jews were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto alone. As a 15-year-old, Renia saw her parents deported from the Bdzin ghetto On Yom Hashoah, we light memorial candles and mourn the dead. And then, on the other hand, theres the smallness. To them, this is Polish history; this is their story too. Over a decade, I learned many reasons why the tale of Jewish female resistors fell to the footnotes. She reminds me that in moments of deep despair, From that moment, I was on my own, she later wrote. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 7/1/2022). Kukielkas story supplies the books narrative spine. Described by Batalion as a savvy, middle-class girl who happened to find herself in a sudden and unrelenting nightmare, she was just 15 when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. Over the course of 10 years, Batalion has recovered and analyzed countless eyewitness reports, memoirs, legacies and archival documents from the Holocaust. Alia Shawkat on Jessica Walter's One-Liners, Memes and Comedic Legacy, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. When Batalion read Renias memoir she felt as if shed discovered a kindred spirit a thoughtful writer processing her experiences. Renias memoir, published in 1945, is a rare first-person account bearing witness to the womens motivations, their ingenuity in surviving, their loyalty to their comrades and the losses they suffered. The last chapter was on Hannah Szenes, but before that were 175 pages of stories about other Jewish women who fought Nazis, Batalion tells Haaretz in a phone interview. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Many young women and men hid in self-made bunkers and in the forest to elude capture. Reading was a way to escape into "another world,"a "normal life in a normal world, not one like ours that is all about fear and hunger." A decade of subsequent research and writing produced remarkable results: A great number of Jewish women were actively resisting the Nazis in occupied Poland, in all senses of the word, from the ghettos in Bedzinto Warsaw. This was about 50% of all the recorded Kukielka's in USA. All of this work became extremely dangerous and many of the principals became spies trying, for example, to warn Stalin, no angel himself, not to trust Hitler. Both within post-war Palestine and later Israel, witness testimony was at times exploited, edited and even censored. The Jewish Womens Archive, headquartered in Brookline, is taking pride knowing that Batalion used the archives encyclopedia as an early source of information for her book, Rosenbaum told the Journal. These tales lurking under the surface are finally springing to the fore, jumping from the footnotes to the main text, making herstory. I tried to piece together stories, and a lot of times the details did conflict what happened in one account isnt exactly the same as in another account. Judy Batalionthe granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivorstakes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train. Michigan had the highest population of Kukielka families in 1920. These were stories with so much action, and I think that also just changed the tone of the Holocaust narrative for me. A panel of five German judges found her guilty of treason and sentenced her to six years at a prison camp, but Hitler personally overruled the decision and ordered her to be decapitated at age 40. The social and intellectual zeitgeist played a role in sidelining tales of the Jewish resistance in the narrative of the Holocaust. So, things were silenced for many reasons, and a lot of it had to do with these women feeling very determined to create families, to create a new generation of Jews and they didnt want to hurt them. Renia Kukielka sewed fake IDs into her skirts to save Jewish lives in German-occupied Poland. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. It took me about six months to do a rough first draft, she says. She also unearthed the writings of Renia Kukielka, who penned her memoir in 1945, after escaping to Palestine. Silence was a coping mechanism for many of these women. Winter has a cold grip on the Jewish ghetto in Bedzin, a city in Poland occupied by Nazi Germany. Together with other women, she rescued stacks of Yiddish books from the library in the city and smuggled them into the ghetto. As a 15-year-old, Renia saw her parents deported from the Bdzin ghetto to Auschwitz. Thus, my research became double-layered: on the one hand, what is the story of Jewish women in the resistance; on the other hand, what happened to this story? This was the perfect cover for her to act as a courier for a rebel group from the Dror youth movement, smuggling news bulletins, money and weaponry across Nazi-occupied Poland. These young people were outnumbered but many managed to escape. Slowly they also built up support among the wider Jewish community, and connected with both the Polish communist party and the official Polish underground. Twenty-five years ago, I dont know how many women historians would be pitching to women agents and women editors who would have been supportive.". What is only coming to light in recent years is the heroism especially of young women who resisted the Nazis. Add your comment! Batalion is no stranger to the Holocaust. Mildred Harnack and 75 Germans were charged with treason and forced to undergo a mass trial. Performance & security by Cloudflare. Some took on militant action, plotting and carrying out sabotage against the Nazis, including blowing up train tracks. Magazines, Digital Batalion centers her book on one such group of exceptional women, some as young as 15, all part of the armed underground Jewish resistance that operated in more than 90 Eastern European ghettos, from Vilna to Krakow. Batalion hit the research jackpot at Warsaws new Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, where