Women of Valor: Polish Jewish Resisters to the Third Reich

By Joanne D. Gilbert

Based on Gilbert's 1st-hand interviews, these remarkable true stories of the young Polish Jewish women who actively and successfully defied the Nazis provide a new perspective on women and the Holocaust. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adira Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732445109

Joanne D. Gilbert

"Before 2010, if anyone had asked me what I'd be doing in my life's 'Third Act,' I would have answered that I'd be a busy grandmother listening to jazz and tending a little garden.  The last thing I would have imagined was that I'd be traveling throughout the world to interview the indomitable Jewish and Gentile women, who dared to defy the Nazis during the Holocaust.  But that's exactly what happened!" Since the begining of Joanne's journey to find, document, and celebrate Woman of Valor, she has dedicated over a decade to researching and interviewing the elderly people who experienced the Nazi Occupation.  Her passion for these women has opened doors to understanding that she hadn't known existed.   In walking through those doors, Joanne has gained profound friendships.  These close relationships have allowed unique and sacred access to their hearts, souls, and precious memories.   As a public speaker, Holocaust Educator, Personal Historian, Ghost-Writer, and award-winning Author, Joanne gives voice to women whose voices had been unheard.  In providing that voice, while helping others remember and celebrate Women of Valor, Joanne has found her life's true purpose. Joanne's audiences are energized by her passion as she effectively conveys the often harrowing experiences of valiant women.  The experience brings awareness and inspiration to listeners young and old. When Joanne isn't researching, traveling or speaking, she enjoys listening to jazz, and spending time with her family.  She has written and co-authored multiple works, with more coming forth in the future. Joanne's lifework is threefold: 1) To refute inaccurate stereotypes about Jews and Gentiles during the Holocaust by uncovering and documenting the truth; 2) To educate the general public about women and the Holocaust; 3) Help others honor and celebrate the Jewish and Gentile women who successfully defied the Nazis.

Book preview

1

Hitler’s Third Reich Begins

"Believe me, National Socialism would not be worth anything if it were to be confined to Germany and did not secure the rule of the superior race over the whole world for at least one or two thousand years." ¹

Adolph Hitler speaking to Ott Strasser

On January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, he instituted a regime of historically unprecedented brutality known as the Third Reich (1933-1945). ² The two primary goals of the Third Reich were:

To eliminate the Jewish People.

To expand the borders of Germany (Lebensraum)

Hitler’s rapid progress toward achieving his first goal, was largely ignored by the rest of the world. It began in February 1933 with the Reichstag Fire. Nazi propaganda blamed the fire on the Communists, but many people believe that the Nazis actually caused the fire in order to gain more power. As a result of the fire, President Hindenburg issued the Decree for the Protection of the People and the Reich, which eliminated individual rights and due process of law. ³

It also gave the central government the authority to overrule state and local laws, and even to eliminate state and local governments. This decree was essential to establishing the Nazi dictatorship, which abolished previously-guaranteed basic human rights. Germany quickly became a police state, giving law-enforcement power to its elite guard, the Schutzstaffel (SS). In March 1933, the establishment of the first concentration camp at Dachau, was quickly followed by the establishment of the Enabling Law, wherein the German parliament (Reichstag) ceded its legislative power to Hitler's cabinet. Then, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was implemented in April 1933. This law prevented Jews from holding government jobs.

Soon, additional laws restricted, and ultimately banned, Jewish students from German schools and universities, as well as in the medical and legal professions. In May 1933, approximately 25,000 un-German books were burned in Berlin’s Opera Square by frenzied students, thereby ushering in an era of cultural censorship and unopposed Nazi propaganda. On July 14, 1933, all political parties other than the Nazi Party were prohibited.

In October 1935, Germany left the League of Nations, and denounced the Versailles Treaty. ⁴ Also in 1935, the Nuremberg Laws first established specific criteria for who would be categorized as Jews, and subsequently excluded them from German citizenship. Jewish property and businesses were soon taken over by Germans, in a process called Aryanization. According to USHMM, over 400 anti-Jewish laws were enacted between 1933 and 1939. ⁵ The purpose of these laws was to dehumanize, and ultimately destroy, the Jewish people of Germany.

