# data[].attributes.body
Zivia Lubetkin helped a group of resistors escape the ghetto through sewer canals, where they waited for 2 days for a rescue truck. She also helped in the rescue of more than 10,000 Jews. She and her comrades went into hiding after 1944 in this Warsaw house.

# data[].attributes.body
Zivia Lubetkin escaped Germany-occupied Poland but decided to later return out of a sense of duty. She was a leader in the youth movement before the war so it was ver easy for her to become a natural leader in the Warsaw Uprising.

# data[].attributes.body
Of the 750 young Jews that participated in the Warsaw Uprising, about 200 of them were women.
They got very creative too, they would put weapons into marmalade jars, sacks of potatoes, teddy bears, fashionable handbags, or just tape them to their torso.

# data[].attributes.body
Women, men, and children all participated in the Warsaw uprising and all played a big part in it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Śródmieście to Mokotów district Sewer guides

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/women-and-children-1944-warsaw-uprising
https://polin.pl/en/women-warsaw-ghetto-uprising
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/allied-responses-warsaw-uprising-1944#:~:text=The%20Outcome%20of%20the%20Warsaw%20Uprising&text=The%20German%20forces%20lost%20an,labor%20camp%20south%20of%20Warsaw.
http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2014/09/women-of-warsaw-uprising-by-clare-mulley.html
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-19-2021-1.5992940/how-jewish-women-fought-back-against-the-nazis-during-a-1943-uprising-in-poland-1.5993207

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Read Story Transcript
When Montreal-born author Judy Batalion first learned about a group of Jewish women in Poland who rebelled against the Nazis during the Second World War, it was by total chance.

The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Batalion had been researching intergenerational trauma at the British Library in London, and spotted an unusual-looking book written in Yiddish - a language she happened to understand.

"I started reading through this, sort of just out of curiosity," Batalion told Matt Galloway. "And what I found stunned me."

Inside were nearly 200 pages of information about dozens of Jewish women who fought the Germans from inside ghettos - separate districts that German occupation authorities created during the Holocaust to isolate Jews from non-Jewish communities. The book had been published in 1946 to tell American Jews what Jewish women accomplished during the resistance, and was filled with chapter titles like Weapons, Ammunition, and Partisan Combat.

"It was simply nothing like any Holocaust narrative that I'd ever heard," Batalion said.

Now she's written about the often-forgotten stories of those women in her new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos.

Monday marked the 78th anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews in the ghetto waged a 27-day revolt against the Nazis who had come to transport them to death camps.

While some people survived, the Germans ultimately burned the ghetto to the ground, killing thousands and sending others to concentration or death camps outside the city.

But the destruction of the ghetto didn't come without a fight.

Primarily young Jews between the ages of 16 and 25 had come together to form underground militias. Many of them had been part of youth movements before the war as well, Batalion said.

Of the approximately 750 young Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, nearly 200 were women, she said. They often worked as "couriers," smuggling explosives, ammunition, and other weapons into the ghetto.

Batalion said she found stories of women "putting weapons into marmalade jars, sacks of potatoes, teddy bears, fashionable handbags that they would often purchase or borrow, or just taping them to their torsos."

Women of the resistance

Zivia Lubetkin was one of those women in the resistance movement.

Although she escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland in 1939, she later smuggled herself back into Warsaw out of a sense of responsibility to her people, Batalion said.

Having been a leader in youth movements before the war, Lubetkin became a kind of natural leader in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Among many feats, she helped a group of resistance fighters escape the ghetto through sewer canals, where they waited two days for a rescue truck, Battalion said.

After the ghetto was razed, Lubetkin went into hiding. During that time, she helped orchestrate the rescue of more than 10,000 Jews, Batalion said.

Another woman named Masha Futermilch fought the Nazis using a Jewish guerilla strategy, flinging explosives at her enemies from the rooftops of buildings.

In one account, Futermilch described her fingers shaking and barely being able to light a match to set off her explosives, because she was so nervous and excited, Battalion said.

Her attack took the Germans by surprise.

"What she hears are the Nazis yelling ... 'A woman is fighting?'" said the author. "That's what shocked them."

One of the most notorious fighters was Niuta Teitelbaum, a young woman in her 20s.

She was nicknamed "Little Wanda with the Braids" because she was known to braid her hair, dress up as a Polish peasant girl, and enter homes and offices in disguise to kill Nazis.

Teitelbaum also trained other women in the Warsaw Ghetto on how to use weapons, in preparation for the uprising, Batalion said.

