In 1943, Niuta Teitelbaum, dressed as a Polish farm girl, walked into a Gestapo apartment and shot and killed two Nazis. Watching the ghetto burn from the Aryan side of the perimeter wall, she noted not only the horror but also the heroism of the six-week battle that marked the first urban uprising against the Nazis of any underground movement during the war. Rainfall near a half an inch. During this difficult COVID year, Batalion drew personal inspiration from her subjects life stories. Or Zivia Lubetkin, who was in her Their stories serve as a timeless call to action to women to empower themselves to resist all forms of oppression. American Mildred Fish of Milwaukee goes to Germany to earn her Ph.D. in literature and marries Arvid Harnack, who becomes a special agent of the U.S. Embassy tasked with obtaining intelligence from key sources in Berlin for high-level U.S. Much Holocaust scholarship was based on objective Nazi records, which certainly didnt contain discussions of rebellious young girls. Then theres Renia Kukielka, who was just 14 at the start of the war but went on to become a crucial courier ferrying messages between ghettos. To her amazement, Batalion, who knows Yiddish, discovered sabotage, rifles, disguise, dynamite. The 20 young Jewish women she spotlights lived remarkable lives during World War II, and its easy to see why Steven Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment snapped up the film rights at manuscript stage in 2018. Her older sister Sarah had moved away, becoming an activist in a secular Zionist organization. Should their leader, the Jewish-Polish woman Frumka Plotnicka, use these papers to travel to The Hague and represent the Jewish people before the International Criminal Court? This brought home on such a personal level that I was writing about real people, she said. Im writing history out of memoir, so I had to put together what happened, and when. 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. Through this painstaking work, she has managed to reconstruct a history that had been lost for decades in fact, one that has never been properly told: how Jewish women resisted the Nazi occupation in Poland. The Light of Days highlights the incredible tenacity of Renia Kukielka, one of the youngest ghetto girls. Jewish resistance fighters Vitka Kempner, left, Ruzka Korczak, and Zelda Treger. Support NJ.com, Rev. In a riveting, exhaustively researched book, Batalion is saying their names, recognizing their heroism, and restoring their place in history. Immediately post-war many of these stories were shared and even published. The Harnacks and their circle of friends, including the famous Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Arvids cousin, believed Hitler would be rejected by the German people. The reasoning: feminists should not politicize the story. ", To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Batalion is the author of The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitlers Ghettos and the memoir White Walls. When Bonhoeffer was just a 26-year-old pastor in Berlin, he gave a radio address about Hitler stating, It is critical to distinguish a leader and a nonleader. His microphone was cut off and listeners then heard just static. 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. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Kukielka surname lived. One is to be reminded of the sheer scale of the Nazi killing machine, with the Germans establishing over 400 ghettos across Poland alone. The Jewish underground obtained expensive fake papers that established Renias identity as a Catholic Pole. You know, Ive thought about this a lot, she says. Why has it taken so long for these stories to finally be told and for these women to get their three lines in history, as one young ghetto activist puts it? The Light of Days begins with the wars most celebrated Jewish resistance fighter, Hannah Szenes. Stunned by this unexpected defiance, the Nazi soldiers fled. Get the award-winning Cleveland Jewish News and our popular magazines delivered directly to you. The story of why I dont know this story is to me as interesting as the story itself, she says. For three tumultuous years under the Nazi occupation of Poland, she and her parents and siblings fled their home in the small town of Jedrzejow, endured hunger, and witnessed atrocities and the brutal murders of other Jews. New COP28 head also boss of one of biggest oil companies, Canada says no alcohol is the only risk-free option, Africa bets on Brazils new President Lula da Silva, how to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Most prominent was Renia Kukielka, whose Aryan features enabled her to present herself as a Catholic with all the fake IDs to allow her to escape capture. One such example of cultural resistance is provided by Batalion through the biography ofHenia Reinhartz, a young woman in the ghetto of Lodz. The resisters used homemade weapons and stole guns to ambush Nazis. They learned how to make lethal Molotov cocktails and fling them at German supply trains. I am able to do this work because of other women who paid me and supported me professionally to carry out this type of work. I made fascinating connections in Poland, mainly with young people in their 20s and 30s. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, scholars argued that the female experience differed from mens and was a valid area of study. Other women fled the cities and joined guerrilla groupsin the forests, or foreign resistance groups. Some took on militant action, plotting and carrying out sabotage against the Nazis, including blowing up train tracks. She was expecting another "boring" elegy on female strength and courage. She also unearthed the writings of Renia Kukielka, who penned her memoir in 1945, after escaping to Palestine. This was a horrific genocide, and these were teenagers who tried to organize to overcome.. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. 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. Its new government could change that. The people who had survived, or had survived long enough to write about their experiences, were characters that I could focus on, because they had left more detailed, robust stories, she explains. For many years, memoirs and personal accounts were considered unreliable source material. 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. In fact there was fierce and sustained armed resistance operating from many of the ghettos, culminating in uprisings, as well as revolts in concentration and forced labour camps and a significant, if sometimes covert, Jewish presence in partisan armies. Some had a wartime alias. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. 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. With her sister Sarah, the Kukielka sisters were couriers for Freedom, one of the prewar youth movements that provided a network for the resisters. 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. Zivia Lubetkin emerged as a leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Many young women and men hid in self-made bunkers and in the forest to elude capture. These were stories of constant activity, and they drew me in. 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. Others suffered debilitating survivors guilt. Slowly they also built up support among the wider Jewish community, and connected with both the Polish communist party and the official Polish underground. All Rights Reserved. Thinking back to their stories of courage and bravery really helped me, she said. Low around 35F. Poignantly, Batalion adds,Reinhartz was reading the USnovel Gone with the Windwhile hiding to escape deportation. 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. The importance of telling honest stories about women in the Holocaust and womens empowerment felt urgent, she said. Two other things leap out at you. With her fair complexion and mastery of Polish, Renia was able to disguise herself as a Christian and sent off separately. All eyes turn to Plotnicka. Author to speak on women of the underground during Holocaust 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." Your IP: "I am a historian, I am a woman. 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? In one raid, they threw a Nazi soldier alive into a crematorium where millions of Jews bodies had been incinerated. Jewish Resistance in Poland: Women Trample Nazi Soldiers, ran a New York headline in late 1942. The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos. Courier Hela Schpper, left, and Akiva leader Shoshana Langer disguised as Christians on the Aryan side of Warsaw, June 26, 1943. Credit: Ghetto Fighters House Museum, photo archive, One of Lonka Kozibrodskas forged Aryan identity cards, 1943, Credit: Ghetto Fighters House Museum, Photo archive. 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. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 7/1/2022). Find a copy of the Cleveland Jewish News. Furthermore, much of this resistance was enabled, organised and led by women. 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. And thats how we find ourselves in the rare position of having to praise an agent for their efforts on our behalf. A meeting of Zionist youth at the agricultural training farm in Bdzin, Poland, during the war. Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken. They smuggled weapons, sabotaged German railways and died in combat: Historian Judy Batalion recovers the important stories of Jewish female resistance. Perhaps the standout woman here, though, is the hugely appealing Renia Kukielka, whom Batalion describes as neither an idealist nor a revolutionary but a savvy, middle-class girl who happened to find herself in a sudden and unrelenting nightmare.. Cloudflare Ray ID: 78baf86979572ea7 But soon into my sleuthing, I happened to come across a 1946 anthology about dozens of young Jewish women who took similar risks. These were educated young women who could think on their feet and pass as their Aryan compatriots. Theyre convinced that Germans will revolt against this lunatic politician, Donner writes. They forget that this is a profession, and like any profession, it