In May 1939, the preventable tragedy of the passengers aboard the SS St. Louis confirmed Hitler’s belief that he could do whatever he wanted with the Jews—without interference from other governments. The German transatlantic liner left Hamburg on May 13, Germany, en route to Havana, Cuba, carrying 937 passengers, most of whom were Jews fleeing the Nazis. When Cuba refused to allow all but 28 passengers to disembark, the ship then sailed to Miami, Florida, where it was also refused entry. In June, because the ship was running out of food, it was forced to return to Europe. Passengers went to Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Of the original passengers, approximately 250 died in the Holocaust.

This humanitarian crisis had been no secret. Governments, movie-theater newsreels, radio networks, and newspapers all over the world carried the story. The refusal of the United States to take in these Jewish refugees, and the in-action of the rest of the world, signaled to Hitler that no one wanted the Jews. He was free to proceed with his plan to exterminate them. The official decision to annihilate the Jews of Europe was made in January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.

Hitler’s progress in achieving his second goal—the expansion of Germany’s borders—was also largely ignored by the world outside of Europe. In March 1936, he violated the demilitarization required by the Versailles Treaty, and sent troops to occupy the Rhineland. Since this region in western Germany provided a gateway to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, the reappearance of German troops was hardly a secret. Hitler’s next step was the Anschluss (union) between Germany and Austria in March 1938. Then, in October 1938, the Nazis annexed the Sudetenland, a section of the newly formed (1918) country of Czechoslovakia. Much of this territory had been taken from Germany by the Versailles Treaty, and had a large German-speaking population. In March 1939, Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, and as with Austria, implemented brutal anti-Jewish laws.

Further expansion of Germany’s borders came on August 23, 1939, with the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. This Agreement divided Poland between Germany and the USSR, thereby enabling Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. When Germany no longer needed Soviet cooperation, it ended the pact, attacking the Soviet-controlled regions of Eastern Poland (Operation Barbarossa) on June 22, 1941.

On November 9-10, 1938, a wave of anti-Jewish violence, known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, swept across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. The windows of Jewish homes, businesses, schools, and synagogues were shattered, and Jewish-owned buildings were plundered and set on fire. Jews were brutalized, arrested and killed, or sent to concentration camps. By failing to take action against the Nazi horror of Kristallnacht, the Western governments strengthened Germany’s confidence in achieving its goals.

Still recovering from World War I, and the Depression, most of the Western world ascribed to the policy of Isolationism—avoiding involvement in the problems of other countries. They had hoped that by ignoring Hitler, they would be able to avoid participating in yet another European war. On September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland, however, since France, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain were allies of Poland, they had no choice but to respond. The result was the eruption of World War II. For the next six years (with the US joining its allies on December 1, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), until its surrender on May 7, 1945, Germany’s unparalleled reign of terror throughout Europe would relentlessly pursue Hitler’s goals.

Ultimately, cities would be flattened, millions of people would be imprisoned, and over 11 million people, including 6 million Jews, would be exterminated in Hitler’s failed quest for more living space for Germans and a Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

¹Konrad Heiden, A History of National Socialism: Responding to Fascism Vol 2 (New York: Routledge, 2010) 127.

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²Hitler planned for his Third Reich to last 1000 years. The Second German Reich lasted from about 1871 until 1918, and the First Reich was said to have lasted from 962 to 1806.

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³USHMM. Timeline of Events 1933-1938. www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/reichstag-fire-decree. Accessed on May 17, 2018.

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⁴The Versailles Treaty, signed in 1919, at the end of WWI, required Germany to accept responsibility and punishment for the war, give up territory, pay huge financial reparations, and drastically reduce its military.

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⁵United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Anti-Jewish Legislation in Pre-War Germany. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005681. Accessed on May 16, 2018.

2

Germany Occupies Poland

"I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth." ⁶

Adolph Hitler speaking to his Wehrmacht commanders ~August 22 1939

Despite many clear indications of what was coming, most of the world seemed to be stunned on September 1, 1939, when Hitler’s Nazi Germany attacked and invaded Poland. Hitler had created a false narrative about Poland’s supposed abuses of Germans, in order to justify this assault and subsequent invasion. Employing its infamous Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, this unprovoked attack quickly defeated the Poles, and launched World War II.