"She was on every Gestapo most-wanted list," said the author.

Teitelbaum was caught and killed in 1943.

Legacy of resilience

In her book, Battalion writes that she spent a lot of time trying to get as far away from the Holocaust as possible.

She told Galloway this was because she believed the trauma her grandparents experienced during the Holocaust was passed through her family. Batalion said she became an anxious person herself, and that other relatives have experienced mental health issues.

However, researching the experiences of women resistance fighters has also made her think about the strength that has been passed through generations, and helped her see the Holocaust in a different way, she said.

"I now see it as a story of constant resistance, and resilience, and struggle, and fight," Batalion said.

"And I truly feel proud to come from this legacy."
Written by Kirsten Fenn. Produced by Howard Goldenthal. Hear full episodes of The Current on , our free audio streaming service.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Jewish women fought back against the Nazis during a 1943 uprising in Poland | CBC Radio

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Monday marked 78 years since the start of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews waged a 27-day revolt against the Nazis. Montreal-born author Judy Batalion writes about the often-forgotten stories of Jewish women who fought in the uprising in her new book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos.

# data[].attributes.body
Many of the women who volunteered and served as couriers and nurses were not properly trained and become exhausted and discouraged after the first week of the resistance.

# data[].attributes.body
Polish Home Army white and red armband

# data[].attributes.headline
Powstanie Warszawskie (Warsaw Uprising) Trailer Retelling The Story of The Uprising

# data[].attributes.subject
Powstanie Warszawskie (Warsaw Uprising) Trailer Retelling The Story of The Uprising

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"Warsaw Uprising", the film - OFFICIAL TRAILER

# data[].attributes.body
Gravestone of a Female resistance fighter located a Powąnski Cemetery, Warsaw

# data[].attributes.body
"We were children of the occupation - we wanted to be free and it was for this freedom that we fought so fiercely,"                                                        - Wanda Traczyk-Stawska

"You have to understand how many people had already been killed, what the view was ahead of us... the reality of the situation was that you can’t give up when there is no good alternative for yourself or for others… We just simply had to fight,"
- Hanna Koscia

# data[].attributes.body
A painting in the courtyard behind the Warsaw Uprising Museum titled "We also fought."

# data[].attributes.body
Around 18,000 Polish insurgents and 200,000 civilians died between the 63 day Warsaw Uprising. The uprising failed because of the lack of support from the Soviets, British, and the United States. The resistance could have been one of the causes of the Cold War, setting up distrust between Germany and the Allies.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Tactical RPG Warsaw Uprising Video Game by The Polish Studio Pixelated Milk on Steam

# data[].attributes.subject
A Tactical RPG Warsaw Uprising Video Game by The Polish Studio Pixelated Milk on Steam

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
WARSAW Gameplay Walkthrough - NO Commentary - Part 1

# data[].attributes.body
The women in the Warsaw uprising demonstrated determination and courage in the face of brutality from the Nazis. Some acted as messengers or nurses, or helped smuggle weapons. They had a variety of important roles ranging from the traditional female society roles like cleaning and cooking, to serving as couriers and liaison offices. They also fought in the resistance, one out of seven combatants were women. Even though the resistance ultimately failed, women were definitely far from just being mothers and wives. They helped resistors and were resistors themselves, they provided social infrastructure, helped aid the wounded, and comforted many of the traumatized fighters.

# data[].attributes.body
Frumka Plotnicka organized self-defense and resistance. She made contacts with underground organisation on the Aryan side and smuggled weapons into the ghetto.

# data[].attributes.body
Vladka Meed was a member of the ZOB, activist of the Jewish Coordination Committee, and smuggled weapons, explosives, and petrol for the production of Molotov cocktails. She also helped deliver money, clothes, and information to the surviving insurgents from the Warsaw ghetto who had gone into hiding.

# data[].attributes.body
Hanna Koscia was attached to the Home Army aid team at 16, helping in nursing and fetching supplies and the wounded, sometimes while under fire. Her life was once saved when a wounded female resistor she was saving took the brunt of the fire at them and died, she never forgot this and was very thankful.

# data[].attributes.body
The Warsaw Uprising was the act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland against the Nazi German's efforts to transport them to death camps. It lasted from August 1st to October 2nd, 1944. The goals of the uprising were to liberate Poland, legitimize the exiled Polish government, and present Poland as a country on equal footing with the USSR before a Soviet-back regime could happen.