Uncovering the Stories of the Jewish Women Resistance Fighters in Nazi-Occupied Poland

Lit Hub
April 6, 2021

The British Library reading room smelled like old pages. I stared at the stack of women’s history books I had ordered—not too many, I reassured myself, not too overwhelming. The one on the bottom was the most unusual: hard-backed and bound in a worn, blue fabric, with yellowing, deckled edges. I opened it first and found virtually two hundred sheets of tiny script—in Yiddish. It was a language I knew but hadn’t used in more than fifteen years. I nearly returned it to the stacks unread. But some urge pushed me to read on, so, I glanced at a few pages. And then a few more. I’d expected to find dull, hagiographic mourning and vague, Talmudic discussions of female strength and valor. But instead—women, sabotage, rifles, disguise, dynamite. I’d discovered a thriller.

Could this be true?

I was stunned.

[CONTINUED…]