This was particularly shocking because dynamic and democratic Germany was at that time respected as one of the most highly cultured nations in the world. Despite Hitler’s actions both against the Jews, and in expanding Germany’s borders, few people could imagine that this sophisticated republic—the birthplace of world-renowned scientists, artists, composers, writers, and philosophers—would also be the birthplace and control-center of a monstrous Third Reich. (See Appendix B for a list of some illustrious pre-WWII Germans.)

Tragically, the international inability to even imagine the horrors of the approaching Nazi Holocaust was one of the very reasons that it was able to happen. How could anyone prepare for the unimaginable? Some people could not believe it while it was taking place. And even today, there are those who deny it ever happened. Particularly tragic is the fact that this horror could have been prevented, or at least substantially diminished, if other governments, such as Great Britain and the United States—each of which had known early on what the Nazis were doing—had chosen to fight them sooner.

As irrational and horrifying as Germany’s invasion of Poland was to others, it was perceived as very rational and even glorious by the Nazis. One reason for this was Germany’s historically accepted philosophy of Lebensraum (life room or living space). This notion, which had existed long before Hitler came to power, asserted that Germany had the indisputable right to expand its territory, whenever and however necessary, in order to support the needs of its growing population. It also promoted the right of the superior Aryan ⁷ German people to displace, and even eliminate, inferior races. This acceptability of purging undesirables in order to protect superior German blood from contamination by inferior races, would soon help justify Hitler’s campaign to eliminate the Jews of Europe.

Hitler’s sense of entitlement was further reinforced by what Germans considered to be the excessively punitive terms of the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Hitler believed that the Jews were responsible for the unfair, anti-German, elements of this treaty. Many Germans were outraged at being required to pay massive reparations to the victorious Allies. Germans were also infuriated that the requirement to disarm their military left them vulnerable to attackers. And they were especially upset at being forced to forfeit what they considered German land to Poland. When this anger combined with technological advances of the time, a perfect storm was created that would have devastating consequences.

Particularly effective was Hitler’s use of the newly emerging modern mass media, including radio, mobile electronic loud-speakers, and motion pictures to spread the propaganda that controlled and manipulated the masses. At his huge rallies, special sound and lighting effects were used to flood the audiences’ senses. Other technological advantages that benefitted Hitler were related to transportation. He made very effective use of his airplane to commute quickly to various meetings and events, thereby enabling him to speak to more audiences. Particularly devastating was Hitler’s use of Europe’s efficient train system in deporting millions of innocent people to ghettos, labor, concentration camps, and extermination camps. ⁸

The result of this lethal combination was the most horrific government-sanctioned genocide in modern history. It is a tribute to the strength of the human mind, body, and spirit that so many Polish Jews and Gentiles, possessing few resources, and facing impossible odds, refused to passively accept what seemed to be the inevitable victory of the Third Reich.

Now, over 70 years later, as the last Nazi resisters are losing their battle with time, it is important to learn as much as we can from them directly. By trying to put ourselves in their shoes and learn from their experiences, we can assess our own capacity to recognize and defy oppression. Imagine, if you can, that your own community has suddenly been invaded by an all-powerful and evil enemy that is determined enslave or destroy you, and everyone you know and love.

Would you accept your fate?

Would you risk your life to defy an all-powerful enemy?

Would you collaborate with the enemy in order to save yourself or your loved ones?

Would you help terrified, helpless strangers?

These were some of the challenges that confronted thousands of Polish Jewish and Gentile women when their country was invaded, and then occupied by Nazi Germany.

The initial concerns for Jewish and Gentile Polish women included the loss of their men, income, homes and belongings. They had to deal with hunger, and crowded, filthy living conditions, as well as disease, and constant terror of Nazi violence. These physical, psychological, and emotional issues took precedence over any ideas for defiance. Women who had typically been trained to be mothers, housewives, and proprietors of small family businesses had not been prepared to become female fighters.

Women in Nazi-occupied Poland suddenly had to focus on surviving a sudden, deadly, enemy invasion and occupation. Without notice, their focus had to shift from their usual domestic and work activities, to surviving and protecting their families against a seemingly endless and unfathomable horror. Before the German invasion, they’d been living normal lives with normal activities, duties, challenges, hopes, and dreams. On September 1, 1939, however, every semblance of normal life for Polish Jewish and Gentile women ceased to exist.