has rules, strategy, . Low around 35F. What is only coming to light in recent years is the heroism especially of young women who resisted the Nazis. Women, in general, had long been left out of Holocaust narratives. In the larger context of the war, their victories were small and their sacrifices great. Batalions favorite research and writing involved the surviving ghetto girls postwar lives. Haviva Reich was also a paratrooper; shed convinced an American pilot to blind-drop her in Slovakia, where she organized shelter for thousands of refugees, rescued Allied service members, and helped children escape. Chance of rain 100%. Against terrifying, oppressive odds, Renia lived to tell her story in a memoir she began writing at 19. Reich was a brunette divorcee in her 30s with a checked romantic history. As a 15 When tortured by the Gestapo to the brink of death, she remained defiant. And in part thanks to such acts of female heroism, armed Jewish resistance broke out in Auschwitz and other death camps. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. 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'. Director Steven Spielberg has optioned the book for a motion picture and signed Batalion to co-write the screenplay. Batalion was overjoyed to meet Renias adult children, who described their mothers zest for family, fashion and world travel. Batalion, who spent her mid-20s in London working as an art historian by day and stand-up comedian at night, is not a Holocaust scholar accustomed to reading graphic primary sources. The longest piece in Women in the Ghettos was a personal tale by Renia Kukielka, an 18-year-old who in 1943 smuggled weapons, cash, fake IDs, and people from Warsaw to the provincesshe became the central character in my book. What she uncovers, in excoriating and poignant detail, are the stories of the ghetto girls who paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and messages in their pigtails and fought in armed struggles. 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. 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. 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. Some of the young women Batalion showcases were partisans, literally fighting the Nazis deep within the forests of Eastern Europe. Renia Kukielka, an eighteen-year-old Jewish woman and an emerging warrior of the underground resistance movement, came up from the laundry room. I want people to know the names of these women who fought against all odds for our collective justice and liberty.. She channeled her torment into words. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. 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. During the war, she became known as Little Wanda with the Braids. (Courtesy of Ghetto Fighters House Museum Photo Archive). Still, Batalion applied for and received a grant to translate Freuen into English, which took about five years (It was a very complicated translation because, first of all, my Yiddish was rusty I dont use Yiddish that much in my daily life. Senesh, however, was a poetyoung, beautiful, and from a wealthy family. I wanted to know how they reconstructed their lives after going through everything they did. "No,"she says. Left to right: Vitka Kempner, Ruzka Korczak, and Zelda Treger. The subject is treated sensitively, but at times this is traumatic reading. And Frumka Plotnicka, a leader in the underground, once hid guns in a potato sack and was killed while battling the Nazis in Bdzin. Renia Kukielka was, typically, neither an idealist nor a revolutionary but a savvy, middle-class girl who happened to find herself in a sudden and unrelenting nightmare. Courtesy of Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem. Her desire to pay tribute to as many as possible is understandable, but a simpler narrative with fewer subjects might have been even more powerful. This is a visible source of pleasure to Batalion, but she remains humble in her conversation with DW. In Poland, Renia Kukielka took on the role of a courier girl, an underground operative traveling clandestinely from one Jewish ghetto to another. Such cruelty is the constant theme of Batalions book, describing how after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, the Nazis began to round up Jews for the concentration camps by emptying the ghettos. She eventually escaped to Slovakia and then to Palestine, where she lived to be almost 90. Even some of the camps that I visited, theyre very human in size in my head they loomed so large. Why is Jeremy Hunt pretending he can control inflation? The Gestapo headquarters [in Warsaw] is a four-story building, its so regular which is equally troubling, in a way.. "I feel grateful to Reniafor leaving such detailed accounts that enabled me to tell the story. When the Nazis invaded their hometown of Bdzin in 1939, the Kukielka family had fled to relatives in nearby Jdrzejw where they were later forced into a ghetto, one of the 400 established throughout the country. Is Putin about to gamble on a second mobilisation wave? 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