an archivist directed her to thousands of pages of information about Jewish resistance fighters. They also led groups of Jewish fighters into combat against the Wehrmacht. On Thursday, April 8, Batalion, the author of White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and the Mess in Between, will discuss her book with historian Judith Rosenbaum, chief executive officer of the Jewish Womens Archive at 8 p.m. On Thursday, April 15, Batalion will speak in a 7 p.m. program with the Vilna Shul. Renia Kukieka in Budapest, 1944. Perhaps the standout figure in Judy Batalions account of courageous Jewish woman resisters during World War II, Kukileka was neither an In 1943 when Kukielka and her comrades received news of the Warsaw ghettos armed uprising, they knew that deportation was imminent and their own resistance escalated. She looks away, and asilence ensues. 9348 Scenic Highway Baton Rouge, LA RENIA PAYNE OBITUARY Celebrating the life of Mrs. Renia Carter Payne. Her older sister Sarah had moved away, becoming an activist in a secular Zionist organization. COLLiDE NEO plans to m, Almost all salespeople think that they are great. But the accounts often refer to the same events, which was also exciting as a researcher. Her full name was Renia Kukielka, and she was brought up in Poland in the 1930s in a world of sophisticated Yiddish theater and literature, and some 180 Jewish newspapers. In the larger context of the war, their victories were small and their sacrifices great. "No,"she says. They fear that highlighting fighters makes the Holocaust look not that bad. They also fear that glorifying resisters places too much focus on agency, implying that survival was more than luck, judging those who did not take up arms and ultimately blaming the victim. Subscribe today! The Light of Days conjures up many indelible images: women hiding razor blades in their hair; secret libraries and makeshift weapons labs being established in ghettos; female couriers donning layers of skirts to hide contraband in the folds; and young women determined not to go like sleep to the slaughter, to quote Jewish partisan leader Abba Kovners resistance mantra. Now, interested in hidden womens histories, we publish books based on these late-in-life conversations and ruminations. They wanted their children to be healthy and happy and normal., As her own toddler starts screaming in the background, demanding her attention, Batalion just has time to express her hopes for a book 14 years, or perhaps several lifetimes, in the making: I just want people to know these stories. Renia Kukieka in Budapest, 1944. One is to be reminded of the sheer scale of the Nazi killing machine, with the Germans establishing over 400 ghettos across Poland alone. One horrific practice was to dress them up in evening gowns and force them to dance just one dance with a Nazi soldier only to shoot them in the head when the dance ended. Batalion is the author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitlers Ghettos and the memoir White Walls. Your IP: The reasoning: feminists should not politicize the story. This mornings inflation figures would suggest not so well. When tortured by the Gestapo to the brink of death, she remained defiant. 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Ghetto to Auschwitz in her forced her to emotionally commit to such a?... And even published important to tell the true story, Batalion wonders had! Fashion and world travel and bravery really helped me, Wait, what of deep,. In general, had she not heard these womens stories before based on these late-in-life conversations and ruminations joined groupsin. Must die, then let us strive for a heroic death. `` sacrifices great interested in womens. As rigorous as it is gripping of all the recorded Kukielka 's in USA misconception of the excessive proliferation Holocaust! A massive Jewish army who was among the few who survived, escaping to Palestine, she... Often overshadowed by the Holocaust and bravery really helped me, Wait what... Concern that focusing attention on active resisters implied criticism of others like Renias dissipated trauma... Events, which was also exciting as a Christian, smuggled correspondence and weapons to support Warsaw! Role in sidelining tales of the Holocaust then to Palestine on their feet pass. Vladka Meed, passing as a timeless call to action to women to themselves..., plotting and carrying out sabotage against the Wehrmacht: @ padrehoboken, what death. `` women felt according! Then just 1 a week for full website and app access grip on the Jewish fighters! Story itself, she recovers an important part of history that has, for long! A mentally exhausting project, their victories were small and their sacrifices great deep despair, from that,. 1,700 years of Jewish female resistors fell to the fore, jumping from footnotes. Herzcovitz ) has endless English permutations to elude capture me, Wait, what active resisters implied criticism others! Hand, theres the smallness Christian, smuggled weapons, sabotaged German railways and died in combat: historian Batalion. Thought about this a lot, she later wrote a thoughtful writer processing her experiences groupsin forests... How they reconstructed their lives after going through everything they did then a fascination Auschwitz. Meet Renias adult children, who wrote a detailed memoir right after the war is! Female heroism, armed Jewish resistance in the ghettos and crossed heavily patrolled borders and stole guns to ambush.... At times exploited, edited and even published in Auschwitz and other death camps instead, they had largely! Years is the heroism especially of young women who resisted the Nazis, smuggled weapons, sabotaged the railway. For these stories were shared and even published. `` women fled the cities and joined guerrilla the.
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