It is not widely known that Hitler’s first targets in Poland were Gentile professional, political and military leaders. Once the independent thinkers and activists were removed, it would be easier to force the rest of the population to cooperate in making Poland Judenfrei—cleansed of Jews—and therefore suitable for German habitation. Once this was accomplished, there would be no further use for the Poles. In fact, in a speech the week before Germany invaded Poland, Hitler commanded his forces to show the utmost cruelty toward the Poles, to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language, so that the land would be clean enough for Germans to inhabit. ⁹

Under Nazi control, able-bodied Polish Gentile men were sent to labor camps throughout Poland and Germany. Jewish men were either sent to work camps, concentration camps, or shot. Cities and towns became death-traps inhabited mostly by women and children. Food, medicine, and basic supplies were rationed so severely that starvation, disease and crime were rampant.

As bad as life became for the Poles in general, life for Polish Jews became even worse. Jewish businesses, bank accounts, homes, and belongings were confiscated. Jews were terrorized, beaten, forced into slave labor, taken to squalid, prison-like ghettos, ¹⁰ where deadly aktions ¹¹ were routine. Some Jews, taking only the clothes on their backs, fled to the forests, where they learned how to survive either on their own, or in primitive family camps. Still others became partisans and learned how to fight. Many learned how to kill.

And when the Jewish community was in danger, women took on life-threatening responsibilities, not only for saving themselves, but also for saving their loved-ones and neighbors. In many cases, they even helped strangers who were in desperate need. Since the people of an enemy-occupied country live under overwhelmingly punitive tyranny, it was all but impossible for anyone to rebel in any way, but this did not stop women from rebelling in many creative ways.

Even the most minor anti-Nazi resistance in Poland was considered to be terrorism by the Nazis, and was dealt with accordingly: execution. Because of the Nazi policy of collective responsibility, sometimes entire families were executed when one member was even suspected of resistance activities. Despite the danger, however, acts of resistance were numerous and varied. (See Appendix C for examples of resistance.)

For some, the greatest resistance action of all was somehow managing to survive the Nazi horror. Since the Nazis’ main objective was to exterminate the Jews, almost any normal human activity could have been, and all too often was, considered grounds for execution. In fact, the actual condition of being alive could be considered by some to be an act of defiance. Women’s work, so common and continuous in European culture, was all but invisible. This by no means meant, however, that women would not be active participants in anti-Nazi resistance. On the contrary, the very invisibility that camouflaged their strength would prove to be their best asset.

⁶"Casus belli means a reason for going to war. Hitler’s propaganda campaign to make Poland look like a warmonger included creating false justifications for attacking Poland in self-defense. One of these stage events, the Gleiwitz Incident," occurred on August 31, 1939. Germans dressed in Polish uniforms forcibly took over the Gleiwitz radio station, and broadcast an anti-German message indicating that the Poles were involved in anti-German sabotage. For more information, go to: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007822

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⁷Originally, the term, Aryans, referred to a people who invaded northern India in the 2nd millennium BC. Hitler used the word, Aryan, to describe his Nordic, blond, blue-eyed ideal of a German Master Race. He believed that the Germans were ubermenschen, or superior people. Those who Hitler designated as inferior were known as untermenschen, lower people, or sub-humans. Jews were considered to be non-humans.

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⁸USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia, German Railways and the Holocaust.www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005445. Accessed May 18, 2018.

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⁹Richard C. Lukas, Editor, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1989), 2.

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¹⁰Ghettos existed as far back as the early 1500s in Venice, Italy. This was the area of the city where Jews were forced to live. Other major European cities created Jewish ghettos in the 1600s and 1700s. During the Third Reich, Jews were forced out of their homes into ghettos which were over-crowded, squalid, disease-ridden, virtual prisons, where they were brutalized and starved before being killed or deported to extermination camps.

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¹¹Aktions (Aktionen) were violent raids against Jewish people, homes and businesses.

3

Poland and the Jewish People

Before the Holocaust, Jews were the largest minority in Poland. In Poland’s major cities, Jews and Poles spoke each other’s languages and interacted in markets and on the streets . . . That did not mean that antisemitism did not impact the lives of Polish Jews, but Jews were part of Poland, and Polish culture was, in part, Jewish.

Facing History and Ourselves

How did post-World War I Poland—a country in which Jews had historically been more welcome than in any other European country—also become the place where its Jewish population would be all but eliminated? What was it about Poland and its Jewish people that made this land so central to Hitler’s Final Solution?

The history of the Jewish people in Poland is long and complex, stretching back almost 1,000 years. Throughout this time, attitudes and behaviors toward Jews varied, but were generally divided along class lines. The predominantly Catholic peasant population, which was profoundly influenced by the anti-Jewish teachings of the Church, did not generally welcome Jews. The wealthy and powerful nobles, however, saw the need for Jewish merchants, doctors, and skilled tradesmen to function as a middle-class—from which they would benefit. They often welcomed Jews—albeit with restrictions—to their estates and nearby villages.

The earliest Jews in Poland were probably traders who travelled throughout Europe and Asia. Because it was centrally located, Poland was a convenient place for these traders to stop and establish their own homes. While the Kingdom of Poland, under King Bolesław I the Brave, was officially founded in 1025 CE, Poland had status as a state as far back as 966 CE, under its ruler, Mieszko I. And apparently, at least one Jewish person spent some time there: Abraham ben Jacob, who traveled from Eastern Europe to Rome and back, wrote about Poland and Mieszko I in his journal. ¹²

Throughout the ensuing centuries, Poland was periodically conquered, victimized, and exploited by invaders. Often partitioned and parceled off, Poland sometimes wasn’t even a country, and was bounced back and forth between competing governments. During this time, there was always a Jewish population whose living conditions fluctuated depending upon the whims of the various rulers.

Between 1095 and 1098, a huge wave of European Jews, who were fleeing the widespread brutality of the First Crusade ¹³, found refuge in Poland. At that time, the Jews were welcomed because their many commercial, managerial, mercantile, legal, medical, and financial skills provided a much-needed link between the nobility and the peasants. This relatively positive relationship between Polish Jews and Gentiles was tested in the mid-1300s, however, when another massive wave of European Jews came to Poland because they were being blamed for the murderous Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague. ¹⁴ Estimates of the plague’s death toll vary widely, but generally fall between 75 million and 200 million people.

Ignorant of basic sanitary practices and the biological reasons for the plague, terrified non-Jewish Europeans looked for a scapegoat. When it appeared that fewer Jews were dying of the disease, many Gentiles decided that the plague must be part of a Jewish plot to eliminate Christians. The widespread belief that the only way to remove the plague was to remove the Jews, resulted in the massacres of thousands of Jews throughout Europe. Ironically, it was the more sanitary lifestyle mandated by Jewish law that helped Jews avoid the filth, fleas, and rats that carried the disease. And paradoxically, Poland, with its large population of Jews, was largely spared from the plague. Despite Poland’s seeming immunity to the disease, however, Jews there were still considered responsible, and many became victims of deadly anti-Jewish riots known as pogroms. ¹⁵

By the 1500s, Polish Jews were once again somewhat welcome in Poland. There was, however, a conspicuous difference between the comparatively safe living conditions of urban, more assimilated, middle-class Jews, and those of impoverished, more rural, shtetl ¹⁶ Jews, who continued to be subjected to antisemitic conditions and violence. Depending upon the policies of its various rulers, the degree of antisemitism in Poland continued to vary, although conditions for most Jews deteriorated.

In 1772, Poland was occupied and partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria. And in the 1790s, Russia’s Catherine the Great decided to create the "Pale of Settlement," ¹⁷ which was the massive, forced relocation of Russia’s Jews to its western territories. Much of this region had formerly been part of Poland. The great influx of Jews into these already economically depressed areas was a source of hostility against the newcomers, most of whom were impoverished.

In the midst of this very precarious situation, these newly-arrived Jews settled in shtetls, where they conducted traditional Jewish lives, spoke Yiddish, and kept to themselves. Living within this frequently hostile Catholic environment, Jews hoped that, if we don’t bother them, maybe they won’t bother us. Tragically, their hopes were too often futile, and the shtetls were regularly subjected to savage, merciless pogroms.

By the end of World War I, the official designation of the area known as the Pale ended. ¹⁸ Some of its land, and many of its Jews, became part of the newly independent country of Poland. Many of the Polish Gentiles in the region were very unhappy about this new arrangement. They feared their powerful and aggressive Soviet Communist neighbors, and believed—incorrectly—that there was an anti-Christian and anti-Polish conspiracy between Communists and Jews. These issues gave rise once again to ruthless antisemitism in Poland. The protections of Jews and other minorities that had been mandated by the Versailles